Forum Game Dame: your favorite theory

[Bingo Bango]

Forgot "gives Dame a chance to show his true character" as one of the options:

https://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id...-look-struggles-chance-show-my-true-character

Interesting that he says he is healthy and injury-free. There goes that theory.

 

[Fairly-Hard]

6 games in. Jesus. I hate this fan base some times.

Don’t hate on the Fan just the Fan Base
Fams!

 

[e_blazer]

The Wilson ball.

Recall Dame uses his fingertips more than others on his jumpshot

The Wilson doesn't seem to bothering Seth Curry's shot. Anyone besides me thinking last night about Curry at $8M vs. CJ at $31M ?

 

[royo]

As a shooter myself, I am having hard times with some oranges. If it doesn't stick enough to my hand, I shoot like shit.
I am not saying it is this, but...
What ball they had on Olimpics?

And btw, Wilson is much better for me. I hate playing with Spalding.

 

[wizenheimer]

Could be a combination of some things but if I had to pick one, I'd say the most likely is just random variance. Dame is 45 of 129 shooting this year and 15 for 65 from three. He's done that or worse 148 times and 41 times respectively in his career. A few more games like this though and it will get hard to attribute to variance.

I have a homegrown application that downloads play-by-play data from the NBA stats API. I have every regular season game event going back to 2010. Then I have to write a custom query or program to answer a given question.

interesting

so then, if I assume when you say "he's done that or worse 148 times", it's a rolling search...? what I mean is that several of those 148 times can occur in one stretch of bad shooting? Or, put another way, if Dame had a 15 game slump in the past, a couple of dozen of the 148 instances during that 15 game stretch would match this 7 game stretch...?

 

[wizenheimer]

Remember, in the long run we're all dead.

I hope it's longer for me

 

[blazerkor]

As a shooter myself, I am having hard times with some oranges. If it doesn't stick enough to my hand, I shoot like shit.
I am not saying it is this, but...
What ball they had on Olimpics?

And btw, Wilson is much better for me. I hate playing with Spalding.

They had an ultra sticky rubberized ball in the Olympics that they use for all FIBA competition, the difference between the Wilson and Spalding balls is negligible by comparison. I think Dame is in a shooters slump, I do think it's possible that it could be taking longer to get out of because his focus is split between the new systems and getting out of the slump but he'll get out of it and I'm sure he'll do it soon.

 

[Mediocre Man]

I voted 1, 2, 3

 

[1 Eye Jack]

Olympic hangover…. Long season is even longer and for a guy who plays as minutes as he did during last season think he could have used the rest.

 

[bobf]

interesting

so then, if I assume when you say "he's done that or worse 148 times", it's a rolling search...? what I mean is that several of those 148 times can occur in one stretch of bad shooting? Or, put another way, if Dame had a 15 game slump in the past, a couple of dozen of the 148 instances during that 15 game stretch would match this 7 game stretch...?

Correct, it's a rolling search. So once he's had a bad stretch the next "step" is much more likely to be bad as well. So the stretches are correlated but the expected number of bad stretches is not biased.

 

[royo]

They had an ultra sticky rubberized ball in the Olympics that they use for all FIBA competition, the difference between the Wilson and Spalding balls is negligible by comparison. I think Dame is in a shooters slump, I do think it's possible that it could be taking longer to get out of because his focus is split between the new systems and getting out of the slump but he'll get out of it and I'm sure he'll do it soon.

Wilson seems to stick more, idk. Every Spalding I had in my hands was awkward for me.

 

[wizenheimer]

I voted 1, 2, 3

#3 doesn't make much sense to me because if Dame couldn't adjust to moving the ball he would not have, by far, the highest Assist Rate, assist/36, and assist/possession rate of his career. And all that while having his lowest usage rate since 2014

from last season --> this season:

* assist rate: 34.6% --> 38.3%
* assist/100-possessions: 10.3 --> 12.3
* assist/36: 7.6 --> 9.3
* usage rate: 31.4% --> 29.0%

his assisted FG (24.4%) rate is a little lower than last season and 2018-19, but higher than 2019-20. So it's not like he was used to the team offense creating more than half of looks. He still has to create for teammates (which he's done a great job at), and himself (which he's struggling with)

 

[Mediocre Man]

#3 doesn't make much sense to me because if Dame couldn't adjust to moving the ball he would not have, by far, the highest Assist Rate, assist/36, and assist/possession rate of his career. And all that while having his lowest usage rate since 2014

from last season --> this season:

* assist rate: 34.6% --> 38.3%
* assist/100-possessions: 10.3 --> 12.3
* assist/36: 7.6 --> 9.3
* usage rate: 31.4% --> 29.0%

his assisted FG (24.4%) rate is a little lower than last season and 2018-19, but higher than 2019-20. So it's not like he was used to the team offense creating more than half of looks. He still has to create for teammates (which he's done a great job at), and himself (which he's struggling with)

I just meant a different offense can take time to adjust

 

[Orion Bailey]

Focused more on his new rap album and not the basketball season.

 

[Hoopguru]

I just meant a different offense can take time to adjust

Seems he's not holding onto the ball as much as he usually does, looking for pr or shots. IMO, he's trying to execute Billups offense where he looking for Nurk rolling or swinging the ball. Evidence that he's getting rid of ball quicker is he's not pulling up taking 35 footers like he usually does to test the waters.

 

[1 Eye Jack]

Did it get mentioned the NBA is using a new ball

 

[wizenheimer]

I just meant a different offense can take time to adjust

sure

I'm saying the offense doesn't look that different to me. It's true that Dame's average seconds/touch and dribbles/touch have dropped; but not by a lot. His percentage of plays that are PnR ball handler has dropped from 46% to 42%. That might have a little impact

his slump might actually be due to an almost perfect storm of new factors: new coach; new offense; different basketball; new foul rules; much shorter off-season; more pressure on himself because of his off-season noise about the roster. All this may have torpedoed his efficiency

 

[Bingo Bango]

6 games in. Jesus. I hate this fan base some times.

Yes, but there have never been six games to start the season like this from Lillard.

 

[Rastapopoulos]

Best basketball I've ever used:

 

[Orion Bailey]

Best basketball I've ever used:
View attachment 41589

 

[wizenheimer]

Best basketball I've ever used:
View attachment 41589

but...you used it as a substitute soccer ball...weirdo

 

[Rastapopoulos]

but...you used it as a substitute soccer ball...weirdo

If you tried to head that you'd get a concussion.

 

[Orion Bailey]

If you tried to head that you'd get a concussion.

but thats what i told her last night…
And i was wrong…

 

[BonesJones]

You can tell how much someone has played the sport by how much they overexagerate or overreact to a shooting slump.

 

[BonesJones]

He's having a hard time playing off the ball

Isn't there another thread about this? Do we really need another?

We've literally had stagnant, iso/PnR oriented offense the last 3 games. Looked exactly like Stotts' crappy offense, so this isn't it.

 

[Chris Craig]

We've literally had stagnant, iso/PnR oriented offense the last 3 games. Looked exactly like Stotts' crappy offense, so this isn't it.

Bad habits die hard. CJ wants to do his own thing. Dame is trying to figure his shot out, but the opponent defense is faster on getting around screens than the Blazers are at setting them.

ROCO is a spot up three point shooter and hardly if ever attacks the rim. Nurkic is as soft as melted butter, Powell is getting better, but the offense is set to spread shots, which isn't necessarily a bad thing because it in theory gets everyone involved, but it takes Dame out if it.

The bench is propping the Blazers starters up and that's not something I'd ever thought I'd say.

 

[wizenheimer]

Bad habits die hard. CJ wants to do his own thing. Dame is trying to figure his shot out, but the opponent defense is faster on getting around screens than the Blazers are at setting them..

it also doesn't help to have a 6'7 PF and a 6'3 SF as screen setters. Need mass for good screens and the Blazers only have 2 players with good mass, and those two players never play at the same time

 

[FlashWad]

I actually think the ball is part of it. But he was also playing badly in the olypmics.

 

[Strenuus]

Focused more on his new rap album and not the basketball season.

Dumbest argument.

 

[Orion Bailey]

Dumbest argument.

I forgot green font