Coincidence?

[Schilly]

Over the last 8 games the Blazers are 4-4....

Those 8 games coincide exactly with when Thomas Robinson was benched in favor of Meyers Leonard....

Interesting.

 

[SpamKing]

I think the 8-game record coincides with the player's acceptance of the recent media position regarding the Blazer's credibility . . .

 

[Wizard Mentor]

In games he's played 10 or more minutes we're 4-3. Take out the 2 blowouts we're 2-3.

Not a fan but I don't think he plays enough to blame him. In fact the stats suggest Mo Williams is the problem.

 

[Boob-No-More]

Well, both players played about equally in the MIN loss. Robinson played 4 minutes and was -14 and Leonard played 5 minutes and was +6. So, hard to blame that one on Leonard. In the other games we are 4-3. The three losses were by 1 point, 2 points and 2 points. Since Leonard wasn't in when those games were on the line, I have a hard time pinning those losses on him. The team failed to execute when those games were on the line and Leonard was on the bench.

I know a lot of people here don't like Leonard and will look for any reason to hate on him, but frankly he's been outproducing Robinson. The stats show it and his coaches recognize it. Do you honestly think Terry Stotts would keep playing Leonard his 5 - 10 MPG if he thought it was costing the team wins?

82games.com just updated their database and it shows that Leonard's net on court/off court is -0.8. So, he's not really helping us, but considering how weak our second unit is, he's not hurting us all that much either. BTW, Thomas Robinson's net on court/off court is -17.8. It seems like we were winning in spite of Thomas Robinson, not because of him. Usual small sample size caveat applies.

BNM

 

[BlazerWookee]

Indeed... (/Wuntvor voice)

 

[LillardKing]

Has nothing to do with it.

 

[ripcityboy]

Over the last 8 games the Blazers are 4-4....

Those 8 games coincide exactly with when Thomas Robinson was benched in favor of Meyers Leonard....

Interesting.

Or .... it could be that we are going through a tough spot in the schedule and can't win all the time?

 

[Boob-No-More]

BTW, the updated stats at 82games.com still show what we all see with our eyes, we have great starters, even better than last year, but our bench is still a big weakness, but not as bad as last year. Here's the net on court/off court stats for our five starters and top five bench players:

Net On Court/Off Court (through January 5):

Starters:
Aldridge +11.0
Batum +10.1
Lillard +8.3
Matthews +4.4
Lopez +4.4

Top Bench Players:
Williams - 7.3
Freeland -4.7
Wright - 7.9
Robinson -17.8
Leonard -0.8

BNM

 

[BrianFromWA]

Robinson has a bad net in 300 minutes. Leonard's in 118.

Williams' and Wright's are in about 1300 combined minutes.

 

[Boob-No-More]

Robinson has a bad net in 300 minutes. Leonard's in 118.

Williams' and Wright's are in about 1300 combined minutes.

Yep, hence the small sample size caveat in my first post. But it is telling that all our top bench players have negative net on court/off court and all our starters are significantly positive in this regard.

BNM

 

[BrianFromWA]

I wasn't really talking sample size--more that all of this "Leonard sux" and "Robinson hurts us" kind of ignore that our top two guys are blowing goats. You have proof.

 

[BBert]

Over the last 8 games the Blazers are 4-4....

Those 8 games coincide exactly with when Thomas Robinson was benched in favor of Meyers Leonard....

Interesting.

Coincidence? Yes.

 

[Boob-No-More]

I wasn't really talking sample size--more that all of this "Leonard sux" and "Robinson hurts us" kind of ignore that our top two guys are blowing goats. You have proof.

I wish 82games.com updated their stats more often. I don't know of any other sites that have this same data.

BNM

 

[TripTango]

It seems to me that starter vs. bench on/off stats are somewhat conflated. Improving your starters will always reduce the net on/off stats of the bench, no matter how good that bench is, since substitutions will always be a downgrade. Likewise, consistently being subbed out for a horrible bench player will artificially magnify a starter's on/off value, making them look better, perhaps, than they are. Hypothetically, if we had two Aldridges, subbed them for each other, and played them equally with no other patterns (i.e. they each played with all the other players equally), they would both have net on/off stats of 0, since it wouldn't make any difference at all which one we put in at any given time. (Obviously this would be nuts. Who wouldn't play two Aldridges at the same time??) This means that (like with +/- or any other team performance stat) you have to look at the whole picture with net on/off. Who are they replacing when they go in? Who replaces them when they come out? Who else is typically playing with them at the same time? These questions contribute as much to player's on/off stat as their actual skill does.

 

[Boob-No-More]

It seems to me that starter vs. bench on/off stats are somewhat conflated. Improving your starters will always reduce the net on/off stats of the bench, no matter how good that bench is, since substitutions will always be a downgrade. Likewise, consistently being subbed out for a horrible bench player will artificially magnify a starter's on/off value, making them look better, perhaps, than they are. Hypothetically, if we had two Aldridges, subbed them for each other, and played them equally with no other patterns (i.e. they each played with all the other players equally), they would both have net on/off stats of 0, since it wouldn't make any difference at all which one we put in at any given time. (Obviously this would be nuts. Who wouldn't play two Aldridges at the same time??) This means that (like with +/- or any other team performance stat) you have to look at the whole picture with net on/off. Who are they replacing when they go in? Who replaces them when they come out? Who else is typically playing with them at the same time? These questions contribute as much to player's on/off stat as their actual skill does.

You seem to be misunderstanding the net on court/off court stats. Perhaps you're confusing it with wins above replacement value. It's not a comparison of how player A does vs. his replacement player B. It's how does the team perform when player A is on the court vs. how does the team perform when player B is on the court. So, it's largely how do our starters perform compared to our opponents' starters and how does our bench perform compared to our opponents' benches. Of course, it's not quite that simple as we don't do line changes in the NBA like they do in the NHL. So, there is some overlap between starters playing with and against bench players, and vise versa, but for the most part starters play the bulk of the minutes and are all in at the beginning and usually the end, of most games.

BNM

 

[MARIS61]

Meyers Leonard is the bee's knees, the best man on our bench.

 

[EL PRESIDENTE]

wasn't broke. shouldn't have fixed it. :MARIS61:

 

[e_blazer]

Unless you have a good theory as to how Robinson playing 10 minutes or so instead of Leonard in the last game somehow makes the starters able to hit the broad side of a barn, I'm going with coincidence.

 

[Hobbesarable]

Over the last 8 games the Blazers are 4-4....

Those 8 games coincide exactly with when Thomas Robinson was benched in favor of Meyers Leonard....

Interesting.

Hey, it's Bob Ross!

Hopefully there's a reason for having "Mostly Lost on D" Meyers Leonard on the floor.

 

[RoyToy]

Both a pretty mediocre as predicted. Who cares.

Hope Leonard plays well so the Blazers have a chip to trade at the deadline.

 

[illmatic99]

What's his +/- rating in that stretch?

 

[BBert]

Unless you have a good theory as to how Robinson playing 10 minutes or so instead of Leonard in the last game somehow makes the starters able to hit the broad side of a barn, I'm going with coincidence.

This. What was our starters combined three point shooting last game? Meyers has had zero to do with the poor performance of our starters, or other bench players for that matter. He's been rebounding like a fiend and even scoring fairly efficiently.

 

[EL PRESIDENTE]

It's the reverse Ewing theory

hoop fam

 

[TripTango]

You seem to be misunderstanding the net on court/off court stats. Perhaps you're confusing it with wins above replacement value. It's not a comparison of how player A does vs. his replacement player B. It's how does the team perform when player A is on the court vs. how does the team perform when player B is on the court. So, it's largely how do our starters perform compared to our opponents' starters and how does our bench perform compared to our opponents' benches. Of course, it's not quite that simple as we don't do line changes in the NBA like they do in the NHL. So, there is some overlap between starters playing with and against bench players, and vise versa, but for the most part starters play the bulk of the minutes and are all in at the beginning and usually the end, of most games.

BNM

I'm not following your example. Who is player B?

My understanding of "net on/off" is that it represents the difference between team performance when a player is on the court vs. team performance when that same player is on the bench. If this is true, it is implicitly comparing that player to whoever replaces him. If this is not correct, I'd love to hear exactly why, with links if possible.

 

[Mediocre Man]

Team loses with Leonar_ more than it did with Robinson. Easy winnable games too

 

[OneLifeToLive]

Maybe we were winning too much?

 

[Boob-No-More]

I'm not following your example. Who is player B?

My understanding of "net on/off" is that it represents the difference between team performance when a player is on the court vs. team performance when that same player is on the bench. If this is true, it is implicitly comparing that player to whoever replaces him. If this is not correct, I'd love to hear exactly why, with links if possible.

It's not that simple. The same player doesn't always come in for the player going to the bench. Often times a guard will come in for a front court player, when going with a smaller line-up. For example, Mo Williams may come in for Robin Lopez and Aldridge slides over to center and we go with a 3-guard line-up. Plus, there are many more variables. As net on court/off court is a measure of team performance when a specific player in on the floor vs. on the bench, it is also influenced by which teammates, and which opponents, are on the court with him. That's why a large sample size is required to base any conclusions on this data.

What the data does shows, is that our starters consistently outscore their opponents, and our bench consistently gets outscored when they are on the court. This isn't always the case. We happen to have a very good starting five and a very weak bench. The opposite is true of the Lakers. Their starters get consistently outscored, but their bench fares far better. They have had to juggle line-ups due to injuries, but if you look at the five players that have started the most games for them (Gasol, Meeks, Blake, Johnson and Hill) they all have significantly negative net on court/off court numbers (between -3.6 and -10.3), but their primary bench players all have positive net on court/off court. Such a clear delineation between starters and bench players is unusual. Most teams have a mixture of positive and negative net on court/off court numbers for both their starters and bench players. It's rare for a team to have all five starters be above average. On most teams, there are usually one or two below average starters and many teams have a super sub sixth man who comes in a lights it up off the bench and has a resulting positive net on court/off court.

I'm not sure if that helped, all I was really trying to point out that the net on court/off court results for our roster are in sync with what we see on the court - we have an excellent starting five, one of the best in the league, but a very weak, below average bench.

BNM

 

[Draco]

BTW, the updated stats at 82games.com still show what we all see with our eyes, we have great starters, even better than last year, but our bench is still a big weakness, but not as bad as last year. Here's the net on court/off court stats for our five starters and top five bench players:

Net On Court/Off Court (through January 5):

Starters:
Aldridge +11.0
Batum +10.1
Lillard +8.3
Matthews +4.4
Lopez +4.4

Top Bench Players:
Williams - 7.3
Freeland -4.7
Wright - 7.9
Robinson -17.8
Leonard -0.8

The best +/- 5 man unit has actually been Mo along with all our starters and Lillard on the bench. Should we have Lillard come off the bench?

Obviously we have a great starting unit, the problem with looking at +/- stats for each player is they are highly dependent on 9 other players on the court. Mo has played the majority of the year with Wright and TRob on the floor and those groups are really struggling. Is it Mo or is it some of the other bench players he's paired with?

 

[blue9]

Maybe we were winning too much?

Things have a way of evening out. Our hot shooting was never something that could be sustained night-in and night-out. Since we don't have any other offensive plan, we're going to lose games when we aren't hitting our jumpers.
Honeymoon phase is now clearly over. Recommence with trade proposals.

 

[BrianFromWA]

Of Mo's 800+ minutes, 212 are with Wright and Robinson (or Leonard), but only 32 of those 212 are also without Lillard.

Of the 6 worst lineups (by win% and efficiency +/-), the Wright/Mo combo comprises the 6 worst. However, they're also part of the best (22 min of Lillard-Williams-Wright-Leonard-Lopez).

http://www.82games.com/1314/1314POR2.HTM