Everything Derozan

[Chr1s1anL]

Demar's opportunity is a factor in allowing him to score 27 PPG. If our entire offence wasn't build around him, he wouldn't score and would add value in other areas. If Middleton had the offence built around him, he would likely score in volume, but would also add value as a versatile defender.

This is the biggest misconception right now. That anyone can put up big numbers if given the usage. It just simply isn't true. If the Bucks thought Middleton could put 25+ a night don't you think they would increase his usage? All Giannis needed was a second consistent scorer to beat the raps this year. Middleton was busy getting shut down by Norm.

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[Chr1s1anL]

Not just 27ppg. 27ppg with around league average efficiency at a TS% of 55%. A 2:1 AST%/TO% rate while operating with nearly 35% usage and a 113 oRTG. It is absolutely ridiculous that he is suggesting that most teams could just pick a player, hand them that responsibility and they'd produce those results.

Edit: Put the stats to the side for a second, and I'm genuinely starting to wonder if people are seeing the same things I am when I'm watching DeRozan. Say what you will about him not playing the game in a textbook "efficient" way, but LOOK at some of the shit that dude is doing on the court. His ability to finish extremely high difficulty shots in traffic, the footwork to basically maneuver himself out of any situation and get a clean look off, the cleverness he has to constantly bait defenders out of position or into fouls and among the best combination of body control and pure athleticism in the league.

I'm really not sure what people are seeing, but that is not something that everybody in the league just has. We are talking about top of the line, high-end skill when it comes to DeMar's offensive game. Even Kevin Durant was in awe of the guy's footwork, and KD is probably going to go down as one of the top 5 best scorers in the history of the game.

I'm sure most people here played ball at least at some level. This guy does stuff that you'd just be messing around trying to do before practice or something and failing, at high speed against NBA level athletes and competition. I think there's just generally an under-appreciation for the actual ability he has because he lacks in the areas that people want wings to be good at nowadays (3PT shooting and defense).

This isn't even from last year where he added even more stuff to his arsenal, but the year before. Please tell me again how you can just pluck guys off teams, hand them 20 shots a game and they start doing this kind of stuff in games:

I don't like blowing smoke up the guy like this, because I genuinely do have a big problem with the negatives that come with him, but I don't like it when people act like he's JUST a product of being handed a bunch of shots. That's thousands of hours of honing your craft, not anybody in the league can do that.

Very well said. People really don't understand how hard it is to score the way Deebo does.

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[GLF]

Not just 27ppg. 27ppg with around league average efficiency at a TS% of 55%. A 2:1 AST%/TO% rate while operating with nearly 35% usage and a 113 oRTG. It is absolutely ridiculous that he is suggesting that most teams could just pick a player, hand them that responsibility and they'd produce those results.

Edit: Put the stats to the side for a second, and I'm genuinely starting to wonder if people are seeing the same things I am when I'm watching DeRozan. Say what you will about him not playing the game in a textbook "efficient" way, but LOOK at some of the shit that dude is doing on the court. His ability to finish extremely high difficulty shots in traffic, the footwork to basically maneuver himself out of any situation and get a clean look off, the cleverness he has to constantly bait defenders out of position or into fouls and among the best combination of body control and pure athleticism in the league.

I'm really not sure what people are seeing, but that is not something that everybody in the league just has. We are talking about top of the line, high-end skill when it comes to DeMar's offensive game. Even Kevin Durant was in awe of the guy's footwork, and KD is probably going to go down as one of the top 5 best scorers in the history of the game.

I'm sure most people here played ball at least at some level. This guy does stuff that you'd just be messing around trying to do before practice or something and failing, at high speed against NBA level athletes and competition. I think there's just generally an under-appreciation for the actual ability he has because he lacks in the areas that people want wings to be good at nowadays (3PT shooting and defense).

This isn't even from last year where he added even more stuff to his arsenal, but the year before. Please tell me again how you can just pluck guys off teams, hand them 20 shots a game and they start doing this kind of stuff in games:

I don't like blowing smoke up the guy like this, because I genuinely do have a big problem with the negatives that come with him, but I don't like it when people act like he's JUST a product of being handed a bunch of shots. That's thousands of hours of honing your craft, not anybody in the league can do that.

This I definitely agree with. I think people feel if you agree with this it means you're okay with some of his flaws. No, we recognize he doesn't play D and can't shoot the 3 (and needs to improve both or at least one), but let's not take away from how good of an offensive player he is because of it. It's almost more impressive the numbers he's able to put up WITHOUT a 3 in todays NBA. If he were highly inefficient like he used to be then that would be a different story, but he's improved his efficiency significantly. Now it's just time for him to figure it out in the playoffs and prove to us he can do it there too. You cannot give any old player his amount of usage and expect them to perform like Demar does. That's just idiotic to think and almost disrespectful to the hard work this man has put in to improve his craft. You also have to give him credit for how well he takes care of his body. The usage he has definitely takes a toil on the body, ESPECIALLY with how much he drives to the basket and gets hit in the lane. Trust and believe not everyone could take that punishment every night and continuously come back for more. But I'm with Dan H in the sense that I think him improving his passing and court vision is way more beneficial and important for him and this team than him getting a league average 3 point shot. But don't get me wrong, if he does improve his 3 I will be very happy.

[Axel]

This is the biggest misconception right now. That anyone can put up big numbers if given the usage. It just simply isn't true. If the Bucks thought Middleton could put 25+ a night don't you think they would increase his usage? All Giannis needed was a second consistent scorer to beat the raps this year. Middleton was busy getting shut down by Norm.

No misconception, you seem to be arguing against a point I never made (KeonClark or others putting words into my mouth, so to speak, doesn't count).

Demar's skillset allows him to be an effective scorer in a primary role. But his skillset doesn't allow him to play off of other players, so he basically has to be "the guy" to be an effective scorer, while maintaining a negative on defence and limited impact in other areas. That is an extremely un-versatile player. He has to be your primary scorer, but isn't good enough to really lead a championship team from that role.

Middleton doesn't need to put up 25 PPG to be a valuable player. Could he? I don't know, but he is a skilled scorer, so if he were given a ton of shots (like Demar is) then he would score (the exact rate and efficiency can't really be predicted). But in addition to his scoring skills, he is a great defender and has the size and speed to guard multiple positions. A skilled versatile player who produces at both ends of the court - a guy who can play a complete game; to me, that is a better basketball player than a guy who is a better scorer but can't defend any position. You need to try and separate the skills from the production numbers. Demar is the more productive scorer and his role makes him probably more impactful, but that doesn't necessarily mean he is the better player.

It's funny how people try to dismiss this as a result of analytics love for 3+D players in this era, but the bigger component, to me at least, is the defence; which isn't a new analytics thing. Players with Demar's role in the era before all the analytics were still expected to be good defenders.

Please tell me again how you can just pluck guys off teams, hand them 20 shots a game and they start doing this kind of stuff in games:

Nice post but a lot of wasted effort to disprove something that wasn't said.

[Axel]

For those who haven't actually read the rankings in full details, here is the SI piece about the rankings themselves. I think the bolded paragraph especially speaks to a Demar DeRozan.
~~
The impulse of comparison is encouraged by the very nature of sports. One team beats its opponent. One player dominates a matchup. One teammate overtakes another on the depth chart. Games and leagues are built on that engine of relativity, and the NBA is no exception.

It's in that spirit that we offer our list of the Top 100 NBA players of 2018—an endeavor to identify and order the best of the best for the 2017-18 season. The scope of our ranking is relatively simple (every player is evaluated for the coming season alone, independent of their team context), but there is nonetheless a daunting complication built into the exercise itself. Put simply: While we make a considered effort to somehow compare an incredible assortment and variety of talent, there's little grounds to suggest that basketball players can be assigned any kind of absolute value.

On the one hand, the decision to divorce players from their real-life team settings is essential in a project of this nature. No player ought be penalized for landing on the wrong team, just as no lesser contributor should be promoted merely for filling an ideal role. Players need to be evaluated individually to whatever extent such a thing is possible, and to that end the counterbalancing of team factors helps us inch closer to some measure of objective quality.

At the same time, basketball players are almost unavoidably subject to those contexts. There are certain luminaries for whom fit is a non-issue—an elite class of ultra-flexible superstars who would work in most every system and would mesh with most any roster. They are the extreme minority and run maybe three deep. The overwhelming majority, meanwhile, need specific factors in place to maximize their on-court value: a particular kind of usage, a certain magnitude of role, a customized set of responsibilities. Some players are inevitably more pliable than others when it comes to compromising on those needs, but that in itself creates problems for defining player value across the board. How does one accurately measure player worth when every individual's contribution is so deeply conditional?

Making that determination inevitably becomes a matter of taste, as we don't otherwise have the means to make sense of such disparate items. It's hard enough comparing vastly different players at different positions—say, Isaiah Thomas and Rudy Gobert—but another matter entirely given that both players have unique prerequisites to their effectiveness. If Gobert is positioned for a low-usage role where his chief priority is defense, his strengths can be accentuated while his weaknesses are disguised. If put on a team that doesn’t have enough firepower to compensate, Gobert’s limited offensive game and range might cramp his team’s scoring operations.

A different set of concerns are in play with Thomas, who needs helpful defenders, spot shooters and supporting playmakers to get the most out of his own game. When all of that is in place, Thomas can be a tremendous weapon. Without them, the driving lanes Thomas relies on dry up and more challenging defensive responsibilities tilt his game unfavorably.

Such factors define the range between a player's ceiling and floor, though without necessarily addressing the probability that either is actually met. How does one place DeAndre Jordan without knowing if he'll have a solid point guard to make use of his game-changing offensive potential? Or rank Ricky Rubio without understanding how likely he is to have the supporting scorers he so desperately needs? And in contrast, where does this line of thinking leave players like Gordon Hayward, who are not only skilled and productive but also malleable to a wide variety of roles?

Certain players are clearly more challenging to build around than others, and in some way that distinction has to be taken into account in a ranking like this one. There's just no clean, satisfying way to do so, and thus no perfect fashion to consider each player on his own merits. That doesn't diminish the value of these results or the process behind them. It's simply important to note that a player's worth shifts dramatically with his actual surroundings, and with that comes distortion to any and every comparative ranking of this kind.

[Chr1s1anL]

For those who haven't actually read the rankings in full details, here is the SI piece about the rankings themselves. I think the bolded paragraph especially speaks to a Demar DeRozan.
~~
The impulse of comparison is encouraged by the very nature of sports. One team beats its opponent. One player dominates a matchup. One teammate overtakes another on the depth chart. Games and leagues are built on that engine of relativity, and the NBA is no exception.

It's in that spirit that we offer our list of the Top 100 NBA players of 2018—an endeavor to identify and order the best of the best for the 2017-18 season. The scope of our ranking is relatively simple (every player is evaluated for the coming season alone, independent of their team context), but there is nonetheless a daunting complication built into the exercise itself. Put simply: While we make a considered effort to somehow compare an incredible assortment and variety of talent, there's little grounds to suggest that basketball players can be assigned any kind of absolute value.

On the one hand, the decision to divorce players from their real-life team settings is essential in a project of this nature. No player ought be penalized for landing on the wrong team, just as no lesser contributor should be promoted merely for filling an ideal role. Players need to be evaluated individually to whatever extent such a thing is possible, and to that end the counterbalancing of team factors helps us inch closer to some measure of objective quality.

At the same time, basketball players are almost unavoidably subject to those contexts. There are certain luminaries for whom fit is a non-issue—an elite class of ultra-flexible superstars who would work in most every system and would mesh with most any roster. They are the extreme minority and run maybe three deep. The overwhelming majority, meanwhile, need specific factors in place to maximize their on-court value: a particular kind of usage, a certain magnitude of role, a customized set of responsibilities. Some players are inevitably more pliable than others when it comes to compromising on those needs, but that in itself creates problems for defining player value across the board. How does one accurately measure player worth when every individual's contribution is so deeply conditional?

Making that determination inevitably becomes a matter of taste, as we don't otherwise have the means to make sense of such disparate items. It's hard enough comparing vastly different players at different positions—say, Isaiah Thomas and Rudy Gobert—but another matter entirely given that both players have unique prerequisites to their effectiveness. If Gobert is positioned for a low-usage role where his chief priority is defense, his strengths can be accentuated while his weaknesses are disguised. If put on a team that doesn’t have enough firepower to compensate, Gobert’s limited offensive game and range might cramp his team’s scoring operations.

A different set of concerns are in play with Thomas, who needs helpful defenders, spot shooters and supporting playmakers to get the most out of his own game. When all of that is in place, Thomas can be a tremendous weapon. Without them, the driving lanes Thomas relies on dry up and more challenging defensive responsibilities tilt his game unfavorably.

Such factors define the range between a player's ceiling and floor, though without necessarily addressing the probability that either is actually met. How does one place DeAndre Jordan without knowing if he'll have a solid point guard to make use of his game-changing offensive potential? Or rank Ricky Rubio without understanding how likely he is to have the supporting scorers he so desperately needs? And in contrast, where does this line of thinking leave players like Gordon Hayward, who are not only skilled and productive but also malleable to a wide variety of roles?

Certain players are clearly more challenging to build around than others, and in some way that distinction has to be taken into account in a ranking like this one. There's just no clean, satisfying way to do so, and thus no perfect fashion to consider each player on his own merits. That doesn't diminish the value of these results or the process behind them. It's simply important to note that a player's worth shifts dramatically with his actual surroundings, and with that comes distortion to any and every comparative ranking of this kind.

We know that Middleton would fit better on any team but, that's not the dicussion. It's about whose better. Talent trumps everything in this league and Deebo is more talented than Middleton. Guys like Middleton are not hard to find. Perennial All-stars/All-NBA players are more difficult to find. Middleton can not average 25+. He is not a good enough shot creator for that.

Also I don't buy this Deebo cant be complementary on champsionship team. It depends on whose on the roster.

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[Shaolin Fantastic]

DeRozan could easily be the #2 or #3 on a championship team giving you low 20s and like his usual 4-5 boards, 4-5 assists. If he was playing next to a top 5 player, this would be possible.

And before someone says that isn't good enough... well guess what, it's pretty fucking difficult to win the title without a top 5 player. The only teams that have done that really in the modern era are the 2004 Pistons and 2014 Spurs.

[Axel]

We know that Middleton would fit better on any team but, that's not the dicussion. It's about whose better. Talent trumps everything in this league and Deebo is more talented than Middleton. Guys like Middleton are not hard to find. Perennial All-stars/All-NBA players are more difficult to find. Middleton can not average 25+. He is not a good enough shot creator for that.

Also I don't buy this Deebo cant be complementary on champsionship team. It depends on whose on the roster.

That's not the discussion? This whole discussion is about the player rankings, and as the writers of the rankings said, it absolutely matters. "It's simply important to note that a player's worth shifts dramatically with his actual surroundings" - they couldn't have made it any more clear; FIT absolutely played a big part in the player rankings (at least from SI).

[Chr1s1anL]

That's not the discussion? This whole discussion is about the player rankings, and as the writers of the rankings said, it absolutely matters. "It's simply important to note that a player's worth shifts dramatically with his actual surroundings" - they couldn't have made it any more clear; FIT absolutely played a big part in the player rankings (at least from SI).

Than it should be called top 100 players who would fit on any team. Instead of being called top 100 players. No, GM or Coach would pick Middleton over Deebo.

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[Shaolin Fantastic]

Do coaches even gameplan for Middleton?

[Shaolin Fantastic]

Btw you also can't just "give" a player 20 shots a game. They have to CREATE those shots for the most part or have them created for them by another player. It's actually hard to even put up that many shots if you're not skilled enough to beat your man consistently.

[DanH]

One thing that ought to be considered when comparing high volume scorers to low-usage defenders: the two are related. We've seen time and time again, a phenomenal up and coming 3+D type player gets handed a bigger role on offence, and even if they excel in that role, the defence drops off. Significantly. We saw it happen to Butler in Chicago, heck, it happened to Norm in college and really impacted his draft stock.

So, for example, we can say all we like that Middleton, if given a high usage, may or may not score efficiently enough to merit that high usage, but would definitely still defend well; but that's not true. If given a high usage, he may or may not score efficiently, and he may or may not defend well.

Now, that doesn't fully excuse the horrid defence from DeMar, but definitely calls into question any assumptions about projecting another player's performance with a higher usage role (or even projecting DeMar's with a lower usage role).

[Shaolin Fantastic]

One thing that ought to be considered when comparing high volume scorers to low-usage defenders: the two are related. We've seen time and time again, a phenomenal up and coming 3+D type player gets handed a bigger role on offence, and even if they excel in that role, the defence drops off. Significantly. We saw it happen to Butler in Chicago, heck, it happened to Norm in college and really impacted his draft stock.

So, for example, we can say all we like that Middleton, if given a high usage, may or may not score efficiently enough to merit that high usage, but would definitely still defend well; but that's not true. If given a high usage, he may or may not score efficiently, and he may or may not defend well.

Now, that doesn't fully excuse the horrid defence from DeMar, but definitely calls into question any assumptions about projecting another player's performance with a higher usage role (or even projecting DeMar's with a lower usage role).

This is a great point. Even Kawhi was affected by this last year. Spurs were 8 points better defensively with him off the floor.

[KHD]

This is a great point. Even Kawhi was affected by this last year. Spurs were 8 points better defensively with him off the floor.

isn't this mostly a result of the fact that the spurs bench is 1) much better defensively than most other teams' benches are offensively, and 2) better defensively than the other 4 spurs starters?

I also recall reading that teams shot about 5+% worse from 3pt when Kawhi was on the bench (similar number of attempts). IIRC, opponent 3pt% is more or less random (i.e. defenses don't really seem to impact 3pt%, only 3pt attempt rates), so this might be a bit of an anomaly.

[DanH]

isn't this mostly a result of the fact that the spurs bench is 1) much better defensively than most other teams' benches are offensively, and 2) better defensively than the other 4 spurs starters?

I also recall reading that teams shot about 5+% worse from 3pt when Kawhi was on the bench (similar number of attempts). IIRC, opponent 3pt% is more or less random (i.e. defenses don't really seem to impact 3pt%, only 3pt attempt rates), so this might be a bit of an anomaly.

Yeah, the on-off splits are an anomaly, to some degree, but Kawhi's DRPM did dip from about +4 to about +1 this year, as his usage jumped from 25% to 31%. Great defenders can still have a positive impact... but it will often be much reduced with a higher offensive workload.