Official Game Thread: Hawks at Bulls

[Peoriabird]

13 minutes ago, AHF said:

Let's look at Hunter since he is someone you view as extremely good for the team and compare his numbers against Trae using more meaningful data sets using your criteria:

Hawks Defensive Rating with DeAndre Hunter:  116.1

Hawks Defensive Rating without DeAndre Hunter: 117.5    Net:  +1.4 (with negative being bad)

Hawks Offensive Rating with DeAndre Hunter: 115.2

Hawks Offensive Rating without DeAndre Hunter: 116.9   Net:  -1.7 (with negative being bad)

Net:  -0.3

Hawks Defensive Rating with Trae Young:  116.4

Hawks Defensive Rating without Trae Young: 114.3    Net:  -2.1 (with negative being bad)

Hawks Offensive Rating with Trae Young: 114.7

Hawks Offensive Rating without Trae Young: 112.1   Net:  +2.6 (with negative being bad)

Net:  +0.5

So this would tell us that over their careers, Trae has made the team better when he plays while Hunter has made the team worse when he plays, correct?

Let's compare Hunter and Trae using more meaningful data sets using your criteria:

Hawks record with DeAndre Hunter:  119-138 .463%

Hawks record without DeAndre Hunter:  61-60 .503%

Net:  -.040%

Hawks record with Trae Young:  183-221 .453%

Hawks record without Trae Young:  26-30 .464%

Net:  -.011%

So if we accept that record with and without a player is a good method for determining whether a player is valuable, we should conclude that Hunter is bad for the team by a number almost 4x worse than Trae.  Is that correct?

 

Now I'll tell you that my view is these numbers are useful but are not be-all, end-all ways to assess the utility of a player.  I think both Hunter and Trae are players who make the team significantly better.  Measuring individual merit using team statistics can be challenging since the team numbers highly influenced by personnel groupings, overall team objectives, etc. but it is a useful thing to look at as part of a larger evaluation along the lines of looking at the most successful personnel groupings.

So you used career numbers? Does a player stay the same over the course of their career? I would think vets are in general better than rookie so career numbers mean very little.  I was using this years number which would me much more relevant to the current state of the Hawks. plus Trae has more vets years than Hunter. By the way, does Hunter and Trae make the same money? Just a thought

 

[AHF]

13 minutes ago, Peoriabird said:

So you used career numbers? Does a player stay the same over the course of their career? I would think vets are in general better than rookie so career numbers mean very little.  I was using this years number which would me much more relevant to the current state of the Hawks. plus Trae has more vets years than Hunter. By the way, does Hunter and Trae make the same money? Just a thought

 

I don't like to use small samples when using only data.  The numbers are subject to way too much variance and the smaller the sample the worse that is.  Having multiple seasons of data is obviously relevant to evaluating guys like Hunter and Trae who have been starters for years.  From my perspective, the big change in Trae's play this season has been his improved defensive effort which had him as a top 10 guy in terms of steals, deflections, charges drawn, etc.  The big change for Dre has been his improvements on offense.  Good stuff from both players.

[Peoriabird]

1 hour ago, AHF said:

I don't like to use small samples when using only data.  The numbers are subject to way too much variance and the smaller the sample the worse that is.  Having multiple seasons of data is obviously relevant to evaluating guys like Hunter and Trae who have been starters for years.  From my perspective, the big change in Trae's play this season has been his improved defensive effort which had him as a top 10 guy in terms of steals, deflections, charges drawn, etc.  The big change for Dre has been his improvements on offense.  Good stuff from both players.

Comparing the impact of a player 5 years ago during his rookie season to his impact now is ridiculous!  Please change your way of evaluating players current impact immediately!  Jimmy Butler is was no where near the impact player he is today during his rookie season.

[REHawksFan]

7 minutes ago, Peoriabird said:

Comparing the impact of a player 5 years ago during his rookie season to his impact now is ridiculous!  Please change your way of evaluating players current impact immediately!  Jimmy Butler is was no where near the impact player he is today during his rookie season.

Using your own metrics, Trae has had a positive impact on the Hawks every year since his rookie year until this year.  Yet this year, Trae has had arguably his best all around year offensively and defensive.  And you say he doesn't impact winning or the team is better without him. 

Make that make sense. 

The only way that makes any sense at all is to acknowledge what we all know, your metrics don't tell the story.  

[Peoriabird]

27 minutes ago, REHawksFan said:

Using your own metrics, Trae has had a positive impact on the Hawks every year since his rookie year until this year.  Yet this year, Trae has had arguably his best all around year offensively and defensive.  And you say he doesn't impact winning or the team is better without him. 

Make that make sense. 

The only way that makes any sense at all is to acknowledge what we all know, your metrics don't tell the story.  

I just posted numbers...you decide

[REHawksFan]

23 minutes ago, Peoriabird said:

I just posted numbers...you decide

For numbers to have any meaning they require context.  You provided no context for any numbers. 

[Peoriabird]

1 hour ago, REHawksFan said:

For numbers to have any meaning they require context.  You provided no context for any numbers. 

How about this...since the acquisition of another star point guard, Trae's value to the team has diminished. The team is able to perform a little bit better without him in the line up. Having said that the opposite might be true if you switch Murray and Trae. Therefore if they both essentially bring the same value which isn't additive then Murray carries more value to the Hawks by default because his salary.

[REHawksFan]

49 minutes ago, Peoriabird said:

How about this...since the acquisition of another star point guard, Trae's value to the team has diminished. The team is able to perform a little bit better without him in the line up. Having said that the opposite might be true if you switch Murray and Trae. Therefore if they both essentially bring the same value which isn't additive then Murray carries more value by default because his salary.

This is a much more reasonable statement than all the other stuff you have posted.  I disagree that Trae and DJ "essentially bring the same value" to the team as Trae's offensive value is a known (massively in his favor vs DJ) but his negative defensive value on this particular team under Quin's coaching is an unknown imo.  I want to see Trae playing with Bruno and Vit and JJ and DH now that they are all playing more sound defensively.  I don't think it's a given that those players will revert to sucking defensively when Trae comes back.    

[Peoriabird]

11 minutes ago, REHawksFan said:

This is a much more reasonable statement than all the other stuff you have posted.  I disagree that Trae and DJ "essentially bring the same value" to the team as Trae's offensive value is a known (massively in his favor vs DJ) but his negative defensive value on this particular team under Quin's coaching is an unknown imo.  I want to see Trae playing with Bruno and Vit and JJ and DH now that they are all playing more sound defensively.  I don't think it's a given that those players will revert to sucking defensively when Trae comes back.    

I don't know the answer but I do know max Trae especially on his 3rd contract dooms this team

[REHawksFan]

FYI...

Hawks Defensive Rating by Month:

November:  25th at 119.2 (NBA Median 114.5)

December:  27th at 122.0 (Median 116.0)

January:  25th at 119.6 (Median 115.8)

February:  24th at 118.3 (Median 115.1)

March:  22nd at 115.7 (Median 113.7)

Relative to the competition, the Hawks went from 24th in February with Trae to 22nd in March without him.  Not exactly a massive defensive improvement.

In terms of actual rating, the Hawks improved their DRtg every month from December to March.  And from February to March, they improved by 2.6 pts per 100 possessions as the entire league improved by about 1.5 pts per 100 possessions. So the Hawks actual improvement is more in line with 1.0-1.2 pts per 100 possessions which is about the same incremental improvement seen every month since December.  

This sort of calls into question any assertion that Trae is the sole reason for defensive improvement.

The picture this paints is that the team as a whole, as it grew and learned under Quin, got better defensively over the course of the season.  That's Trae included.      

Edited April 3 by REHawksFan

[AHF]

2 hours ago, Peoriabird said:

I just posted numbers...you decide

I already did and told you why I thought using a 20 game sample instead of 5 years of data didn't make sense.  Why ignore the positive numbers from Trae over several years to focus on this season alone especially when there are plenty of other variables impacting the correlative team numbers you are citing.

One thing I will note is that on/off numbers like these are highly impacted by the quality of depth and that Trae will look worse with Murray on the roster ready to step.  In contrast, Hunter will look much better with Garrison Matthews getting minutes in his absence.  

This is why team context is important to on/off in particular.  You literally have HOFers in their prime with negative on/off numbers when they have another great player to fill that spot.  I know that was the case with Phoenix where Jason Kidd had negative numbers because they had Kevin Johnson and Steve Nash behind him.  It doesn't mean that Kidd wasn't the best one of the bunch that season or that the team was better without him.  It just means that when he wasn't on the floor those guys did a great job filling in during those minutes.

[KB21]

[Peoriabird]

1 hour ago, AHF said:

I already did and told you why I thought using a 20 game sample instead of 5 years of data didn't make sense.  Why ignore the positive numbers from Trae over several years to focus on this season alone especially when there are plenty of other variables impacting the correlative team numbers you are citing.

 

Agree to disagree...How a player performed 5 years ago has no impact on how he is performing today otherwise you would be expecting 40 year old lebron to perform like prime lebron which is utterly ridiculous

[kg01]

More like 'agree to be wrong'. 

[TheNorthCydeRises]

11 hours ago, macdaddy said:

If you want to just talk wins and losses the obvious issue, pointed out numerous times, is the lack of PF depth on this team.  When JJ plays we're a .500 team.  When he doesn't we're below .500.  Regardless of whether Trae or DJ or both are available.

And even then it wasn't the lack of a PF.  It was Quin not playing his available bigs, and trusting them to be a defensive factor at the 4.

Quin loves to at least have 4 shooters on the floor.  He values offense over defense by a wide margin.

Bruno should've been getting minutes all season.  OO should've been splitting time at the 4/5, to get him comfortable at both positions.  Bey should've NEVER been inserted as a PF on this team.

[TheNorthCydeRises]

4 hours ago, Peoriabird said:

How about this...since the acquisition of another star point guard, Trae's value to the team has diminished. The team is able to perform a little bit better without him in the line up. Having said that the opposite might be true if you switch Murray and Trae. Therefore if they both essentially bring the same value which isn't additive then Murray carries more value to the Hawks by default because his salary.

 

[TheNorthCydeRises]

1 hour ago, Peoriabird said:

Agree to disagree...How a player performed 5 years ago has no impact on how he is performing today otherwise you would be expecting 40 year old lebron to perform like prime lebron which is utterly ridiculous

I actually agree.  Toss out the first 2 years of Hunter, and start from there.

[kg01]

Delayed reaction alert.  But so what?  What yall wanna do?  Talk about Denver whuppin our arses while going 3/4 speed?

Anyways ...

It still boggles my mind that folks suggested Caruso was worth multiple 1sts and no one batted an eye.

And the same folks look at Murray and think, "Meh, Hawks'll have to salary dump 'im."

Caruso's a useful player and all but that still seems ridiculous.