Official Game Thread: Hawks at Rockets

[Spud2nique]

Just now, kg01 said:

C from Turkey

That dude is highly skilled and whatnot but he looks like he’s running around at his aunt’s house with weird slippers on when he runs and when he shoots he channels his inner (Larry legend arc shots he watched on tape in ) and goes to those a lot. I was waiting for OO to literally imprint SPALDING (or is it evo now ) across his forehead. 

[TheNorthCydeRises]

2 hours ago, JayBirdHawk said:

But that is also a function of who he's on the floor with as well. 

Actually, the data is showing a glaring picture that it really doesn't matter.  He's negative . . . except with 2 parings

 

Toss out his minutes with AJ, seeing that AJ hasn't really played in the rotation since Thanksgiving.  AJ is 0 for his last 14 shots, by the way.

But as far as rotation players go, the only positive grouping . . . is with Okongwu. 

As you know, you and I have been calling for the "big lineup".  The numbers say that it works in our favor.

As for everyone else, Capela has been a slight negative with everyone else on the floor he plays with, except the Matthews Bros, who he is horrible with.

 

The data is what it is.

[TheNorthCydeRises]

The same is the case for 12

 

 

Other than Bogi, he's a negative with everyone he plays with.

Bey, on the other hand . . .

 

 

How does Bey post positive numbers playing alongside the people Capela and 12 play with, but posts a negative number playing alongside Capela and/or 12?

No correlation in these numbers, I guess.

 

This is why people continuously say that if the Hawks got

1) A center that could score the basketball . . or

2) A high level wing player that can score and play defense

 

The Hawks would take off for real.

But we're placing the highest value on 2 supposedly good defensive players, that can't sustain positive team impact from game to game.  Right now, we need both of them to help balance the team out.  But both of these guys are easily replaceable with the right fitting players.  And they may not have to be star level players.

 

 

 

 

Edited December 21, 2023 by TheNorthCydeRises

[TheNorthCydeRises]

3 hours ago, AHF said:

I think that is what North is trying to say.  It speaks to the success the group on the floor has and so gives you information about certain pairings against certain opposing lineups.  

I don't think he is saying that it speaks to individuals.  Unless I'm misreading he isn't saying that someone with a +/- that is positive did a good job and someone with a negative one did a bad job.  Just that, for example, the lineup was highly negative when it had a certain group of players who maybe have defensive holes or lack range or balance or when we didn't have a playmaker, etc. or perhaps highly positive when the lineup had strong rebounding or shooting threats across the floor, etc.

 

And there are particular players that have certain deficiencies, that can bring a lineup down, no matter who they're paired with.

Even if they're not doing anything stat wise, the fact that they're not doing anything stat wise can be more of a negative.

Do something.

Or as T-Pain said in his rant about the current state of rap music . . . do something else.

( Viewer Discretion:  language )

 

 

[kg01]

18 minutes ago, Spud2nique said:

That dude is highly skilled and whatnot but he looks like he’s running around at his aunt’s house with weird slippers on when he runs and when he shoots he channels his inner (Larry legend arc shots he watched on tape in ) and goes to those a lot. I was waiting for OO to literally imprint SPALDING (or is it evo now ) across his forehead. 

Yeah I saw the skill and why folks want to be high on him, but there was something missing imho.  A little nonchalant on those weird shots.  I guess he could be a Jokic-type, but that's asking a lot.  He got torched on defense for the most part so, eh ok.  Seems some folks are too high on him imho. 

[JeffS17]

1 hour ago, TheNorthCydeRises said:

The same is the case for 12

 

 

Other than Bogi, he's a negative with everyone he plays with.

Bey, on the other hand . . .

 

 

How does Bey post positive numbers playing alongside the people Capela and 12 play with, but posts a negative number playing alongside Capela and/or 12?

No correlation in these numbers, I guess.

 

This is why people continuously say that if the Hawks got

1) A center that could score the basketball . . or

2) A high level wing player that can score and play defense

 

The Hawks would take off for real.

But we're placing the highest value on 2 supposedly good defensive players, that can't sustain positive team impact from game to game.  Right now, we need both of them to help balance the team out.  But both of these guys are easily replaceable with the right fitting players.  And they may not have to be star level players.

 

 

 

 

2 man combo off/on is pretty meaningless data imo.  We should really stop looking at this stuff unless it's 5 man lineups.

[Gray Mule]

Here's some stats that really matter.  Everyone knows how I feel about free throws.  In this game:

Capela - - - 7/7 free throws.  Hawks won the game by (Yep.  You guessed it ) 7 points !!

What is so great?  Capela, until this season, had a hard time hitting 60% and now he hits 100% in this game!  Wow!  He's put in a lot of hard work to get to this point in his career.  He's a lot better than many want to give him credit for.  He missed one game recently and we saw the results.  It wasn't good.  

[Spud2nique]

23 minutes ago, Gray Mule said:

Capela - - - 7/7 free throws.

Ah Capela!  

[TheNorthCydeRises]

51 minutes ago, JeffS17 said:

2 man combo off/on is pretty meaningless data imo.  We should really stop looking at this stuff unless it's 5 man lineups.

 

Negative.

You just can't dismiss data, because you feel that it's meaningless.  The data is what it is.  And you have to see if the data correlates with what you are seeing when certain personnel groupings, or even when 2 people play together, are doing.

It's a reason why Bey and Bogi is overall positive with just about everyone they play with.

 

Bogi

 

Bey

 

And why do you think there's a narrative that Trae and Dejounte don't mesh well together?

 

 

Even last night, we made a huge run in the 4th with Trae + the shooters + Okongwu.  Even when Murray came in, the run didn't stop.

But as soon as 12 came in and Bey goes out . . .

 

 

Houston goes small, takes Sengun out, and brings in Jabari Smith and Aaron Brooks.

Now mind you, 12 was already, ironically, ( -12 ) for the game.  He comes in, with his inactivity and fumbling hands, and the Rockets just happen to go on a huge run.

No, this was not all of 12's fault.  But 12's inactivity and passiveness is a huge reason why he always finds himself in negative lineups. 

This is not a coincidence.  And the data shows it.

[Final_quest]

2 hours ago, JeffS17 said:

2 man combo off/on is pretty meaningless data imo.  We should really stop looking at this stuff unless it's 5 man lineups.

The guys who are negative in two man lineups are also negative in 5 man lineups.  

[JeffS17]

24 minutes ago, TheNorthCydeRises said:

 

Negative.

You just can't dismiss data, because you feel that it's meaningless.  The data is what it is.  And you have to see if the data correlates with what you are seeing when certain personnel groupings, or even when 2 people play together, are doing.

It's a reason why Bey and Bogi is overall positive with just about everyone they play with.

 

Bogi

 

Bey

 

And why do you think there's a narrative that Trae and Dejounte don't mesh well together?

 

 

Even last night, we made a huge run in the 4th with Trae + the shooters + Okongwu.  Even when Murray came in, the run didn't stop.

But as soon as 12 came in and Bey goes out . . .

 

 

Houston goes small, takes Sengun out, and brings in Jabari Smith and Aaron Brooks.

Now mind you, 12 was already, ironically, ( -12 ) for the game.  He comes in, with his inactivity and fumbling hands, and the Rockets just happen to go on a huge run.

No, this was not all of 12's fault.  But 12's inactivity and passiveness is a huge reason why he always finds himself in negative lineups. 

This is not a coincidence.  And the data shows it.

 

13 minutes ago, Final_quest said:

The guys who are negative in two man lineups are also negative in 5 man lineups.  

The data supporting a narrative you put forth or matching eye test doesnt make it valid.  I can come up with a HAWKJEFF stat that shows Trae is an elite playmaker and that doesnt validate my stat as useful or informative.  Thats not how science or data science works, of course none if this is close to a hard science so maybe it is a moot point.  I personally think some statistics are flawed enough theyre not worth entertaining and this is one of them for me.  You guys might have a different threshold for what you find useful and I suppose thats fine.  Hows that for a long winded nothing post

[Chrimturn]

Who was on the court at the start of the 4th?  The Rockets shot well for the better part of the game up to that point and were on a run, wiped out the lead and went up by 2.  Then they went cold as the 4th began.  They were missing everything.

Do we contribute that to the pairings on the floor, or to maybe they just went on a cold spell for a while and couldn’t make anything?

I’m not poking either way.  I’m just genuinely curious.

[AHF]

4 minutes ago, JeffS17 said:

 

The data supporting a narrative you put forth or matching eye test doesnt make it valid.  I can come up with a HAWKJEFF stat that shows Trae is an elite playmaker and that doesnt validate my stat as useful or informative.  Thats not how science or data science works, of course none if this is close to a hard science so maybe it is a moot point.  I personally think some statistics are flawed enough theyre not worth entertaining and this is one of them for me.  You guys might have a different threshold for what you find useful and I suppose thats fine.  Hows that for a long winded nothing post

Is there an empirical basis on which you came to that conclusion or more gut feeling?  Like is there a metric you think is useful like RAPTOR or something and there is not a meaningful correlation between two man +\- (and maybe there is a stronger correlation for 5 man +\- in light of your comment above)?

For how I look at +\-, I tend to focus on 5 man lineups and trends across all lineups and then look at 2 man for more nuance.  (Like are there 2 man combos that stand out and might lead me back to looking at particular 5 man combos or unexplored lineups.  Or is there a reason why particular combinations might trend positive or negative such as Trae playing well with Bogi who provides spacing or Trae playing poorly with Lou Williams because you have two very small players together on the backcourt neither of whom is an amazing defender.)

[AHF]

3 minutes ago, Chrimturn said:

Who was on the court at the start of the 4th?  The Rockets shot well for the better part of the game up to that point and were on a run, wiped out the lead and went up by 2.  Then they went cold as the 4th began.  They were missing everything.

Do we contribute that to the pairings on the floor, or to maybe they just went on a cold spell for a while and couldn’t make anything?

I’m not poking either way.  I’m just genuinely curious.

That type of random variation (hot or cold streaks, etc regardless of the defense) is why I like to look at much larger sets then single game.  I think the 4th may have begun with Trae, Bogi, Mathews, Bey, and OO.

[Diesel]

There are ebbs and flows to game that these kind of stats don't take account of.. or if it does, it's poor. 

I showed last night's Miami Orlando stats... +/- vs. scoring differential. 

It showed Miami's reserved came in and built a lead and the starters babysat the lead.  For their efforts the starters got mostly negative +/- scores. 

Here's what's missing.

1.  Who did they score against, starters or reserves?
2.  Fatigue?
3.  Ref's involvement?
4.  Was it just one player who was sparking the movement?

And most of this can be repeatable and it has very little to do with how good the unit is.. but more about subbing pattern and strength vs. who is out there. 

 

[Chrimturn]

Makes you wonder if the coaches look at any of this stuff and take it seriously.  I mean, Quinn is like, win the 1st, win the 4th, hold down the fort in the 2nd and 3rd.

What was working at the start of the 4th (and who was on the court), definitely worked better than what happened at the end of the 4th (no Bogi, whoever else…).  He could’ve made a change to stop the bleeding but instead he just continued to roll with it like he was out of options.

[JayBirdHawk]

 

 

[JeffS17]

1 hour ago, AHF said:

Is there an empirical basis on which you came to that conclusion or more gut feeling?  Like is there a metric you think is useful like RAPTOR or something and there is not a meaningful correlation between two man +\- (and maybe there is a stronger correlation for 5 man +\- in light of your comment above)?

For how I look at +\-, I tend to focus on 5 man lineups and trends across all lineups and then look at 2 man for more nuance.  (Like are there 2 man combos that stand out and might lead me back to looking at particular 5 man combos or unexplored lineups.  Or is there a reason why particular combinations might trend positive or negative such as Trae playing well with Bogi who provides spacing or Trae playing poorly with Lou Williams because you have two very small players together on the backcourt neither of whom is an amazing defender.)

For me, it's because the extrapolation is so great the smaller samples you get.  1 man +/- in a single game, for instance, is the most reductive stat that requires the most extrapolation, almost completely useless to me.  Sure, sometimes it matches the eye test, but almost just as often it doesn't, which makes it a bad stat.  Now if you look at one man +/- over the course of an entire season, you wash out a lot of outlier stuff (like sharing the court with a shooter that gets hot for one game), but there is still a massive amount of context required -- how good is team? who is that player sharing the court against? are they closing out games? are they typically on the court against starters?  do they play in garbage time? did their team have injuries throughout the year?  I think if you look at this year, for instance, Trae doesn't lead the +/- despite clearly being the best player on our team.  That's because he's going up against starters, often sharing the court with players who are a drag, while someone like Bogi has been absolutely cooking bench units who imo have a hard time playing team defense.  So the stat is very reductive and requires a ton of context.

2 man +/- suffers from all of the same issues as 1 man +/-, albeit to a bit lesser degree since 2 ppl are 40% of the active on-court players rather than 20%.  But I really only like 5 man +/- because it's giving you a true feel for how that unit is performing, and it's usually much easier adding context for the lay person.  Like I know the Trae + bench mob 5 man unit is usually playing against a lot of backups, so if that's our best lineup, I know it's likely because of the opponents being weaker than us needing to trade our starters and elevate the bench to starting positions.  I can't really easily tell you who a pairing like DJ and Saddiq are playing against because I don't have every lineup and rotation memorized, and so it makes it harder for me to understand what that pairings +/- is really telling me.  The one requirement for all of this is a big enough total minutes shared to make me comfortable I'm not looking at a skewed statistic.

For the stats I usually look at for individuals, I really like 538's RAPTOR, with the caveat it seems to be more useful for guys with heavy minutes than bench players.  I use that one for defense mostly, since you can usually use a combination of basic and just beyond basic offensive stats to get a full picture.

[Sothron]

Capela played well. OO was awesome in the fourth. He played the entire fourth. We really have a great center combination. I'm still shocked OO hasn't pushed to start but if he's happy that's all that matters.

[TheNorthCydeRises]

6 hours ago, Sothron said:

Capela played well. OO was awesome in the fourth. He played the entire fourth. We really have a great center combination. I'm still shocked OO hasn't pushed to start but if he's happy that's all that matters.

Our Center rotation

• 14th in points - ( 21.2 )
• 2nd in Offenisve rebounds - ( 7.4 )
• 14th in Defensive rebounds - ( 9.9 )
• 2nd in Total Rebounds - ( 17.1 )
• 24th in Assists - ( 2.6 )
• 9th in Blocks - ( 2.5 )
• T1st in least Turnovers - ( 1.6 )
• 10th in FG% - ( 57.6% )
• 26th in 3FG% - ( 27.8% )
• 10th in FT% - ( 75.9% )

 

• Overall Offensive Efficiency:  6th - ( 35.6 )
• Overall Defensive Efficiency:  28th - ( 36.2 )
• Net Efficiency Differential:  16th - ( -0.6 )  

http://www.hoopsstats.com/basketball/fantasy/nba/teamstats/24/10/diffeff/1-1

 

Translation:  Our center group ( as a whole ), is average.