Everything Precious Achiuwa

[DanH]

His feet are great on D. He has a knack for funneling guys away from the basket just enough then contests nicely.

Still not sure about his mental strength when it counts. Always thought hes the guy thatll miss a gimme in a crucial playoff game. Hopefully his two missed ft’s late in the last elimination game wasnt a harbinger of things to come

but ya what a pleasant surprise

Well, in the short term at least, the Raptors likely decide to close small anyway with Gary as supersub playing with the other starters at the end of games. So we have time before needing to worry about his endgame upside.

[Primer]

I feel like Precious could quickly become the 3rd core player, behind Scottie & Pascal. IMO, those are the 3 guys off-limits in any KD trade.

It's amazing to me. The whole we lost Lowry for nothing argument is dead in the water to the point where we probably won that trade.

[Primer]

His feet are great on D. He has a knack for funneling guys away from the basket just enough then contests nicely.

Still not sure about his mental strength when it counts. Always thought hes the guy thatll miss a gimme in a crucial playoff game. Hopefully his two missed ft’s late in the last elimination game wasnt a harbinger of things to come

but ya what a pleasant surprise

The mental strength is a concern until you remember he is 22 years old and 6 years out from entering his prime. He also hasn't gotten to start a full season yet. He's very primed for a blowout season this year now that's he's got stability and minutes plus a system he excels at.

[DanH]

Feeling annoying this morning so going to put some super small sample early returns from this season here.

Precious' on-court net rating with each player (listed in order of minutes played):
Fred +23
Gary +10
Pascal +17
OG +29
Koloko -19
Banton -42
Barnes -7
Flynn -15
Boucher +4
Thad -42
Khem -48

We should stop playing Precious at PF, it seems. Generally has had a lot of struggle with the bench but killed it with the various starters, Barnes excepted (who plays in most of those bench groups). Shocking.

Will be interesting to watch to see if that trend continues.

Another trend related to the discussion:

On-off court differential net rating by player, in order of minutes played:
Fred +42
Gary -17
Pascal +8
OG +40
Precious +14
Barnes +13
Koloko -18
Banton -44
Thad -53
Flynn -17
Boucher +4
Khem +25
Juancho -56

Good news is in his one game Boucher seemed to stabilize the bench a bit. One of those top 6 guys in minutes doesn't seem to fit with the rest...

Again, interesting to keep an eye on. Wonder how long it would need to go on before the team starts to consider a change.

[LJ2]

Seems like Precious doesn't play well with Scottie. What is Scottie's on-court net rating with Precious and with each player?

[DanH]

Seems like Precious doesn't play well with Scottie. What is Scottie's on-court net rating with Precious and with each player?

Yeah, Scottie has definitely struggled to fit with Precious early on.

Scottie with:
OG +21
Fred +17
Gary -2
Pascal +2
Precious -7
Koloko +7
Banton +15
Thad +6
Juancho -14

Although you can see the trend of the transitional looks that have struggled, where OG and Fred will sit, and Pascal, Scottie and Gary don't do great with the early bench subs, vs the units where OG and Fred play with him and the bench succeeds. You can see all three of Precious, Gary and Pascal have less than impressive ratings compared to the other two. Precious definitely the worst, but looking at individual lineups the losing seems to come primarily from some small minutes lineups that got destroyed, and all of them have Precious beside Koloko. Of course, everything is tiny samples at this point.

Still, another trend worth tracking - if Scottie struggles with Precious, that's bad news whether he starts or comes off the bench, as Scottie will be a key to both looks.

[The Claw Reborn]

Yeah, Scottie has definitely struggled to fit with Precious early on.

Scottie with:
OG +21
Fred +17
Gary -2
Pascal +2
Precious -7
Koloko +7
Banton +15
Thad +6
Juancho -14

Although you can see the trend of the transitional looks that have struggled, where OG and Fred will sit, and Pascal, Scottie and Gary don't do great with the early bench subs, vs the units where OG and Fred play with him and the bench succeeds. You can see all three of Precious, Gary and Pascal have less than impressive ratings compared to the other two. Precious definitely the worst, but looking at individual lineups the losing seems to come primarily from some small minutes lineups that got destroyed, and all of them have Precious beside Koloko. Of course, everything is tiny samples at this point.

Still, another trend worth tracking - if Scottie struggles with Precious, that's bad news whether he starts or comes off the bench, as Scottie will be a key to both looks.

If we only discussed the things the team would do, rather than the things we thought they should do, it would be real slow around here.

Now I understand your intentions of generating discussion and traffic around here by strongly pushing your agenda. The flavor of the season this time is your campaign to start Precious. Lol.

But if my memory is right which I think it is always spot on especially when it comes to you….was it not that you brush aside and diminish other people POV and in my case, my previous posts early in the season last year about my stance on Nick Nurse strategy in defending the three point line and the distance between 0-5 feet. You were so quick to point out that it was too early and the data I have shown reflected a small sample size.

Now here you are, laying out statistical data (in a small sample) about Precious net rating in contrast to Gary.

Is this not hypocritical. Only for your own benefit and whatever suits your current narrative and campaign

Nick Nurse aint changing the starting unit. Deal with that.

[LJ2]

Yeah, Scottie has definitely struggled to fit with Precious early on.

Scottie with:
OG +21
Fred +17
Gary -2
Pascal +2
Precious -7
Koloko +7
Banton +15
Thad +6
Juancho -14

Although you can see the trend of the transitional looks that have struggled, where OG and Fred will sit, and Pascal, Scottie and Gary don't do great with the early bench subs, vs the units where OG and Fred play with him and the bench succeeds. You can see all three of Precious, Gary and Pascal have less than impressive ratings compared to the other two. Precious definitely the worst, but looking at individual lineups the losing seems to come primarily from some small minutes lineups that got destroyed, and all of them have Precious beside Koloko. Of course, everything is tiny samples at this point.

Still, another trend worth tracking - if Scottie struggles with Precious, that's bad news whether he starts or comes off the bench, as Scottie will be a key to both looks.

Sort of makes sense that both Scottie and Precious would struggle playing together since they are both non-shooters and kind of occupy the same space in the paint.

[DanH]

Now I understand your intentions of generating discussion and traffic around here by strongly pushing your agenda. The flavor of the season this time is your campaign to start Precious. Lol.

But if my memory is right which I think it is always spot on especially when it comes to you….was it not that you brush aside and diminish other people POV and in my case, my previous posts early in the season last year about my stance on Nick Nurse strategy in defending the three point line and the distance between 0-5 feet. You were so quick to point out that it was too early and the data I have shown reflected a small sample size.

Now here you are, laying out statistical data (in a small sample) about Precious net rating in contrast to Gary.

Is this not hypocritical. Only for your own benefit and whatever suits your current narrative and campaign

Nick Nurse aint changing the starting unit. Deal with that.

I said it was too early to draw firm conclusions because it was.

Precious vs Gary we already have an entire season's sample last year, this is just building on it. But I was pretty up front about it being small samples and early trends to keep an eye on, which is exactly how I tried to label your presentation of that early season data last year and you had such a problem with.

[The Claw Reborn]

I said it was too early to draw firm conclusions because it was.

Precious vs Gary we already have an entire season's sample last year, this is just building on it. But I was pretty up front about it being small samples and early trends to keep an eye on, which is exactly how I tried to label your presentation of that early season data last year and you had such a problem with.

Why bring it up then? Oh ok, you want to do your unwarranted due diligence this early of the season…. Game no.4 LOL

[JawsGT]

Feeling annoying this morning so going to put some super small sample early returns from this season here.

Precious' on-court net rating with each player (listed in order of minutes played):
Fred +23
Gary +10
Pascal +17
OG +29
Koloko -19
Banton -42
Barnes -7
Flynn -15
Boucher +4
Thad -42
Khem -48

We should stop playing Precious at PF, it seems. Generally has had a lot of struggle with the bench but killed it with the various starters, Barnes excepted (who plays in most of those bench groups). Shocking.

Will be interesting to watch to see if that trend continues.

Another trend related to the discussion:

On-off court differential net rating by player, in order of minutes played:
Fred +42
Gary -17
Pascal +8
OG +40
Precious +14
Barnes +13
Koloko -18
Banton -44
Thad -53
Flynn -17
Boucher +4
Khem +25
Juancho -56

Good news is in his one game Boucher seemed to stabilize the bench a bit. One of those top 6 guys in minutes doesn't seem to fit with the rest...

Again, interesting to keep an eye on. Wonder how long it would need to go on before the team starts to consider a change.

Yikes, Gary got to get on board with defence, pretty much confirms what I've been noticing. Hopefully that trend changes.

[big boi]

Sort of makes sense that both Scottie and Precious would struggle playing together since they are both non-shooters and kind of occupy the same space in the paint.

Didn't Precious play quite poorly both full games he played with Scottie? Then going on to play well the game Scottie got injured and the game after? So isn't the comparison with Scottie a particularly small sample?

[LJ2]

Yikes, Gary got to get on board with defence, pretty much confirms what I've been noticing. Hopefully that trend changes.

Gary most certainly is on board with defence, but he's just not going to give you what the other starters give you. Going to be interesting to see if the Raps commit to Trent or not.

[DanH]

Why bring it up then? Oh ok, you want to do your unwarranted due diligence this early of the season…. Game no.4 LOL

I wanted to bring it up because my qualitative observations of the lineup re: player fit and role and play style were carried out by the numbers for the entirety of last season and nothing has happened yet this season to contradict that, and wanted to establish a baseline to track the trend against as the sample builds, because I am confident based on said qualitative observations that the sample will hold up with time.

[golden]

I wanted to bring it up because my qualitative observations of the lineup re: player fit and role and play style were carried out by the numbers for the entirety of last season and nothing has happened yet this season to contradict that, and wanted to establish a baseline to track the trend against as the sample builds, because I am confident based on said qualitative observations that the sample will hold up with time.

You could be seeing the "Banton effect". Banton is destroying everybody's net rating, except Fred and Scottie, who are PGs can take the ball out of his hands and make better decisions. Banton is even killing Pascal's net rating.

Or.... it's just another episode of: Small Sample Size Theatre.