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maxiep

maxiep

RIP Dr. Jack
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Who finishes the game (if it's close) is a greater indication as to the value of the player than who starts the game?

I think the above statement is true. I bring this up because a couple of our players have grumbled about starting. I don't think it matters.

What do you all think?

Edit: Can a mod please move this thread from the OT Forum to the Blazer Forum?
 
To be honest it is relative. For instance there could an instance late in the game when you want as many three point shooters in as possible but they might not be your best players, or you could want a lock down defender even though for his position he is not your best player but he matches up well with the team you are playing.

But in general I agree that those that finish close games are better or at least more experienced, than those that start them. No calling a timeout when we don't have one. :lol:
 
It depends entirely on the judgement of the coach, therefore meaningless.
 
MARIS61 said:
It depends entirely on the judgement of the coach, therefore meaningless.
Click to expand...

Are you implying that the judgment of an NBA coach bears no relation to his player's value?
 
True.

Many teams do not start their best five players, because there is value in having number 3, 4 or 5 come off the bench and provide scoring for the second unit. At the end of the game, there is no "unit" consideration, you just want the best five out there to get the win.

Having said that, I think this model fits more with Nate's philosophy than some other coaches.
 
I agree completely. I've always found it a little silly how much players focus on starting.
 
Starters are involved in blowouts both ways, while players that finish close games are only more involved in close games.

A bad player will drag his team into more close games that would have been big wins or blowouts than would have been closer losses.

Personally, if I had to choose between a superior player starting or a superior player finishing, I'd take starting because it puts the better player on the court every game when it matters, rather than just occasionally.

Ed O.
 
I think minutes per game is the ultimate market indicator of the coach's evaluation of player value, not starting or finishing. Minutes in a game is the most precious commodity a team has that the coach can control. How he apportions them says by far the most about who he thinks aids winning the most. You play your best players the most.

Webster starts. Outlaw finishes. Webster plays slightly more minutes per game, but they're very close. This tells me that McMillan is slightly more comfortable with Webster, but doesn't see major separation between them.

That brings up another issue: sliding scales. Focusing on starting or finishing would say either he likes Webster more or that he likes Outlaw more, but with no sense of how much more. Looking at minutes per game, you can tell how much more. 40 minutes versus 10 minutes? He likes one player far, far more. 35 minutes versus 33 minutes? He likes one player only a bit more.
 
I'm with minstrel on this one, minutes matter most of all. That said, "games started" is a common stat and generally reflective of a team's best players. How often is it that the "finishers" and "starters" are not one and the same?

Ginobili has been a recent example, but that's the exception rather than the norm.
 
I'll go with overall minutes being the best indicator of "worth" to the team; I'm sure there are going to be night's where a certain guy is thrown into the "finishers" group with Brandon, LaMarcus, and Greg that has more to do with matchups than anything.

btw Maris, Nate thinks you're going to be waived this year.
 
So last year Steve Blake was third most valuable player on the team, after Roy and LMA?

And Jack was more valuable than Outlaw, Przybilla and Jones?
 
Reep said:
So last year Steve Blake was third most valuable player on the team, after Roy and LMA?

And Jack was more valuable than Outlaw, Przybilla and Jones?
Click to expand...

In terms of who Nate McMillan felt was most valuable to winning games that season? Yes, I'd say so. Why else would he play them those minutes?

Minutes per game is not how to measure who I consider most valuable, because I don't set minutes. But I think the fact that Blake got the third-most minutes illustrates how McMillan thought about Blake. Webster, Jack and Outlaw played almost identical minutes and I don't think it's at all unreasonable that McMillan felt they were largely similar in value.
 
I'll toss a tangent in to what Minstrel is talking about. I believe this is a part of the job that Nate does a poor job at and I believe the front office recognizes it. To the point that if Jack had offered to play for the league minimum this season, KP would have told him no thanks.
 
Reep said:
So last year Steve Blake was third most valuable player on the team, after Roy and LMA?

And Jack was more valuable than Outlaw, Przybilla and Jones?
Click to expand...

It's really only true by position, or perhaps by G, F, C...

one can't compare Blake's minutes to a big man to establish relative worth...
 
Magnum said:
It's really only true by position, or perhaps by G, F, C...

one can't compare Blake's minutes to a big man to establish relative worth...
Click to expand...

I think you can, actually. A worse guard will find more of his minutes poached away by other players (at his position) while a better center will get less of his minutes poached away, even though the guard and center aren't directly competing for minutes. So while it is not 100% exact, I think it is still largely accurate even across positions.

The other issue one could raise is that a player could be more "blocked" at his position. If you have Chris Paul and Deron Williams at point guard, but only Chris Kaman at center, Kaman may end up with more minutes than either Paul or Williams. But again, that actually does still speak to value...to the team. If you have two good/great players at a single position, it saps the value of each player to the team, due to overlap. An objectively worse player who's your only option at a position could have greater relative value. In that above hypothetical, if you had to lose any one of the three players to injury, who's loss would hurt the most? I'd say Kaman's. Losing either Paul or Williams still leaves you with a great option at point guard. Losing Kaman leaves you with no real option at center.

So, minutes per game isn't a good way to determine objective value of a player, but I think it definitely is a very strong measure of (the coach's conception of) the players with the most relative value to the team's chances of success.
 
cpawfan said:
I'll toss a tangent in to what Minstrel is talking about. I believe this is a part of the job that Nate does a poor job at and I believe the front office recognizes it. To the point that if Jack had offered to play for the league minimum this season, KP would have told him no thanks.
Click to expand...

In light of who we have coming in as rookies, yes.

I know most people didn't care for Jack, but as Nate and KP both said last year, if Brandon was out (or tired), Jack was the only other guy on the team who could drive to the basket and draw contact. Last year, Jack had a lot of value because of that (more than his minutes dictated). This year (hopefully) we have Rudy and Bayless who can both draw such contact, without some of the liabilities that Jack had (passing the ball to nobody or inadvertently stepping out of bounds with the ball).

I guess what I'm saying is there really isn't a single "worth" indicator. Minutes is part of it, finishing is part of it, being trusted in critical parts of tight games is also part (no metric for that one).

In baseball, who is more valuable, the starting pitcher or the closer? It really depends on the game.

Minstrel said:
The other issue one could raise is that a player could be more "blocked" at his position. If you have Chris Paul and Deron Williams at point guard, but only Chris Kaman at center, Kaman may end up with more minutes than either Paul or Williams. But again, that actually does still speak to value...to the team. If you have two good/great players at a single position, it saps the value of each player to the team, due to overlap. An objectively worse player who's your only option at a position could have greater relative value. In that above hypothetical, if you had to lose any one of the three players to injury, who's loss would hurt the most? I'd say Kaman's. Losing either Paul or Williams still leaves you with a great option at point guard. Losing Kaman leaves you with no real option at center.
Click to expand...

I agree with the first half. It's hard to imagine Paul or Williams not having more value than Kaman under any kind of measurement.
 
Last edited:
Reep said:
In light of who we have coming in as rookies, yes.

I know most people didn't care for Jack, but as Nate and KP both said last year, if Brandon was out (or tired), Jack was the only other guy on the team who could drive to the basket and draw contact. Last year, Jack had a lot of value because of that (more than his minutes dictated). This year (hopefully) we have Rudy and Bayless who can both draw such contact, without some of the liabilities that Jack had (passing the ball to nobody or inadvertently stepping out of bounds with the ball).

I guess what I'm saying is there really isn't a single "worth" indicator. Minutes is part of it, finishing is part of it, being trusted in critical parts of tight games is also part (no metric for that one).

In baseball, who is more valuable, the starting pitcher or the closer? It really depends on the game.
Click to expand...

How does one drive to the basket and draw contact when they are dribbling the ball off their foot and out of bounds?
 
cpawfan said:
How does one drive to the basket and draw contact when they are dribbling the ball off their foot and out of bounds?
Click to expand...

Well, with Jack it was kind of a binary thing. He was either on, or he was off. There wasn't much in the middle.

I liked Jack's effort a lot, but I really can't remember ever seeing a player commit as many unforced errors as he did.
 
maxiep said:
Who finishes the game (if it's close) is a greater indication as to the value of the player than who starts the game?

I think the above statement is true. I bring this up because a couple of our players have grumbled about starting. I don't think it matters.

What do you all think?

Edit: Can a mod please move this thread from the OT Forum to the Blazer Forum?
Click to expand...

Done. :)
 
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