Comments on: Ben Gordon and the Bulls?

By: Money Market Account

Money Market Account — Wed, 13 Oct 2010 21:26:26 +0000

team building is always needed wether you are in a corporate world or just want to promote more synergy in a group,.”

By: Skye Hussain

Skye Hussain — Sun, 04 Jul 2010 17:22:14 +0000

Team building is really necessary for a very successful implementation of business plans.*~-

By: Crow

Crow — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 21:18:49 +0000

Oh and thanks for the Gordon follow-up.

The Wallace-Smith issue and related issues come out of the ESPN talk and making comments and raising questions about that here appeared to be the best place to put them, until it gets its own thread.

By: Crow

Crow — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 19:41:33 +0000

If position matters for Antonine Wright so dramatically between SG and SF then the molds aren’t entirely stupid. Sometimes they matter, sometimes they don’t. They certainly matter on defense, who you mostly guard. On offense there is leeway but often coaches have roles for guys and roles in part based on who is guarding them.

If the offensive guys called the 4 and 5 are equally capable great but if their opponents are different then how you use your guys in a called play might vary in some cases.

By: Crow

Crow — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 19:37:26 +0000

Reviewing the data at popcornmachine.net I only see 4 quarters in 6 games where Howard scored big against Wallace. Now it is about everything but unless you have Adjusted +/- on Wallace for just that series and report the error we don’t know how much of that 57 point loss in 58 minutes should be assigned to Wallace. Even roughly. Maybe it is a lot. I don’t know from the raw data.

By: Crow

Crow — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 18:50:49 +0000

Unless you blend the two approaches by sliding Varejao over to mostly or exclusively center. I thought they had used him there without checking but it looks like it was a lot of time at PF at least in that series.

By: Crow

Crow — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 18:49:28 +0000

Wallace was used as a backup center against mostly Howard, actually. Position does matter. Did Smith ever guard Howard? Might it have been even worse than Wallace trying? I’m asking, not sure. Smith might have been better in the series for his time mainly or exclusively at PF but unless he would have been better against Howard then the choice was Wallace or the options I described.

By: Crow

Crow — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 18:37:19 +0000

Cleveland also had several bigs that they carried on the roster part or all of the season, presumably to possibly help with situation like this, and never tried even a minute against Orlando. If they were the wrong guys then there should have been a different roster move to help cover this situation.

By: Crow

Crow — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 18:34:20 +0000

Looking a little closer I see Varejao didn’t have much foul room left at the end of the games but you could have tried to squeeze a little more out or have him play a little more careful. Z could have played big Z a bit more too and that would have allowed Varejao more time at PF. Sliding James over would have required using Sasha more. I’d have done the first two things and maybe the third. Probably would have been better than what happened, I agree there.

By: Crow

Crow — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 18:23:09 +0000

But I’d be interested in seeing your Smith vs Wallace Adjusted numbers regular season and if you have them for the playoffs or even by the last series itself.

And any reaction to a weighted blend based on similarity of opponent system as a step beyond just using the direct match-up data. It would increase the sample size a good deal. And perhaps lower errors, depending on how good your similarity system modeled the reality.