Official Game Thread: Jazz at Hawks

[Final_quest]

1 hour ago, sturt said:

While I follow GW and respect his work as a fan who does some game analysis, genuinely... his predictive work, I'm unacquainted with... and further, not sure that winning people over is the problem. Virtually every Hawks fan wants to see every Hawks player perform well. The performance of the player isn't a function of fans' attitude, but rather the other way around.

That said, I'd sure like to read for myself what GW wrote in this vein.... would it be possible to get a link? My initial scan didn't find anything in Twitter or on PTH.

Edit: I see the screenshot of tweets posted evidently while I was writing the previous post. Anything else?

 

It's Twitter so nothing lengthy, but he made a few posts mentioning J Hol in positive light.  Includes one clip below, but how else can you take the screen shot of him saying we should enjoy watching him play defense.  That sounds like enthusiasm.  

 

[sturt]

OH.

I've realized that Glen never made any prediction, in his defense. That was whoever lurks behind this "Official Atlanta Hawks Sports Network" username. Still, he didn't seem to disagree, either.

 

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Regardless... the comparison is, instead, a contrast.

 

[NBASupes]

52 minutes ago, TheNorthCydeRises said:

Our starting lineup is fine with Trae in the lineup.  His defense is not an issue with that group on the floor.  

It's the bench group where he's struggling to play with.  Specifically the Holiday Boys.

Here we go with the classic Supes name calling.  But you speak of assumptions and not facts.  The Hawks are 112 pts per 100 possessions when the starters are out on the floor with Trae.  When we start playing the bench, his floor time numbers go down. 

And is it that he can't handle contact, or is he not getting the calls, especially on shooting fouls.  He's getting to the line 8 times a game ( it was 9 before last night ), but the refs don't want to have to call every foul for Trae.  It's obvious that the refs don't like him, so he's not going to get a call every time he gets hit, even if he legit gets hit.

He does recognize when he has a shooter out there with him like Griffin.  The problem is that Nate doesn't play him much with Trae, because he's throwing the Holiday boys in the game first.  The small sample size indicates that AJ may be his best scoring partner with the 2nd unit.

 

You say I assume when all you do is make excuses. We both are right and are seen as wrong depending who's reading the post. Obviously I think I am right so people who think I am right will agree. People who think you are right will agree with you. I watch the possessions, his defense is super ass. He f*cks so much up on that end.

[Carmine]

9 hours ago, bleachkit said:

Trae is in one of the worst shooting slumps of his career. Fortunately, we have DJM to pick up the slack. Last night though, we just didn't execute in the 4th quarter.

I believe It's fair to say coaching was the most important factor in our loss. In retrospect Trae also played a huge role in contributing to last night's loss. God bless AJ's heart, the youngin was still hustling to get himself open for a clean look even when Trae was dribbling the air out of the ball in the late 3rd-4th quarter.

After that timeout & substitution in the 3rd it felt like ( I know this wasn't entirely the case) our adjustments went out the window. No reason for Capela to be on the floor against Markanen/Olynk & Okongwu to be on the floor with Kessler. It's clear Onyeka would've done a better of job of guarding the line & a bigger body in Capela likely would've done a better job of neutralizing their rookie Kessler. Speaking of Kessler, Jazz coach Will Hardy who is a ROOKIE coach by the way, did a good job by giving Kessler more burn. The kid was killing us. That's the coaching with feel that JayBird was eluding to. But Nate's stubbornness was the death of us once again, I shudder when I think of when we actually have to face elite teams & coaches in the playoffs.

[Atlantaholic]

5 hours ago, AHF said:

I think the big difference for Delon and Holiday is that Delon has traditionally had good offensive efficiency and elite defensive numbers like DRTG while Holiday has usually been below par (and I say that in reference to his own roster because that metric is so team dependent).  Where Delon coming back to his career norm put him in a position to be a big contributor, Justin doesn't have that same luxury.  I do think that he is pretty good about knowing where he should be on defense as plays develop and that Nate puts a lot of value on that.  So I have no expectation that we'll see JHol outside of the main rotation.  But I also don't think the fan base will ever be high on him the way we were on Delon last season once he came around.

Yup, Justin's best seasons were not as good as the vast majority of Wright's seasons. Justin is like Solo his first year with us, he is good as your third SF, but I hate that we are playing him 6th man minutes. AJ Griffin deserves a chance at an expanded role. 

[AHF]

5 hours ago, sturt said:

 

 

So, he's less of a player, but we wouldn't find evidence of that in any numbers.

Got it.

 

And you want me to "take it up" with Glen Willis, who apparently has indeed predicted that we'll regard 33 year-old Justin's defense as highly as we did 29 year-old Delon's defense.

 

 

Yeah, um. What can I say? I think that's absurd to expect, given the realities of what we know. Glen Willis is a good guy, but good guys can make very specious, though hopeful, homer predictions sometimes.

 

 

 

5 hours ago, sturt said:

Um. Yeah. So consult your Research Methods 501 textbook and help me understand... was he not "featured" at age 30 when he had his last good-to-very-good season?... was he then not featured at age 31?... at age 32?

So, the trend is that he's regressed. He's gotten older. But he was still a prominent member in each of the previous three seasons... that part doesn't matter.

Now c'mon.

I have a person telling me that "sure he's not the same player" on the one hand... then... saying "but that's not to say there's any correlation with numbers."

That's denial... and it's denial that there is quantitative/objective data that support the conclusion the person otherwise acknowledges is legit. He just doesn't like the degree to which that data indicate there's been regression.

What can I say to that? That's trend denial. Facts don't care about one's feelings, as one politico is famous/infamous for stating.

That is some strawmanning of facetime’s post.  He never said the numbers don’t support a decline.  He actually said the opposite - that he doesn’t deny a decline.  He said you were reading too much into the numbers and then posted references to observations by GW to JH being in the right place and reacting properly to developing plays - things that frequently don’t show up in the box score (which is why defense is so hard to measure statistically).

I offered you a bet on a trend I believed in (that coaches keep giving Justin minutes even when he isn’t performing particularly well). You say you don’t believe in that trend and think he will be marginalized for playing time but won’t bet.  Don’t know what to tell you.

[Final_quest]

8 hours ago, AHF said:

 

That is some strawmanning of facetime’s post.  He never said the numbers don’t support a decline.  He actually said the opposite - that he doesn’t deny a decline.  He said you were reading too much into the numbers and then posted references to observations by GW to JH being in the right place and reacting properly to developing plays - things that frequently don’t show up in the box score (which is why defense is so hard to measure statistically).

This is JHol's numbers from the previous three years in Indiana.  I don't see how these show a rapid decline like Sturt describes that would make him unplayable.  Just because you can make one chart that narrows on one stat, it proves close to nothing unless other stats show the same trend.  This might be a little sensitive, but writing a large volume of words about the one stat you are isolating on doesn't move me either. 

 

After you hit age 32 usually there is a decline in play, so I would expect him to gradually be less effective.  But exactly one year ago he is hitting the same percentages and volumes across the board.  Defensive rating is impacted a lot by your team and almost all of the Pacer's individual defensive rating tanked.  To make that the one stat that is the "source of truth" while ignoring all the other stats is not picking up on a trend to judge the player accurately.  It certainly doesn't merit looking down on anyone who disagrees with your take.  

JHol put up 7 3's a game last year and hit them at a gold standard 38%.  Find all of the players in the league who hit that volume of 3's at that percentage last year.  I'm guessing all of them are getting minutes this year.  So, no I'm not compelled by one chart and long posts to say anything different. 

 

Edited November 11, 2022 by Final_quest

[sturt]

11 hours ago, AHF said:

That is some strawmanning of facetime’s post.  He never said the numbers don’t support a decline.  He actually said the opposite - that he doesn’t deny a decline.  He said you were reading too much into the numbers and then posted references to observations by GW to JH being in the right place and reacting properly to developing plays - things that frequently don’t show up in the box score (which is why defense is so hard to measure statistically).

Nonsense.

AHF, do you really think that this thread is the first time Quest (who is facetime?) has pursued this? He's even told you it's not. But your post here presumes sturt must be making things up. No. He denied the decline, and suggested the numbers can't be taken as solid evidence.... not unlike you, for that matter. (I'll grant that he's seemed to soften a little in this thread compared to his previous posts, but not enough.)

 

You're not wrong that there are things that don't show up in the box score.

But that's the exact equivalent of saying, "I know you have this quantitative survey data with thousands of data points using hundreds of subjects that points to X being a valid conclusion... but I have interviewed this person and that person and the other person, and they say Y, and besides I have this authoritative voice who seems to agree with Y, so that's enough qualitative data to debunk the conclusion that comes from your survey."

No. That's not legit.

Trying to be fair, yes, DRTG (... aside, b/c I know you know this, but for the benefit of those who might read this and haven't looked into it, DRTG attempts an objective estimate of the number of points the opposition scored every 100 possessions that the player experienced...)  can be and often is misinterpreted to say something it doesn't necessarily say.

NOT in this specific case, however.

To interpret DRTG legitimately, there must be, first, good sample size in terms of minutes (we have that for Justin), then the context of the team's performance in comparison to all of the other teams, and there must be the context of the player's performance in comparison to all of his teammates. And even then, it is true that most of those numbers are fairly confounded because if you have a player who is among the worst DRTGs on a given team, but that team is among the best in the league... who's to say if he had a bad year defensively or if he's actually good but happens to be on a team filled with exceptional defensive players? Right?

But what we have here avoids that. It isn't confounded like that. You had Justin at age 30 as earning among the best DRTGs on one of the best defensive teams.... clearly, a banner year defensively, and no one objects to that conclusion. (Of course not... it is evidence of something we'd like to think anyhow.)

Then, you had Justin at age 31 as mediocre on the team ranked smack-dab-in-the-middle in DRTG... so he was neither a drag nor a benefit on his middling team's DRTG... so, again, pretty clear cut that he was about as average as average could be.

Then, you had last season, age 32, when the DRTG was among the worst on a team ranked #28.

(And oh by the way, the fact there was similar result in the context of a second team last season only reaffirms the confidence in the conclusion.)

 

You can say, "Well what about the effort he shows?"

DRTG doesn't tease out effort. And. It doesn't tease out luck, either, when an opposing player misses a wide open shot and the defensive player is the beneficiary though he may have made little effort.

Unlike most defensive stats, it's a lump sum, bottom line stat. (Which seems to continue to not be appreciated.)

DRTG is an objective--same formula used for all--estimate based on actual results.

I repeat, if you don't have a lot of minutes for a given player, that seriously injures the validity of a conclusion. We don't have that here, though.

And I repeat, it can be confounded so much by context that it can be practically meaningless (see example I offered). NOT in this specific case. In this specific case, we have the benefit of great individual DRTG paired with great team DRTG, mediocre DRTG paired with mediocre DRTG, and lousy DRTG paired with lousy team DRTG.

 

Stop the madness, boys. Some did this same thing with Tony Snell.

I get it. Justin is a nice guy. We want to think the best of our guys, and so when you add on top of that that the player is a good guy, there's a lot of motivation to figure out a way to create some room for doubting negative data... reason to distrust the data. (Not wrong to point out that that's been a theme in the news this week.)

He's regressed, and DRTG attests that it's been a significant drop, going from being a primary cause of his team's DRTG ranking high, to a primary cause of his team's DRTG ranking low.

Hate on me all you want... but the valid conversation isn't any of that.

The valid conversation is to get into why Justin's regressed.

It's not likely to be a matter of effort, I'll give you that. I'd also be disinclined to think his instincts are on the decline just b/c I don't think that wains ordinarily. But as I've watched him so far this season, his ability to keep his man in front of him is one area where I'm thinking he may be lacking. Possibly.

 

I'm exhausted with this. Others can have the last word, if they want. I'm done.

[sturt]

11 hours ago, AHF said:

I offered you a bet on a trend I believed in (that coaches keep giving Justin minutes even when he isn’t performing particularly well). You say you don’t believe in that trend and think he will be marginalized for playing time but won’t bet.  Don’t know what to tell you.

(Oops. I meant to speak to this, too, so I will. One more time. One.)

That's not my take. My position was that Nate won't continue to play Justin out of some exceptional affection for Justin. Your position was that he would. You wanted to measure motivation for a behavior using minutes-played as evidence. That's specious. To measure motivation, you have to get inside someone's head. Minutes-played can be the result of a variety of motivations. You proposed a bet, then, that wouldn't have actually employed a measure that would adequately capture the data necessary to make a yes or no determination.

The current situation, we seem to agree, is motivated by the lack of any veteran options, and that Nate (as did Bud) has shown an inclination to prefer to play vets until rookies can earn his trust. That's not the same motivation as "He loves Justin and so much so, he's going to play him no matter the rookie's performance"... which is what I have understood your position to be.

[AHF]

5 minutes ago, sturt said:

(Oops. I meant to speak to this, too, so I will. One more time. One.)

That's not my take. My position was that Nate won't continue to play Justin out of some exceptional affection for Justin. Your position was that he would. You wanted to measure motivation for a behavior using minutes-played as evidence. That's specious. To measure motivation, you have to get inside someone's head. Minutes-played can be the result of a variety of motivations. You proposed a bet, then, that wouldn't have actually employed a measure that would adequately capture the data necessary to make a yes or no determination.

The current situation, we seem to agree, is motivated by the lack of any veteran options, and that Nate (as did Bud) has shown an inclination to prefer to play vets until rookies can earn his trust. That's not the same motivation as "He loves Justin and so much so, he's going to play him no matter the rookie's performance"... which is what I have understood your position to be.

The current situation is exactly what was expected lmao.  I never said he would play Justin over LeBron because of love.  I said that he loves the comfort that a vet who knows his system provides and that we should absolutely expect him to be in that second group of players off the bench.  You rejected that saying you thought he would not be in the second group.  I took your statement about JHol not being in the 6-10 range of the rotation and used that as the basis for the bet I offered you.

Nothing about this is unexpected.  Nate likes vets.  Nate has a vet who has played for him before.  Nate is going to feed him minutes even when metrics suggest his performance doesn't deserve them.  I shared the numbers with you before where Holiday has been much higher on the minutes pecking order than he is on the advanced metric order:

In 2019-20, Justin Holiday was:

18th in PER

18th in WS/48

5th in total minutes

In 2020-21 under Nate, Justin Holiday was:

11th in PER

7th in WS/48

3rd in total minutes

In 2021-22 JHol was:

16th in PER

12th in WS/48

2nd in total minutes

Etc.

The same trend is present in every year for Justin recently.  Coaches, including Nate, love him and trust him with the minutes as a consistent part of their rotation. 

BTW - This year:

13th in PER

13th in WS/48

7th in total minutes

Expecting Holiday to get pushed out of the rotation when he is outplayed on a per minute basis is to ignore the data and trends.

[Final_quest]

There is no world where an NBA player wouldn't get minutes if they shoot 38% on 7 attempts a game the year before.  I've only ever said your analysis is flawed @sturt, and it is.  I've never made a case that JHol could be anything more than an end of rotation type of player for a year or two. 

You are hung up on if he's on the decline or not.  Any player who is 33 is on the decline, but many of them play anyways because they contribute more than the next best alternative.