Last year for ZAZA as a Hawk

[TheNorthCydeRises]

Useless stats that people can't counter with a logical argument of why the "useless stat" is wrong.

Edited December 31, 2012 by northcyde

[thecampster]

Remember that Atlanta is cheaper to live in than NY/Boston, etc...he is established and is a part time starter. However, Dolfan is correct in pointing out that Zaza is a positional defender only, is foul prone and feasts on the lesser competition of backups. Zaza would struggle as a starter to put up the same numbers per 36 he currently does.

Edited December 31, 2012 by thecampster

[thecampster]

Expanding on my point about the cost of living in NY, this is a point brought up regularly in response to players playing in Canada in MLB and the NBA.

The cost of living in Canada and the double taxation makes playing in Canada unrealistic. The higher taxes on the East Coast and California enforce the need to pay a little more for players. This is why these teams consistently have higher payrolls.

[TheNorthCydeRises]

Can you even explain what NBA Efficiency is without looking it up? Might as well break out the NJSI on this one, why not.As many have pointed out in this thread, Zaza does things that do not show up in a box score. That alludes to +/- as a useful tool to evaluate their arguments. Efficiency is the wrong stat to look at. And the relative ranking of efficiency versus minutes played is just laughable. What are you even doing with that? I do not see any reason for the two to indicate a relationship worth evaluating when the issue of this thread is about Zaza's worth.

Can anybody explain anything in life, without first knowing at least a little of what it is about? The question is silly at best.The one thing that I DO know about the way the NBA calculates its efficiency stats, is that the more you play, and the more numbers you put it, the higher your efficiency is going to be.You cannot have a high efficiency under they way they calculate it, if you play limited minutes. But if you do put up real good numbers in a short amount of minutes, your efficiency number will be much higher than guys who play the same amount of minutes at that position.You keep talking about what is right and wrong to look at, but never disprove why anything I say is incorrect.Is it incorrect to say that Blatche is not having a good year, for the amount of minutes he's playing? How about Javale McGee? How about the flip side with Joe Johnson, who is playing a ton of minutes but producing even less than ever?You see no correlation in it because you don't want to see the correlation in it. I saw it last year with Kenneth Faried, even though he wasn't starting.20th in efficiency amongst PFs @ 15.335th in average minutes amongst PFs( +15 )This year he's 14th in efficiency @ 17.7And he's 21st in average minutes amongst PFs( +7 )It's definitely relative when you talk about paying a guy like Zaza anything over 5 million a year, and giving him a 5 year contract. He's just not worth that type of long term or monetary commitment. Zaza does things that doesn't show up in the box score, especially with his man to man defense. But he also does things that do show up in the box score . . . negatively . . . like all of the turnovers he commit and turnovers that are charged to other people because he fumbles a pass.If this fan base think that we can't find an upgrade over Zaza Pachulia, then we're definitely not going to win a championship anytime soon.

[Admin]

The pot calling the Kettle black

Riiight. Because I'm the one bringing up Deshawn in random threads. What's ironic is that I couldn't give a damn whether or not Deshawn is on the team tomorrow and yet he seems to be capable of making you whine and cry in every single thread, whether his name is mentioned or not. That's the funniest thing of all to me.

[TheNorthCydeRises]

And the NJSI NEVER LIES.Great shooting = .900 or aboveHighly consistent = .850 - .899Somewhat consistent = .800 - .849Somewhat inconsistent = .750 - .799Highly inconsistent = .700 - .749Horrible = Below .700Deron Williams16 - 23 ft: .3733 point: .299Total: .672 . . . . ( horrible outside shooting this year . . . is this a lie? )Kyle Korver16 - 23 ft: .4573 point: .438Total: .895 . . . . ( highly consistent, almost great outside shooting . . . is this a lie? )Lou Williams16 - 23 ft: .3833 point: .357Total: .740. . . . ( in the highly inconsistent shooting column, but close enough to be labeled as "somewhat inconsistent" . . . is this a lie? )The NJSI doesn't lie. You just can't accept the truth.Maybe I should name what I'm doing by comparing efficiency to minutes as the NPI ( Northcyde Position Index )

[TheNorthCydeRises]

Heck . . . if ESPN can come up with QBR . . .And the Weather Channel can start giving names to Winter storms . . .I can come up with the NJSI and NPIProve it to be wrong, if you don't like it.

[Admin]

Zaza started last year and put up similar numbers as this year. I do not think he is feasting off of backups, he appears to have numbers that will translate from backup to starter.

I think Zaza is pretty much who we know he is and that's the same player starting as he is backing up. A guy more than capable of putting up a double-double when given the opportunity, but he isn't going to get you a stop when you desperately need it and he's not going to back his man down and get points when he's the focus of the offense. He gets a lot of garbage points and blows a lot of bunnies at the rim and that leads to offensive rebounds for him that inflate his stats. He's a very solid backup and situational starter though and when he has guys like Al and Josh next to him it allows him to get easier baskets than if he were the focus of the defense. I definitely hope to see Zaza brought back next year, but again not for more than 5 million per season.

[Guest]

As I said in that other thread, this SHOULD be Zaza's last year as a Hawk, IF we're serious about contending for a championship. Zaza is a good backup center, a solid rebounder, and a solid defender. But there are at least 20 centers in this league who are better overall centers than he is.

A guy that people left for dead like Andray Blatche, is a much better center offensively than Zaza, and people would be ranting and raving about him if he were in ATL. Even a guy like Javale McGee is a better option at center than Zaza, because of his ability to run the floor and block shots..

No way should the Hawks lock themselves into a long term contract with Zaza ( no more than a 3 year contract, with a team option somewhere in there ). And no way should the Hawks pay more than the MLE to keep him around.

A thing that I've always looked at, is if a players NBA Efficiency ranking is at or above the amount of minutes he's playing, when looking at that player's particular position.

With an 11.5 efficiency rating, Zaza ranks 30th amongst NBA centers. And at 23.4 minutes a game, he ranks 26th in minutes played amongst NBA centers. So let's say that Zaza is a ( -4 ) when comparing his efficiency to minutes played. These are some of the centers who give you more "bang" in efficiency in relation to the amount of minutes they play per night. Matter of fact, let's go through the entire top 30. I'll list the top 30 in NBA Efficiency and the amount of minutes they average per game, then put a ( + ) or ( - ) number beside that.

1) Varejao . . . . 25.2 . . . . . 3rd in min . . . . . ( +2 )

2) Noah . . . . . . 22.5 . . . . . 1st in min . . . . . ( -1 )

3) Howard . . . . 22.2 . . . . . 4th in min . . . . . ( +1 )

4) Horford . . . . .21.4 . . . . . 2nd in min . . . . ( -2 )

5) Jefferson . . . 21.1 . . . . . 7th in min . . . . . ( +2 )

6) M. Gasol . . . . 21.0 . . . . 5th in min . . . . . ( -1 )

7) Bosh . . . . . . . 20.9 . . . . 6th in min . . . . . . ( 0 )

8) Chandler . . . 20.7 . . . . .8th in min . . . . . . ( 0 )

9) B. Lopez . . . .19.7. . . . . 15th in min . . . . ( +6 )

10) Hickson . . . 18.9 . . . . 17th in min . . . . ( +7 )

11) Monroe . . . . 17.8 . . . . 9th in min . . . . . ( -2 )

12) Cousins . . . 17.7 . . . . 13th in min . . . . ( +1 )

13) Pekovic . . . . 17.6 . . . 10th in min . . . . ( -3 )

14) Garnett . . . . 17.3 . . . . 16th in min . . . . ( +2 )

15) Gortat . . . . . 17.2 . . . . 11th in min . . . . ( -4 )

16) Asik . . . . . . . 16.7 . . . . 12th in min . . . . ( -4 )

17) Vucevic . . . . 16.6 . . . . 14th in min . . . . ( -3 )

18) R. Lopez . . .15.4 . . . . .19th in min . . . . ( +1 )

19) Kaman . . . . 13.8 . . . . .21st in min . . . . ( +2 )

20) Hibbert . . . . 13.7 . . . . .18th in min . . . . ( -2 )

21) Koufos . . . . 13.1 . . . . . 29th in min . . . . ( +8 )

22) Jordan . . . . 13.0 . . . . . 22nd in min . . . ( 0 )

23) Blatche . . . . 12.8 . . . . .35th in min . . . . ( +12 )

24) McGee . . . . 12.7 . . . . . 40th in min . . . . ( +16 )

25) Splitter . . . . 12.6 . . . . . 36th in min . . . . ( +11 )

26) Drummond .12.4 . . . . . 38th in min . . . . ( +12 )

27) Davis . . . . . . 12.3 . . . . . 37th in min . . . . ( +11 )

28) Favors . . . . . 12.1 . . . . . 32nd in min . . . ( +4 ) . . . shouldn't be on this list, he's almost exclusively played PF this year.

29) Okafor . . . . . 11.6 . . . . . 27th in min . . . . ( -2 )

30) Zaza . . . . . . 11.5 . . . . . 26th in min . . . . ( -4 )

All of the guys in bold are centers who give you more "bang" for your buck. And just by looking at this perspective, Zaza is one of 3 centers ( Asik and Gortat ) who perform overall at a less efficient rate, compared to the minutes they play.

This isn't an "end all, be all" type of list. But it does kind of show where Zaza really stacks up, when looking at the entire league. If I were to look at these same guys, and rank them according to their Opponent Counterpart at Center, Zaza may be higher on this list. Maybe not much higher, but higher nonetheless.

Can you do a list of AVAILABLE back up centers (wether it's a free agent (5 mil/yr) or someone you think might be available in trade). What's the point of listing starting centers with all these stats when we would be bringing Zaza back as a solid backup center. Provide the same list with the backups only.

Edited December 31, 2012 by JayBirdHawk

[Admin]

North you just proved my point. You do not know what these mean AND you have ignored the argument that Z does stuff out of the scope of the box score. NBA efficiency is a box score metric so using that in argument against what posters have been saying does absolutely nothing. You need a metric outside of the box score, meaning +/- or how Zaza affects team efficiency.If you do not know what a stat means then you should not use it. You have no idea what NBA efficiency tells you even though it simply adds positive statistics (points, assists, rebounds..) and subtracts negative statistics (fouls, turnovers...). Your relative measure is also flawed in that you fail to account for foul prone players. Farried is one and that is why his minutes are low. Even with that said, I still have no f***ing clue why your relative measure matters at all.

Eh, I don't know what PER means exactly but I feel comfortable in using it. Keep in mind that there's maybe 2-3 of the members of this site who are knowledgeable enough about these stats to really understand them, but that doesn't mean the rest of us lay people shouldn't be able to.

As far as creating our own stats goes, well I'll just leave that to North :)

[TheNorthCydeRises]

North you just proved my point. You do not know what these mean AND you have ignored the argument that Z does stuff out of the scope of the box score. NBA efficiency is a box score metric so using that in argument against what posters have been saying does absolutely nothing. You need a metric outside of the box score, meaning +/- or how Zaza affects team efficiency.If you do not know what a stat means then you should not use it. You have no idea what NBA efficiency tells you even though it simply adds positive statistics (points, assists, rebounds..) and subtracts negative statistics (fouls, turnovers...). Your relative measure is also flawed in that you fail to account for foul prone players. Farried is one and that is why his minutes are low. Even with that said, I still have no f***ing clue why your relative measure matters at all.

For a person who supposedly doesn't know what he's talking about, you sure do spend a lot of time reading and dissecting my posts.In my original post, I flat out said that this isn't an "end all, be all list" when evaluating the center position. I also said that if you look at a defensive metric ( like Opponent Counterpart Production at Center ), Zaza would rate higher.But what NBA Efficiency DOES SHOW is who can come into a game and flat out start putting up numbers ( positive or negative ) . . . and who can't. And Zaza is one of the ones who shows that he can't do it on more nights, than he can.On a team that could desperately use a low post scorer ( especially during playoff time ), Zaza and his current 26% FG in Post Up situations isn't going to cut it.I understand exactly what NBA Efficiency is and how it's calculated. But because I didn't say it the way YOU would state it, it has to be wrong in your eyes I guess. Of course it's a "box score metric", which is why I also stated that you need to put up numbers to get a high efficiency number. You know . . . fill up the stat sheet or box score with good and plentiful numbers. And the main way a person can put up numbers ( or nimbers, as Nique would say ), is if he gets the minutes TO put up those numbers.Ivan Johnson this season, like Faried last year, is another example of what I'm talking about. His efficiency number is currently at 7.3, which ranks 49th amongst PFs. But he's only playing 13.5 minutes a game, which ranks 60th amongst PFs. When Ivan gets the minutes, he puts up the numbers.Ivan has played 15+ minutes in 10 games this season. His average efficiency in those 10 games?11.5 . . . . . in 19 minutes per game. The same as Zaza in 28 minutes.And that's partially why people go crazy around here when Ivan gets a DNP or reduced minutes. You don't have to look for "things that don't show up in the box score" to see how he impacts a game. You can actually SEE his impact, when you look at the box score.The fact is that Zaza is a free agent at the end of the year. There is no way in hell I'd want to pay Zaza more than 5 mill a year, if the only contribution he can bring to this team is rebound his own misses and play good defense every other game.And do you REALLY want to bring +/- into this conversation? According to 82games.com ( which goes through 12/28 and doesn't count Zaza's great performance vs Indiana on the 29th ), The Hawks were +1.6 with Zaza on the court . . . +2.9 with Zaza off the court. I don't have to make up an "index rating" to see that the Hawks are -1.3 worse with Zaza on the court, than off.Of course the counter to that will be . . . "but . . look who Zaza is playing with." Tell that to Ivan, seeing that the Hawks +2.4 with him on the court ( 5th highest on the team, by the way ) and +2.3 with him off the court. There's virtually no change with the Hawks when Ivan plays. can't say the same about Zaza though.Zaza is a solid backup center. But there will be better backup centers available when free agency comes this summer.

[TheNorthCydeRises]

Eh, I don't know what PER means exactly but I feel comfortable in using it. Keep in mind that there's maybe 2-3 of the members of this site who are knowledgeable enough about these stats to really understand them, but that doesn't mean the rest of us lay people shouldn't be able to.

As far as creating our own stats goes, well I'll just leave that to North

LOL. I need to make up more stats.

[Colin]

Damn this post hurt my feelings.

[TheNorthCydeRises]

Can you do a list of AVAILABLE back up centers (wether it's a free agent (5 mil/yr) or someone you think might be available in trade). What's the point of listing starting centers with all these stats when we would be bringing Zaza back as a solid backup center. Provide the same list with the backups only.

I can only fulfill 1/2 of your request. I can list the guys who are available, but why just limit the list to potential backup centers? Remember, we're only going to have like 3 people signed when the Summer hits ( Horford, Jenkins, Williams ), Everybody else can potentially be on the free agent block.

The goal of the Hawks should be to get a STARTING caliber center, to make this frontline even stronger.

The total list was to initially see how Zaza stacked up with the rest of the league. So knowing that, here are the guys in that top 30 who will be available in the summer of 2013

- Dwight Howard . . ( Unrestricted FA . . C . . who will command MAX money )

- Al Jefferson . . ( Unrestricted FA . . C . . who may get close to the MAX like Josh Smith )

- JJ Hickson . . ( Unrestricted FA . . PF/C . . makes 4 mill this year )

- Nikola Pekovic . . ( Restricted FA . . . C . . T-Wolves will probably match any offer under 8 mill/yr )

- Chris Kaman . . . ( Unrestricted FA . . C . . made 8 mill this year )

- Andray Blatche . . . ( Unrestricted FA . . PF/C . . makes league vet minimum )

- Tiago Splitter . . . ( Restricted FA . . PF/C . . makes almost 6 mill this season )

and Andrew Bynum, who hasn't played yet this season.

We're talking about upgrading this team to put us in championship position. At least 6 of the 8 players above, are better than Zaza. And if some other team wants to get rid of their big man ( for whatever reason ), we have a lot of trade chips to swap with them.

The mindset simply needs to change around here. We don't HAVE to keep anybody that isn't progressing this team toward a title.

[ftown]

Damn this post hurt my feelings.

well...

i understand you're only a fan of one of the players, but this is a team sport

and that player's role on the team can/will be discussed :p

Go Hawks!

[TheNorthCydeRises]

And yet, you still can't disprove any of the conclusions I derive from my "made up" statistics. It's all good. Hate it or love it.

[Admin]

No, I think if you are going to make an argument knowing stats then you must know what it is to have a valid argument. If you do not know what is behind the stat, then you actually have no idea what that stat is telling you. If you do not know what a stat is telling you, then you are using an unknown in your argument. If you are using an unknown in your argument, then are you really even arguing?

I had a history teacher in High School that would give us a "word of the day" where we needed to write down the definition and remember it for the exam. Clearly, this had nothing to do with history at all and she was just being an asshole wasting our time. So as an inside joke I would speak up in class everyday and use a made-up word in my analysis of an historical event (or misuse an obscure word she did not know). She sat there and nodded in agreement and never caught on that I was openly making fun of her in class. She was eventually informed of this by another student in the class and she had a huge egg on her face type of moment once she realized. The moral? Understand what you are saying and what you accept in arguments less you have a huge egg on your face type of moment.

North, you are the only one making up statistics so of course it seems like I only pick on your for made up stats.

I think that I can argue from the standpoint that as long as I know what is considered better statistically then I don't have to know exactly how that stat is made up. Like I said, there's a crap ton that goes into the PER formula and I've never taken the time to try and fully learn or understand it, but I do know that a 25 PER is better than the league average PER and I think if I wanted to make an argument and back it up with PER that I could comfortably do that.

That's funny, but I'm pretty sure the moral is that you just like being a d*ck LOL. Your real name isn't Scott is it? If it is, are you from Canada?

[tbhawksfan]

Can we find a better player for a comparable cost? Crazy thing is, we already have one (Ivan). Keeping Zaza should be the least of our worries. In order to make moves to improve the team, Zaza has to go.If we kept Horf and Smith to get Howard, what role would Zaza play. Much rather keep Ivan at a fourth of the cost.If we trade Smith to try to improve the team in the longterm, say a good player and pick, still rather get some value for Zaza as an expiring, re-sign Ivan and watch Zaza miss a record number of lay ups on another team.SO tired of the guys that support players over the team and attack every reasonable proposition at truly improving the team, just because they have a man crush.Trade: Smith, Zaza, Morrow, Harris, Korver..all and any expirings save maybe JT and try to reload for a much better shot in a couple of years when the Laker, Heat dynasties are done.OKC is the new Dynasty with a few other teams in good shape for the next contenders. I want the Hawks to be one of those other teams.

[Admin]

Haha, sorry to say that I am not animated. But I like the reference!

But as for PER, you can be better in that measure for a multitude of reasons. So because one has a higher PER that does not imply they are a better player or that they are better in a specific measure. PER can be broken down into further components. Context really matters and that is why you should understand the statistics. For instance, if someone is arguing that Zaza is a better player than X because Zaza does things that do not show up in the box score but are important (boxing out, rotating on D, playing well with the team) then using PER to disprove is completely stupid. PER is made up of box score metrics and cranked into a formula that has specific values for each element (and one consequence is that just shooting more increases your PER even if your fg% is around 340). So to point out PER you have ignored the original argument and just made yourself look like a fool in disproving the original argument.

Another instance that understanding PER is if you are trying to improve your team and looking at free agents. If your team already has a lot of shooters and is not lacking in that department, then PER will actually overvalue the shooters. So a strategy to combat this is to actually look at a high PER with a low number of FGAs. But even then, PER may not be the correct measure to use. So if you just say "well he has a higher PER he should be the thing we pick" ignores a lot of analysis. In a sense this would be like choosing a particular Car because Car & Driver rated it 7.8 stars out of 10 and that was the highest of all of the cars on the lot. Is that really the best way to go about that? If you think it is, you are ignoring the biases of Car & Driver as well as any needs you actually need. Hell, you could potentially be a contractor that needs to haul lots of equipment and it turns out the 7.8 is a Nissan Maxima. Sorry bud, you just f***ed up because you did not understand the context. (the NBA stats are more complex than Car & Driver rankings and I see posters on this site screw them up all the time)

Haha I wasn't sure if you were going to get that reference or not.

I do agree that you need to know enough about the stat to know when to use it and of course you should never use PER to conclude that a player who's largest value comes from the dirty work is better/worse than a player who puts up better/worse numbers. And BTW I would probably never use PER to say that player A is better or worse than player B, just using it as an example. Thanks for the thorough explanations though!

[Admin]

Can we find a better player for a comparable cost? Crazy thing is, we already have one (Ivan). Keeping Zaza should be the least of our worries. In order to make moves to improve the team, Zaza has to go.If we kept Horf and Smith to get Howard, what role would Zaza play. Much rather keep Ivan at a fourth of the cost.If we trade Smith to try to improve the team in the longterm, say a good player and pick, still rather get some value for Zaza as an expiring, re-sign Ivan and watch Zaza miss a record number of lay ups on another team.SO tired of the guys that support players over the team and attack every reasonable proposition at truly improving the team, just because they have a man crush.Trade: Smith, Zaza, Morrow, Harris, Korver..all and any expirings save maybe JT and try to reload for a much better shot in a couple of years when the Laker, Heat dynasties are done.OKC is the new Dynasty with a few other teams in good shape for the next contenders. I want the Hawks to be one of those other teams.

Ivan isn't a center though and I think he's barely 6'8 and doesn't play all that big defensively, which is Zaza's speciality. Medium Z isn't an elite defender or anything, but he's big and physical and I think he's what about 275 lbs and he uses his body (especially his head) to wear the opponent down.