The Value of Shane Battier

[Rastapopoulos]

I've always said I'd rather have Shane Battier than Rudy Gay, certainly on a team that is any good. My reason was simply looking at the records of the Rockets and the Grizzlies before and after they made the swap. Now I have better reasons:

Battier’s game is a weird combination of obvious weaknesses and nearly invisible strengths. When he is on the court, his teammates get better, often a lot better, and his opponents get worse — often a lot worse. He may not grab huge numbers of rebounds, but he has an uncanny ability to improve his teammates’ rebounding. He doesn’t shoot much, but when he does, he takes only the most efficient shots. He also has a knack for getting the ball to teammates who are in a position to do the same, and he commits few turnovers. On defense, although he routinely guards the N.B.A.’s most prolific scorers, he significantly reduces their shooting percentages. At the same time he somehow improves the defensive efficiency of his teammates — probably, Morey surmises, by helping them out in all sorts of subtle ways. “I call him Lego,” Morey says. “When he’s on the court, all the pieces start to fit together. And everything that leads to winning that you can get to through intellect instead of innate ability, Shane excels in. I’ll bet he’s in the hundredth percentile of every category.”

Lego - I like that. Well, Ed, what do you say now? Now your hated intangibles are more tangible:

One well-known statistic the Rockets’ front office pays attention to is plus-minus, which simply measures what happens to the score when any given player is on the court. In its crude form, plus-minus is hardly perfect: a player who finds himself on the same team with the world’s four best basketball players, and who plays only when they do, will have a plus-minus that looks pretty good, even if it says little about his play. Morey says that he and his staff can adjust for these potential distortions — though he is coy about how they do it — and render plus-minus a useful measure of a player’s effect on a basketball game. A good player might be a plus 3 — that is, his team averages 3 points more per game than its opponent when he is on the floor. In his best season, the superstar point guard Steve Nash was a plus 14.5. At the time of the Lakers game, Battier was a plus 10, which put him in the company of Dwight Howard and Kevin Garnett, both perennial All-Stars. For his career he’s a plus 6. “Plus 6 is enormous,” Morey says. “It’s the difference between 41 wins and 60 wins.” He names a few other players who were a plus 6 last season: Vince Carter, Carmelo Anthony, Tracy McGrady.

 

[Nikolokolus]

He'd be great, but there's no way the Rockets are giving up their glue guy ... Also his age puts him a little outside the team's window of opportunity.

 

[Ed O]

Lego - I like that. Well, Ed, what do you say now? Now your hated intangibles are more tangible:

How's that working out for the Rockets? They've had one of the best big men in the NBA the last couple of seasons and they can't even procure HCA, seemingly.

It's easy to have a theory, or to pretend like you have some "special sauce" that captures intangibles... playing coy allows theories to be something that cannot be disproved.

Battier is sub-10 in PER. While PER is not perfect, especially for a defensive player like Battier, that is such a miserable total that I can't imagine Battier is doing the Rockets much good. Ben Wallace's PER is 12.6 this year, for crying out loud... 3 points higher.

Ed O.

 

[Minstrel]

Josh Childress is a similar sort of glue player who helps his team in "quiet" ways, but he's younger and thus fits better with this team's window. Childress is also more productive in the more obvious, easier-to-quantify ways, too. So, he'd be a great get for Portland in the off-season, if they can swing it.

 

[craigehlo]

Battier made sense 3 years or so ago when he was healthy. He's a now a shadow of his former self.

 

[Natebishop3]

Josh Childress is a similar sort of glue player who helps his team in "quiet" ways, but he's younger and thus fits better with this team's window. Childress is also more productive in the more obvious, easier-to-quantify ways, too. So, he'd be a great get for Portland in the off-season, if they can swing it.

Childress would definitely be a better option.

 

[Rastapopoulos]

How's that working out for the Rockets? They've had one of the best big men in the NBA the last couple of seasons and they can't even procure HCA, seemingly.

As you well know, they've also had horrendous injury issues. They had Yao before they got Battier and were much worse. And they had one of the longest winning streaks of all time last season.

It's easy to have a theory, or to pretend like you have some "special sauce" that captures intangibles... playing coy allows theories to be something that cannot be disproved.

Did you read the article?

Battier is sub-10 in PER. While PER is not perfect, especially for a defensive player like Battier, that is such a miserable total that I can't imagine Battier is doing the Rockets much good. Ben Wallace's PER is 12.6 this year, for crying out loud... 3 points higher.

Sure. Does "PER" calculate the effect you have on your teammates? Are you saying that there's no such thing?

Re: Josh Childress. I've not noticed a similar effect produced by having Childress on your team. Plus, check out the description of the way Battier processes information on opponents and acts on it. He may be a killer combination of smart, and able to apply his smarts to the game. He is getting on a bit, I will admit. But I'd love to see him tutor Batum.

 

[yinets1860]

his defense is his value

 

[Nikolokolus]

Josh Childress is a similar sort of glue player who helps his team in "quiet" ways, but he's younger and thus fits better with this team's window. Childress is also more productive in the more obvious, easier-to-quantify ways, too. So, he'd be a great get for Portland in the off-season, if they can swing it.

I've been banging that drum (quietly) for awhile too. He's one of the main reasons I'm not dead-set on seeing KP make an impact move before the deadline ... unless it's too good to pass up.

 

[Natebishop3]

I've been banging that drum (quietly) for awhile too. He's one of the main reasons I'm not dead-set on seeing KP make an impact move before the deadline ... unless it's too good to pass up.

It would be cool if we could get Childress and either Bibby or Andre Miller this summer via free agency.

 

[Karl Malone's Elbows]

It would be cool if we could get Childress and either Bibby or Andre Miller this summer via free agency.

Kind of puts the so-called need for a trade into a little perspective.



Yeah RLEC is valuable to other teams, but his contract is also VERY valuable to the Blazers. If you could sign Bibby and Childress in the offseason because you kept RLEC, it's basically like trading RLEC for Bibby and Childress. That deal seems a hell of a lot better than some of the proposed trades I've read and dreaded around here. Especially because I'd be pretty pissed if we traded RLEC and/or Webster, Outlaw, Sergio, Bayless, Blake and got back a player that wasn't significantly better than what Bibby and Childress could bring.

If we can't get Gerald Wallace or Caron Butler, without giving up Outlaw, Rudy, or Bayless, I'd rather trade Lefrentz to ourselves for '09 cap space.

 

[Natebishop3]

Kind of puts the so-called need for a trade into a little perspective.



Yeah RLEC is valuable to other teams, but his contract is also VERY valuable to the Blazers. If you could sign Bibby and Childress in the offseason because you kept RLEC, it's basically like trading RLEC for Bibby and Childress. That deal seems a hell of a lot better than some of the proposed trades I've read and dreaded around here. Especially because I'd be pretty pissed if we traded RLEC and/or Webster, Outlaw, Sergio, Bayless, Blake and got back a player that wasn't significantly better than what Bibby and Childress could bring.

If we can't get Gerald Wallace or Caron Butler, without giving up Outlaw, Rudy, or Bayless, I'd rather trade Lefrentz to ourselves for '09 cap space.

How much cap space will we actually have though? Enough to get those players? If so, maybe we do hold onto Raef.

 

[Minstrel]

How much cap space will we actually have though? Enough to get those players? If so, maybe we do hold onto Raef.

Renouncing Fyre, Raef and Diogu would get the team about $8 million under the cap. Renouncing Blake and Outlaw would each allow the team to get around $4 million more under the cap. So they could at max end up around $16 million under the cap, but that would mean no more Outlaw.

 

[Natebishop3]

Renouncing Fyre, Raef and Diogu would get the team about $8 million under the cap. Renouncing Blake and Outlaw would each allow the team to get around $4 million more under the cap. So they could at max end up around $16 million under the cap, but that would mean no more Outlaw.

I would cut all those guys if I could guarantee I was going to get Miller or Bibby and Childress.

 

[Nikolokolus]

I would cut all those guys if I could guarantee I was going to get Miller or Bibby and Childress.

I'd put Ramon Sessions name in that hat too ... He's URFA, but he'd be worth a shot.

 

[B-Roy]

Battier's value goes far far beyond his stats.

He's been injured for much of this year too btw, so that is impacting his stats.

 

[rocketeer]

How's that working out for the Rockets? They've had one of the best big men in the NBA the last couple of seasons and they can't even procure HCA, seemingly.

Ed O.

are you talking homecourt throughout or just in the first round? if it's just the first round, you simply are not correct. last year with yao missing 27 games and tmac missing 16 games, the rockets had homecourt advantage in the first round. two years ago with yao missing 34 games and tmac missing 11 games, the rockets had homecourt advantage in the first round.

the problem of course was that the rockets didn't have yao in the playoffs last year and had a yao severely limited just coming back from a broken leg two years ago.

 

[WWBRoyD]

How's that working out for the Rockets? They've had one of the best big men in the NBA the last couple of seasons and they can't even procure HCA, seemingly.

It's easy to have a theory, or to pretend like you have some "special sauce" that captures intangibles... playing coy allows theories to be something that cannot be disproved.

Battier is sub-10 in PER. While PER is not perfect, especially for a defensive player like Battier, that is such a miserable total that I can't imagine Battier is doing the Rockets much good. Ben Wallace's PER is 12.6 this year, for crying out loud... 3 points higher.

Ed O.

Battier was healthy for all of Houston's 22 game winning streak last year. 11 games of that 22 game winning streak featured either Yao or McGrady injured.

The freakin' Grizzlies made the playoffs the last 3 years Battier was on the team. They never went to the playoffs before Battier was with the Grizzlies, and they've been in the lottery since the day the Grizzlies traded Battier to the Rockets.

The Rockets won 34 games with Yao and McGrady the season before the Rockets acquired Battier. The Rockets won 52 the first season Battier joiner the Rockets. The Rockets won 55 last year.

 

[rocketeer]

The Rockets won 34 games with Yao and McGrady the season before the Rockets acquired Battier. The Rockets won 52 the first season Battier joiner the Rockets. The Rockets won 55 last year.

come on now. the season before the rockets got battier, yao and tmac combined missed 70 games. the season after they got battier, yao and tmac combined missed 45 games. last season, yao and tmac combined missed 43 games.

so unless the presence of battier had some positive effect on yao and tmac's health, i'd say you are greatly overstating battier's impact.

 

[WWBRoyD]

come on now. the season before the rockets got battier, yao and tmac combined missed 70 games. the season after they got battier, yao and tmac combined missed 45 games. last season, yao and tmac combined missed 43 games.

so unless the presence of battier had some positive effect on yao and tmac's health, i'd say you are greatly overstating battier's impact.

Considering the author of this book...

http://www.amazon.com/Moneyball-Art-Winning-Unfair-Game/dp/0393057658

...just had a multi-page article in this Sunday's New York Times Magazine

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/15/magazine/15Battier-t.html?_r=1&ref=magazine&pagewanted=all

...all about how just underrated Shane Battier is, I'd say I'd say I'm dead on perfect.

 

[rocketeer]

Considering the author of this book...

http://www.amazon.com/Moneyball-Art-Winning-Unfair-Game/dp/0393057658

...just had a multi-page article in this Sunday's New York Times Magazine

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/15/magazine/15Battier-t.html?_r=1&ref=magazine&pagewanted=all

...all about how just underrated Shane Battier is, I'd say I'd say I'm dead on perfect.

yao and tmac combine to play 25 more games the next year and you attribute the rockets better season entirely to shane battier's presence.

i guess you can call that dead on perfect if you want.

 

[SodaPopinski]

Somewhat OT: Article on Shane Battier / moneyball approach

This is actually a pretty fascinating piece. From Sunday's New York Times Magazine.

It's long, but worth the read if you've got the time.

Here's a snippet:

One well-known statistic the Rockets’ front office pays attention to is plus-minus, which simply measures what happens to the score when any given player is on the court. In its crude form, plus-minus is hardly perfect: a player who finds himself on the same team with the world’s four best basketball players, and who plays only when they do, will have a plus-minus that looks pretty good, even if it says little about his play. Morey says that he and his staff can adjust for these potential distortions — though he is coy about how they do it — and render plus-minus a useful measure of a player’s effect on a basketball game. A good player might be a plus 3 — that is, his team averages 3 points more per game than its opponent when he is on the floor. In his best season, the superstar point guard Steve Nash was a plus 14.5. At the time of the Lakers game, Battier was a plus 10, which put him in the company of Dwight Howard and Kevin Garnett, both perennial All-Stars. For his career he’s a plus 6. “Plus 6 is enormous,” Morey says. “It’s the difference between 41 wins and 60 wins.” He names a few other players who were a plus 6 last season: Vince Carter, Carmelo Anthony, Tracy McGrady.

I think it's "somewhat OT" because I think this mirrors KP's approach to building a team.

I also happen to think Battier would be a perfect fit here, but I can't see Houston parting with him.

-Pop

 

[maxiep]

Re: Somewhat OT: Article on Shane Battier / moneyball approach

I read that thing a few days ago. It was one of the best articles I've read on hoops in months.

My conclusion from that piece is that the complete opposite of Shane Battier is Travis Outlaw.

 

[BoBoBREWSKI]

Re: Somewhat OT: Article on Shane Battier / moneyball approach

http://sportstwo.com/forums/showthread.php/ot-battier-no-stats-all-135182.html

 

[SodaPopinski]

Re: Somewhat OT: Article on Shane Battier / moneyball approach

http://sportstwo.com/forums/showthread.php/ot-battier-no-stats-all-135182.html

Shit ... that's twice for me in one day.

This trade deadline is messing with my brain!

-Pop

 

[BoBoBREWSKI]

Re: Somewhat OT: Article on Shane Battier / moneyball approach

Shit ... that's twice for me in one day.

This trade deadline is messing with my brain!

-Pop

Your a Duck fan, its expected.