# Too Much Ball Movement.



## Rashidi (Oct 2, 2003)

Marbury: 8 assists, 5 turnovers
Rest of Team: 7 assists, 11 turnovers

Kidd: 3 assists, 1 turnover
Rest of Team: 17 assists, 11 turnovers

Suns w/Kidd (00-01)
Robinson: 2.9 apg
Rogers: 2.0 apg
Marion: 2.0 apg
Delk: 2.0 apg
Kidd: 9.8 apg

Suns w/Marbury (02-03)
Voskuhl: 0.6 apg
Amare: 1.0 apg
Marion: 2.4 apg
Hardaway: 4.1 apg
Marbury: 8.1 apg

Nets w/Kidd (02-03)
Collins: 1.1 apg
Martin: 2.4 apg
Jefferson: 2.5 apg
Kittles: 2.6 apg
Kidd: 8.9 apg

Knicks w/Marbury (04-05)
Freeway: 0.4 apg
Kurt: 1.7 apg
Tim: 1.1 apg
Crawford: 3.7 apg
Marbury: 8.6 apg (39 mpg)

Nets w/Kidd (04-05)
Krstic: 0.7 apg
Collins: 0.8 apg
Jefferson: 4.1 apg
Carter: 3.3 apg
Kidd: 6.0 apg (28 mpg)

I think people need to accept that Marbury's assists come via hogging, ala Kobe, Iverson, etc. They don't come from being a free wheeling distributor like other high assist PGs (Kidd, Nash, J-Will, etc). Kobe averages 7 assists. The team averages 19 assists (on 98 ppg). Their opponents average 23 assists. Marbury averages 8 assists and the Knicks average 20 (on 97 ppg). The Nets average 18.5 (on 86 ppg).

Basically it comes down to this. Marbury doesn't promote ball movement. The next time he calls himself the best PG, he should write that onto his checklist. I wonder if he will make the same boast when the Knicks play the REAL best PG in the league right now.

Suns w/Nash (04-05)
Amare: 1.4 apg
Marion: 2.3 apg
Richardson: 1.9 apg
Johnson: 3.2 apg
Nash: 10.9 apg

The best PG does not score 30 points three nights in a row. That's not a PG. That's Jamal Crawford.


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## son of oakley (Dec 24, 2003)

I honestly don't know what to make of your presentation. Do the numbers you show even support your case? The PG who has another player to get more than 3-3.5 assists per game is always Marbury. And a guy like Marion has more with Marbury than Kidd. So what does it all mean?

I'm not trying to be difficult. last year I said kidd was the best PG and this year I say it's Nash. I just don't know that it's for the reasons you suggest, and/or that your evidence supports your case. Care to elaborate?

I'd also not that there are only a couple of Kidd's and Nash's in the league. While it's great to have one it doesn't mean your ship is sunk if you don't. The best PG in recent history was Stockton and I don't think he'd generate a lot more team assists if on those teams Marbury had. And "ball hog" guys like Payton, Iverson, Kobe, et al have met or exceeded the success of Kidd and Nash.

Maybe you need to rethink your premise?


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## JT (Mar 1, 2004)

*run!*

i've said it, and i keep saying it. marbury needs to speed the game up.


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## Yao Mania (Aug 4, 2003)

*Re: run!*



> Originally posted by <b>sherako</b>!
> i've said it, and i keep saying it. marbury needs to speed the game up.


heck, everyone else does too. How many guys do you see run up the floor after someone grabs a rebound? Jama; needs to come back ASAP...


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## MizzStoudemire (Jan 1, 2005)

Don't worry about them Marbury obessed fans, you have a point and you backed it up.


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## The True Essence (May 26, 2003)

steph would be a great guard if he could run the break effectively. hes the best half court guard to me, but on the break hes horrible. Has he thrown an alley oop pass in the last 2 years?


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## Rashidi (Oct 2, 2003)

> Has he thrown an alley oop pass in the last 2 years?


Let it be known that throwing an alley to yourself does not count as an alley oop.


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## Rashidi (Oct 2, 2003)

The last time I saw Steph start a fast break, Keith Van Horn was on the recieving end.


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## MizzStoudemire (Jan 1, 2005)

Hey Rashidi man i used your comment in NYKfanpage.com http://nykfanpage.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=8154

I credited it to you. Hope you don't mind. You should check it out over there sometimes.


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## truth (Jul 16, 2002)

You cant judge Stef until JC is back and joins a TT who has finally regained consiousness...

Stef is great for the Knicks,and poetry,you of all people should give him all the credit in the world..

According to you,JC is garbge,TT is even worse...That leaves Naz who you think sukks and KT who is a pick and roll player..

You cant have it both ways..If you think JC and TT stink,what could you possibly expect from marbury??

Be fair and consistent


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## Rashidi (Oct 2, 2003)

> Rasdhidi is a good poster, but hes realyl hated on Basketballboard.net, he speaks the truth!, he should come here !!! this forum would be great with him


Anyway, noticed a stat on 82games today.

Carter with the Raptors had 61 assists, and only 6 passing turnovers. 

I thought the dagger yesterday was when he drove into traffic and found Buford in the corner at the last second. When Marbury drives into traffic, lately all he's been trying to do is draw the foul on a layup.

Tim Thomas and Allan Houston sure don't get the looks at the end of games that Rodney Buford does.


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## Rashidi (Oct 2, 2003)

> You cant judge Stef until JC is back and joins a TT who has finally regained consiousness...


There's only one ball on the court. There's not enough shots for all three.


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## The True Essence (May 26, 2003)

yep, steph isnt a good decision maker either. i still remember that detroit game last season we were down 2 and the last shot marbury calmly walked the ball up and jacked up a three, missing pretty bad. and when he waived off Lennys timeout, and let Jamal take a horrible shot against good D. and the numerous other 4th quarter collapses we've had. even yesterday, steph took a three pointer about 4 feet beyond the arch. but steph drove the lane one too many times without kicking out yesterday, and thats why the entire nets team collapsed on him instead of defending the rest of the guys.


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## son of oakley (Dec 24, 2003)

I tried to stay away from this topic cause I knew it would take some research. And I'd hoped my request for elaboration would be responded to, but it wasn't. And some things need to be said.



> Originally posted by <b>MizzStoudemire</b>!
> Don't worry about them Marbury obessed fans, you have a point and you backed it up.


Please tell me what the point of this comment is, Mizzy. Are you afraid for a conversation to ensue? I gave valid reasons for challenging his premise, why should you care if he responds?

I also noticed on the other board, when Rashidi's premise was also challenged, you did not chime in to back up Rashidi in his absence. Why not? The logic of his premise seems so easy for you to understand, why not just share it with us simpleton's who don't get it?

And why call me obsessed? I did not start this thread on Marbury, I did not disseminate it to another forum, and I stated that I've already said Kidd (when healthy) and Nash were better. So where the heck are you coming from with "obsessed"?

Sorry, but your ability to be so wrong in so few words bothers me.

So I will ask you, or Rashidi again, what is the logic you feel these numbers demonstrate? I'm looking for a pattern and I just don't see it.

I mean let's look at the '01 vs '03 Suns which Rashidi presents. Of course if you swap 2.9 assist Robinson with .6 Voshkul team assists will drop. Why do you make that seem more relevant than the fact that Marion's assists went up from 2 to 2.4 with Marbury, or that Marbury shared the ball with 4.1 Hardaway, rather than 2.0 Delk that Kidd had?

Guys, you've got to be able to chew stats, not just swallow whatever conclusions the presenter feeds you whole.

Lets look at other numbers. Rashid does not tally these assists, and I doubt Mizzy did, and I'm not gonna do them all myself, so I'm gonna pick blindly. Lets look at what Rashidi gave us for Kidd and his EFC Nets of 02-03. That looks like what we are striving for, right?

Nets w/Kidd (02-03)
Collins: 1.1 apg
Martin: 2.4 apg
Jefferson: 2.5 apg
Kittles: 2.6 apg
------------------
Total others - 8.6
Kidd: 8.9 apg
-----------------
Total team - 17.5

So we can all see those are numbers which win!!!

Well, not really. The '02-03 Spurs beat them in the finals with 17.1 team assists and Parker doling out 5.3.

The '04 Pistons beat them with only 15.5 team assists with 5.7 from Billips.

The '02 Lakers beat them with also 17.5 team assists but only 2.6 from Fisher. Damn those ballhogs, like Kobe.

So what really wins, total team assists (don't look at those Pistsons), or we want more or less from our PG? I'm confused with Fisher at 2.6, Parker at 5.3, Billips at 5.7. These guys win Championships, but he are told to lust Nash and Kidd with their 9+ APG. Help me Rashidi, what is the pattern we lust in the assists? Mizzy, can you help?

Nash is the PG flavor of the day. When he was Marbury's age with Dallas in '01 his team had a .646 record and it's assists looked like this:

DN 2.1
MF 4.4
JH 2.6
CL 1.3
--------
9.4
Nash 7.3
--------
Total 16.7

Last year with a .634 record they looked like this:

DN 2.7
MF 2.9
AW 4.5
JH 1.4
--------
11.5
Nash 8.8
-------
20.3

Huh? Nash got better and the assists went up but the win % went down? Help!

This year with a *.667* record we see the teammates assists did not crumble without the great one. They look like this:

DN 2.6
MF 2.9
JH 1.4
ED .9
-------
7.5
Terry 4.0
------
11.5

They have a better winning percentage with way less assists? Where went Rashidi's premise? Or then again, what was Rashidi's premise?

Now Nash is performing feats of magic with the Suns:

AS 1.4
SM 2.3
QR 1.9
JJ 3.2
-------
8.8
Nash 10.9
-------
19.7

That's a lot of assists! But that team outside of Nash doesn't have an impressive assist total. According to Rashidi's premise Nash must really be ball hogging. 

And note that some of those assist totals are down from career averages or averages they had with Marbury. How can that be with Nash at the helm?

BTW, just as a hypothetical, lets consider last years Suns with Marbury if they ran the same style as they do this year with Amare at the 5, Marion at the 4, and the rest guards:

AS 1.4
SM 2.7
PH 2.9
JJ 4.4
------
11.4
Marbury 8.3
------
19.7

Interesting, same total assists but more from his teammates with Marbury. That Nash is such a hog, and he brings teammates assists down. Just look at SM and JJ.

I'm sorry folks, the whole premise and proof of this thread is whack. I agree with the rest of you that Marbury needs to put some tempo in his game. I've said that for months now. More shot attempts per game and easy buckets ARE important. But this way of looking at assists proves nothing other than it helps to have good bigmen who can pass, run the break, or pound the ball into the basket like Shaq or Duncan.

Oh and defense tends to help too.

I'd love to hear from Rashidi on this, or better, Mizzy.


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## The True Essence (May 26, 2003)

i dont see how any of the stats made any point, i dont even look at stats anymore, im judging from what happens on the court. Stats cant prove whos a ball hog and whos not, stats just show the numbers they put up.

and i dont see whats so wrong with scoring guards. Payton, Isiah, and the Big O seem to be fine, but when people bring up todays scoring guards, they get bashed all day. if Kidd could actually score more, the nets might have won the finals against the spurs. the only reason they lost to them was cause the half court offense was horrible. Marbury is a half court guard, he gets all of his assists in the half court game, as well as most of his points. If Kidd had Marburys half court ability and Kidds running game they woulda won it all. so i dont see why stephs scoring is bad. especially when your team cant buy a bucket in a slowed down playoff game.

and rashidi has yet to justify Baron Davis being better then Marbury. i dont get that one at all. 

ill play the stat game too. based on last year (since davis has been injured this year) since when is 23 points 7.5 assists on .395 shooting better then the 20 and 9 on .435 steph averaged? i thought you liked guards who are unselfish? hes practically a better Jamal Crawford, and you hate Jamal too.


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## Rashidi (Oct 2, 2003)

> and rashidi has yet to justify Baron Davis being better then Marbury. i dont get that one at all.


I already said it somewhere.

Davis is a better defender, a better rebounder, a better post guard. If you think Marbury is unmovable when he goes to the basket, Baron has 20 pounds on Steph.

Hoopshype apparently saw enough of him to put him on their all-defensive 1st team.


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## alphadog (Jan 2, 2004)

*What I want to know is...*

Where the hell does Rashidi find statistics on "passing turnovers" compared to other kinds? Just curious...


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## son of oakley (Dec 24, 2003)

alpha, a site called 82games.com tracks things like that. Pick a team, then a player, then there are 5 pages on each playerlayer Stats | 5-Man Units | By Position | On/Off Court | Clutch Play

Under "player stats" you'll see "passing stats".


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## Rashidi (Oct 2, 2003)

I was also looking at the team assists, but only listed the starting lineups. Marbury teams tend to have all their assists in the backcourt, because the frontcourt never has the ball in it's hands.

Let's take a look at Amare Stoudemire, who just had a 50 point game. I think most people will agree that FG% is the simplest way to determine if a PG is improving a team.

Amare
02-03: .470 FG% (w/Marbury)
03-04: .475 FG%
04-05: .591 FG% (w/Nash)

Richard Jefferson
01-02: .457
02-03: .501
03-04: .498
04-05: .435
04-05 November (w/o Kidd): .423 fg%, .258 3pt%
04-05 December (Kidd came back): .446 fg%, .386 3pt%

Kenyon Martin
00-01: .445 (w/Marbury)
01-02: .463 (w/Kidd)
02-03: .470 (w/Kidd)
03-04: .488 (w/Kidd)
04-05: .469

Joe Johnson
01-02 (Boston): .439
01-02 (Suns): .420 (w/Marb)
02-03: .397 (w/Marb)
03-04: .430
04-05: .423 (w/Nash)

Kerry Kittles
96-97: .426 (w/Robert Pack/Cassell)
97-98: .440 (w/Cassell averaging 8.0 apg)
98-99: .370 (w/Cassell/Marbury)
99-00: .437 (w/Marbury)
01-02: .466 (w/Kidd)
02-03: .467 (w/Kidd)
03-04: .453 (w/Kidd
04-05: .364

Marbury doesn't seem to improve many people's FG%.

Kurt Thomas is shooting below his career average since Marbury came on, though that may be due to him hoisting more jumpers and fewer inside shots - though the fact that Marbury isn't making things easier on the inside for Kurt says something too.

Crawford's FG% is pretty much the same as it was in Chicago. Marbury never sets Crawford up. If Marbury gets an assist, it's because Crawford jacked up a shot immediately after the pass. Otherwise it's some out of control one on one move. Why isn't Crawford coming off a screen? Why isn't Crawford going backdoor? Why is Marbury always giving it to him on the perimeter? If Marbury really learned anything from his first couple years in the league, shouldn't he know that's not the way to win?

Why did Isiah trade for Tim Thomas' athleticism if it never gets used? Why is he always jacking up perimeter shots? The few dunks this guy has came off fast breaks that Marbury didn't even start. 72% of his shots are jumpers, and 3% are dunks. The guy is 6'10 for crying out loud. No wonder Amare's mom hated Marbury. Then again, the 72/3 ratio seems consistent with the rest of Thomas' career. That doesn't make it ok. If Marbury is really such an elite PG, then why isn't Thomas getting easier looks inside?

Suns Dunk%
Amare: 22%
Marion: 9%
Q-Rich: 4%
JJ: 1%
Nash: 0%

Suns Inside%
Amare: 53% (69% assisted)
Marion: 33% (62% assisted)
Q-Rich: 24% (63% assisted)
JJ: 18% (36% assisetd)
Nash: 21% (16% assisted)

Knicks Dunk%
Freeway: 16%
Kurt: 0%
Tim: 3%
Crawford: 2%
Marbury: 0%

Knicks Inside%
Freeway: 56% (55% assisted)
Kurt: 9% (39% assisted)
Tim: 28% (44% assisted)
Crawford: 14% (33% assisted)
Marbury: 34% (11% assisted)

It should say a lot that

1. Marbury scores more on the inside than all of the Knick starters but Freeway, who is incapable of scoring from the outside.
2. Pretty much all of the PFs inside shots have come off of rebounds/loose balls. Only 3% of his shots are assisted inside shots. As of the date this was taken (82games is sporadically updating over holidays), KT has taken 335 shots. So maybe 10 of those were inside assisted shots. That's pathetic.
3. The backcourt is doing everything off the dribble. None of the bigs are setting them up, and Crawford/Marbury are not setting each other up. Nash and JJ take fewer inside shots than Marbury and Crawford, but somehow they get assisted more often than they do.
4. Compare the assisted shots in the Suns frontcourt to the Knick frontcourt. Nuff said.
5. Compare Q-Rich (a notorious jump shooter) to Tim Thomas (a notorious jump shooter that is even bigger). Nuff said.

Finally, let's come to passing ratings.

Nash
99 3pt assists
*70 jump assists
75 close assists
81 dunk assists*
325 total assists
68 passing T/Os
4.8 assist/bad pass ratio
*23.5 pass rating*
15.0 ap48m

Marbury
51 3pt assists
*137 jump assists
37 close assists
32 dunk assists*
257 total assists
59 passing T/Os
4.4 assist/bad pass ratio
*11.1 pass rating*
10.5 ap48m

Kidd 03-04
264 jump assists (they didn't differentiate between 2pt and 3pt then)
205 close assists
149 dunk assists
618 total assists
162 passing T/Os
3.8 assist/bad pass ratio
*18.5 pass rating*
12.1 ap48m

Kidd 04-05
12 3pt assists
32 jump assists
22 close assists
9 dunk assists
75 total assists
27 passing T/Os
2.8 assist/bad pass ratio
*9.1 pass rating*
9.7 ap48m

I think Marbury's numbers here speak leaps and bounds. It's not like he's passing to a Dirk Nowitzki out there like Nash was last year. Nash only had 37 dunk assists last year, but he still had 238 close assists.

That should last me for the week.


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## Rashidi (Oct 2, 2003)

I'll extend it to the bench, as it will help explain why the 2nd unit seems to do better than the 1st unit half the time.

Inside
*Fat Albert: 70% (58% ast)
JYD: 67% (47% ast)
Ariza: 46% (53% ast)*
Norris: 30% (0% ast)
Penny: 17% (11% ast)
Houston: 5% (0% ast)
Baker: 44% (25% ast)
Brewer: 38% (33% ast)
Sundov: 27% (0% ast)

Maybe it's time Lenny/Isiah to stick one of these guys in the starting lineup.

I nominate Ariza at SG. Houston is playing 30 minutes a night coming off his injury. Though, I notice a certain someone is taking shots at his performance, rather than attacking the coaching staff. What happened the last time a star was coming off injury and playing 30 minutes in the preseason? Inconsistencies abound. They have enough jump shooters in the lineup. Kurt has to stay in the lineup for his defense, and JYD has to stay on the bench so they can play the dog barking over the loudspeaker whenever he enters the game.


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## The True Essence (May 26, 2003)

i agree that marbury isnt exactly raising FG percentages, but its only because he doesnt run the break well! Hes a half court point guard, so hes not getting his teammates easy buckets on the break like Nash and Kidd do. If you take away the fast break points from the suns players, the FG percentages would probly be the same crap with Steph. Thats marburys only problem, they really need to work on fast break offense. its simple really, i dont get how he sucks so bad at it.

how can you blame Kurts jumpshots on steph though? Kurt never cuts to the hoop after a pick n roll like Nazr and Sweetney do, he just waits there to jack up a J.


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## son of oakley (Dec 24, 2003)

I spent about 2 hours preparing a reply to Rashidi's latest posts only to have it destroyed by the constant freaking database/ISp problems this site has been having. I'm really fukking sick of it. If you don't see me around much anymore it means I've quit this dump.


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## townknave (Jun 28, 2003)

Kurt is not a good defender. His reputation is great, but he doesn't live up to it. We give up 7.6 more points per 100 possessions when Kurt is on the court. We routinely get killed by even average PF's. This is mostly KT's fault, as opposing PF's average 20 PER against us. This means that statistically, the average opposing PF literally plays like a borderline all-star against us.

Kurt sucks on offense too. Rashidi, you blame Marbury for KT never taking close shots, but I think this is mostly because KT is past his prime and can't really play with his back to the basket any more. He shoots an okay percentage with only midrange shots, but it is an empty percentage because he never gets to the line. Sweetney averages 1.6 pps or so last I checked, and Kurt was at right around 1.0. Sweetney's defensive stats are better, as he allows 14.2 PER for opposing PF's. He's also our best shot blocker and a better offensive rebounder than KT. Sweetney is second to KT in plus/minus, and unlike KT we are better on both offense AND defense when he is on the court.

Sure, Sweetney has his flaws, like his propensity for turnovers and fouls, but if we started him and these troubles slowed him down we could always turn to KT. KT is a mediocre starting PF, but he would be one of the best backups out there.

You say our team needs guys who score inside, who play defense, block shots, and get to the line. Sweetney demonstrably does these things better than KT. It's counterproductive and childish that you refer to him as Fat Albert. He is the best PF on our team.

Nazr is also statistically a better defender than Kurt, giving up a less horrible 17.7 PER. Part of this is because the league's centers on the whole are worse than the PF's, so at his worst we can say that Nazr is an equal defender to KT (though he averages more steals and blocks). Nazr does not deserve your ridiculous nickname of "Freeway." If you haven't noticed, he's pretty much the third best center in our conference. 

We'd be infinitely better off if we just started Nazr, Sweets, TT, H20, and Marb. 

By the way, nice job ignoring any factors in your FG% analysis that might go Steph's way.

You list Jefferson and note that his FG% has decreased since losing Kidd, but it looks like most of the drop is related to the fact that the Nets got rid of all the good players on the team over the summer. He's only 45% since Kidd returned, not close to his 50% mark of days gone by. So Kidd improved his FG% 2.3%. Nice, but not amazing.

As for Martin, you seem to forget that his year with Marbury was his rookie year and he was injured for most of it. The gains in FG% don't neccessarily have anything to do with Kidd at all, as they're relatively modest and in keeping with the usual progression of talented PF's. He's shooting 47% now, a drop of 1.8 from last year. Again, modest but not huge.

As for Kittles, I'll confine my analysis with Marbury to 99-00, as the lockout shortened seasons and the fact that half of it was played with Cassell are significant confounding factors for the previous year. In 99-00, Kittles had .505 eFG. In 01-02 he has .518. The next year, .521. The next, .503. So, for the three years he played with Kidd instead of Marbury, years in which Kittles was surrounded by much more talent in RJ and K-Mart than he ever was with Marbury, he posted a modest average eFG improvement of .012. This for a player who is known to thrive in transition basketball. Again, nice, but I'm not impressed.

As for Amare, we ought to keep in mind that he was a 19 year old rookie for the only time he played with Steph. Didn't some guy named LeBron James improve his shooting by almost 10 percentage points over his rookie year as a teen? I'll concede that Nash is the perfect PG for him and has improved him by leaps and bounds, but we've never seen Marbury with a healthy, 22 year old Amare.

As for Joe Johnson: What are you talking about? The guy was a bench player when he played with Marbury, and now he starts and has a big role in the offense. If anyone was hindering his development, it was Penny, their mediocre and undeserving starting SG.

On the other side, you discount JC, who is shooting .470 eFG over .450 from last year. This is a similar improvement to what you established Kidd gave to RJ and K-Mart, but of course you ignore it. Mohammed has shot .544 for his time with the Knicks, and he's a career .480 shooter. Yet you ignore this completely as well, even though it's a far greater improvement that any of the ones you credit to Kidd. JYD is also shooting .538, and he's a .503 career shooter. Sure, it's small sample size and he's a bench player, but he's seen plenty of time on the floor with Steph.

I enjoy your posts as much as anyone, Rashidi, but some of your flaming biases and religious devotion to outmoded basketball orthodoxy seems to influence you to use stats selectively so that you obscure the truth as much as you do to elucidate it.


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## townknave (Jun 28, 2003)

Oakley,

Please don't leave this board. If you do, Rashidi will rampage unchecked, the Force will fall out of balance, and this board will fall to the Dark Side.

I hate the database problems too, but there's a simple remedy. Before you submit any big post, just highlight it all and copy it to your clipboard. This way, if the site has a database hiccup, you can just try and post again without much effort by pasting back what you've copied. Unintuitive, but it works as insurance.

Also, if your browser's any good, you can just hit the back button and it should go right back to the posting window, recovering the text of your post.

Despair not!


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## townknave (Jun 28, 2003)

Oakley,

Please don't leave this board. If you do, Rashidi will rampage unchecked, the Force will fall out of balance, and this board will fall to the Dark Side.

I hate the database problems too, but there's a simple remedy. Before you submit any big post, just highlight it all and copy it to your clipboard. This way, if the site has a database hiccup, you can just try and post again without much effort by pasting back what you've copied. Unintuitive, but it works as insurance.

Also, if your browser's any good, you can just hit the back button and it should go right back to the posting window, recovering the text of your post.

Despair not!


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## son of oakley (Dec 24, 2003)

Thanks townie, I appreciate your encouragement. I've always felt the need to be an enforcer against Rashidi and the Dark Forces, mostly to protect the minds of the vulnerable, like Mizzy, which is why I was so harsh on them when my efforts went unappreciated. It's too much work to be in vain.

And thanks for the tip, that is exactly what I've come to do. It was just so frustrating because for every other site my "back" button would reclaim my work, but for this site, for whatever reason, it gets overwritten.

I made a lot of the same points as you, but with stats as backup. Too much research and effort to go to waste.

Cheers.


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## townknave (Jun 28, 2003)

No problem Oak, it's good to have you around.

Now, I wouldn't want this post growing old before Rashidi gets back- I didn't type that huge essay so he could get away with not answering it.


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## Rashidi (Oct 2, 2003)

> Kurt is not a good defender. His reputation is great, but he doesn't live up to it. We give up 7.6 more points per 100 possessions when Kurt is on the court. We routinely get killed by even average PF's. This is mostly KT's fault, as opposing PF's average 20 PER against us. This means that statistically, the average opposing PF literally plays like a borderline all-star against us.


And I'm sure none of this has anything to do with the rest of the Knicks on the court sucking at defense.

I find PER in general to be a rather silly stat, as it doesn't take into account level of competition. According to PER, Allan Houston has a 13.0, and "holds" opponents to 10.8.

It looks at versatility more than it does defense. We already know that Kurt doesn't get to the line, block shots, or pass well.

Marbury is +6 PER (22 to 16)
Freeway is +5 PER (21 to 16)
Houston is +3 PER (13 to 10)
Crawford is +0 PER (18 to 18)
KT is -5 PER (15 to 20)
1-Timensional is -9 PER (10 to 19)

If you'd like to statistically believe that those 4 players are better at defense than KT, then be my guest.

Sweetney is +3 PER (19 to 16)
Ariza is -1 PER (13 to 14)
Ariza (at SG) is -11 PER (10 to 21)
*JYD is -6 PER (9 to 15)*
JYD (at C) is -2 PER (18 to 20)
Norris is -15 PER (4 to 19)
Penny is -6 PER (6 to 12)
Penny (at SF) is -8 PER (10 to 18)
Brewer is -13 PER (0 to 13)
Sundov is +2 PER (9 to 7)
Baker is -31 PER (0 to 31)

I guess JYD is worse at defense than Freeway and Fat Albert too. And Houston is also a far better defender at SG.

That certainly rests my case.



> Sweetney's defensive stats are better, as he allows 14.2 PER for opposing PF's.


Sweetney also enters the game against sucky PFs in certain situations. He doesn't play starters all game like KT does.



> He's also our best shot blocker and a better offensive rebounder than KT. Sweetney is second to KT in plus/minus, and unlike KT we are better on both offense AND defense when he is on the court.


If you want to take this 82 games style, then list...

Block ratings
Sundov: 10.0
Freeway: 5.8
Fat Albert: 4.7
KT: 3.4
1-Timensional: 2.5
Ariza: 2.0
Baker: 1.8
Norris: 1.7
JYD: 1.6
Crawford: 1.2
Penny: 0.6
Houston: 0.4
Marbury: 0.0
Brewer: 0.0

The fact is, NONE of the bigs are good at shot blocking. The difference between Sweetney and Kurt is quite small. Would you start McDyess over Kurt for "shot blocking"?

Shaq: 10.5
Laettner: 3.8
Doleac: 2.7
Haslem: 2.0

Big Ben: 12.5
Sheed: 7.2
McDyess: 4.9
Prince: 4.0

Duncan: 14.9
Nesterovic: 9.4
Horry: 7.5

Arguing over who the better Knick shot blocker is, is like arguing over who should be the 12th man, Brewer or Sundov. It simply doesn't matter all that much.



> Sure, Sweetney has his flaws, like his propensity for turnovers and fouls, but if we started him and these troubles slowed him down we could always turn to KT. KT is a mediocre starting PF, but he would be one of the best backups out there.


Sweetney is best used as a situational player. You use him when you want to change the team's strategy. How many times has he entered the game at the beginning of the 4th to cause a mismatch and start a run? These mismatches won't happen when he's on the bench in the 4th with 5 fouls.



> Nazr is also statistically a better defender than Kurt, giving up a less horrible 17.7 PER. Part of this is because the league's centers on the whole are worse than the PF's, so at his worst we can say that Nazr is an equal defender to KT (though he averages more steals and blocks). Nazr does not deserve your ridiculous nickname of "Freeway." If you haven't noticed, he's pretty much the third best center in our conference.



PART OF THIS? PART OF THIS? Who was harrassing Antoine Walker on the perimeter? KURT. Who was guarding Jason Collier and Kevin Willis? FREEWAY. Who almost put the win in jeopardy by fouling Walker at the end? FREEWAY.

It should be obvious that a player's PER is hurt when he guards the top assignment. Kurt guards the top assignment. Sprewell guarded the top assignment. Who do you think has the higher PER, the guy who guards Melo, or the guy who guards Greg Buckner?

We'd be infinitely better off if we just started Nazr, Sweets, TT, H20, and Marb. 

By the way, nice job ignoring any factors in your FG% analysis that might go Steph's way.

You list Jefferson and note that his FG% has decreased since losing Kidd, but it looks like most of the drop is related to the fact that the Nets got rid of all the good players on the team over the summer. He's only 45% since Kidd returned, not close to his 50% mark of days gone by. So Kidd improved his FG% 2.3%. Nice, but not amazing.



> As for Martin, you seem to forget that his year with Marbury was his rookie year and he was injured for most of it.


Martin was not injured for most of it. He played 50 games healthy, and then broke his leg or something and missed the rest of the year. He did not play hurt during the season.



> This for a player who is known to thrive in transition basketball.


I don't recall Kittles ever being known for thriving in transition until Kidd showed up, but I don't follow NCAA, and didn't catch many Net games back in those days.



> but we've never seen Marbury with a healthy, 22 year old Amare.


I think it's safe to say that in the little we saw of Amare/Steph last year, Amare was way better after Marbury was traded.



> On the other side, you discount JC, who is shooting .470 eFG over .450 from last year.


Crawford is also only 2nd on the defense's list with NY. He was the only player that could score on Chicago last year. You would think that Marbury would improve Crawford a bit more than .020 given the circumstancs.


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## townknave (Jun 28, 2003)

<<And I'm sure none of this has anything to do with the rest of the Knicks on the court sucking at defense.

I find PER in general to be a rather silly stat, as it doesn't take into account level of competition. According to PER, Allan Houston has a 13.0, and "holds" opponents to 10.8.>>

I'm not saying we're not a horrendous defensive team. I'm saying we are whether KT plays or not, and we may just be more so when we use KT than when we go to our other options. 

You may find PER-against to be a flawed stat, and in many instances you are right. Sometimes good defenders don't have great PER-against ratings because they make their impact felt on help defense. Players like JYD, for example, have pedestrian PER-against ratings but noticably improve the team's overall defense when they're on the floor. However bad Marbs, JC, TT, and Nazr are on defense, there is no denying the fact that we are a full 7 points per 100 possessions worse on defense when KT plays vs. when KT sits. He gives up tons of points to his assignments, AND our team plays worse on D when he's on the floor. You may say this is because the starting unit is worse as a whole on D, but then why is it that Marbury, who plays more minutes than anyone, only makes us 3.7 points worse on D? Crawford only makes us 5.1 worse. TT makes us 6.9 worse. Freeway actually makes us BETTER on defense. The only player on the team who has a worse impact on our defense than Thomas is Vin Baker. Knock the stats all you want, but it's obvious at this point you're more interested in using the stats to support your predetermined view than letting the stats be its foundation. KT is not as good a defender as you think.

It looks at versatility more than it does defense. We already know that Kurt doesn't get to the line, block shots, or pass well.

<<Marbury is +6 PER (22 to 16)
Freeway is +5 PER (21 to 16)
Houston is +3 PER (13 to 10)
Crawford is +0 PER (18 to 18)
KT is -5 PER (15 to 20)
1-Timensional is -9 PER (10 to 19)

If you'd like to statistically believe that those 4 players are better at defense than KT, then be my guest.>>

I don't statstically believe they're better at defense. I believe they have been objectively better at guarding their positions, in so far as they have allowed less production than Kurt, in the games they have played. Here are the field goal percentages against KT of all the different starting PF's we have played this year vs. their season output:

Garnett 54% FG, season 49%
LaFrentz 43% FG, season 49%
Kenny Thomas 59% FG, season 44%
Brand 22% FG, season 50%
J. O'neal 62% FG, season 48%
Duncan 50% FG, season 50%
Taylor 50% FG, season 43%
Nowitzki 53% FG, season 46%
Gooden 62%, season 52%
Walker 48%, season 43%
Bosh 41%, 48
Gasol 36%, season 51%
Howard 64%, season 52%
Okafor 44%, season 46%
Brown 33%, season 43%
Jamison 44%, season 44%
Martin 50%, season 47%
E. Williams 55% season 46%
R. Wallace 44%, season 41%
Boozer 43%, season 54%
Jefferson 57%, season 54%
Collins 67%, season 42%
Webber 43%, season 45%
Haslem 71%, season 53%
Randolph 65%, season 45%

So we've faced 25 different starting PF's thus far. Notice how 15 of those have shot above their season % against us, and only 8 have shot below. If KT is supposed to be our best defensive player, why does his position score much more easily against us? If he can't slow down any opposing PF's, and he doesn't play any help defense as evidenced by the fact that he makes our team defense worse more than ANY other player on our team who isn't a recovering alcoholic, just why do you continue to insist he's some great defender? Can you even show me ONE tiny bit of quantitative proof?

<<Sweetney is +3 PER (19 to 16)
Ariza is -1 PER (13 to 14)
Ariza (at SG) is -11 PER (10 to 21)
*JYD is -6 PER (9 to 15)*
JYD (at C) is -2 PER (18 to 20)
Norris is -15 PER (4 to 19)
Penny is -6 PER (6 to 12)
Penny (at SF) is -8 PER (10 to 18)
Brewer is -13 PER (0 to 13)
Sundov is +2 PER (9 to 7)
Baker is -31 PER (0 to 31)

I guess JYD is worse at defense than Freeway and Fat Albert too. And Houston is also a far better defender at SG.

That certainly rests my case.>>

What are you talking about? JYD is a worse defender at Nazr at center, because he plainly is undersized at that position and has no business playing it. Their PER-against with JYD at PF and Nazr at center is identical. But notice how JYF makes us 7.8 points per 100 possessions better in team defense, while Nazr only boosts us 2.6. Houston's number is anomalous, I'll concede, but the man has played all of 15 games, and unlike at the PF position, we haven't really been badly lit up on a regular basis from that position. Houston may not be our best defender, but at least guys at his position haven't been killing us night in and night out.

<<Sweetney also enters the game against sucky PFs in certain situations. He doesn't play starters all game like KT does.>>

Fine. But I'd rather take my chances with Sweetney, who at least can hope to match their offensive efficiency while getting outscored by them, than with Kurt, who gets abused by them all but also averages a horrible 1.04 point per shot with his gimpy 15 footers. Ever other member of the starting lineup (and also JC) averages more points per shot than Kurt. In fact, so does every Knick but Penny, Baker, Moochie, Sundov, and Baker. In other words, KT has the offensive effciency of our IR guys. The guy simply makes us worse on both ends and all the numbers show it. Why is it so hard to understand?

<<If you want to take this 82 games style, then list...

Block ratings
Sundov: 10.0
Freeway: 5.8
Fat Albert: 4.7
KT: 3.4
1-Timensional: 2.5
Ariza: 2.0
Baker: 1.8
Norris: 1.7
JYD: 1.6
Crawford: 1.2
Penny: 0.6
Houston: 0.4
Marbury: 0.0
Brewer: 0.0

The fact is, NONE of the bigs are good at shot blocking. The difference between Sweetney and Kurt is quite small. Would you start McDyess over Kurt for "shot blocking"?

Shaq: 10.5
Laettner: 3.8
Doleac: 2.7
Haslem: 2.0

Big Ben: 12.5
Sheed: 7.2
McDyess: 4.9
Prince: 4.0

Duncan: 14.9
Nesterovic: 9.4
Horry: 7.5

Arguing over who the better Knick shot blocker is, is like arguing over who should be the 12th man, Brewer or Sundov. It simply doesn't matter all that much.>>

My argument is not that Sweetney should be starting over KT for shot blocking. My argument is that KT should be starting over KT for MANY reasons, one small one of which is shot blocking. The guy is VASTLY more efficient at scoring, can't possibly be much worse at defense where KT is pretty much an unacknowledged disaster, and brings some fringe benefits like better shot blocking, better offensive rebounding, more FTA's at a higher percentage, drawing double teams in the post, etc.

<<Sweetney is best used as a situational player. You use him when you want to change the team's strategy. How many times has he entered the game at the beginning of the 4th to cause a mismatch and start a run? These mismatches won't happen when he's on the bench in the 4th with 5 fouls.>>

How many times have we been blown out of the water in the first half so that the game is over before the 4th quarter begins? If we started our better PF to begin with, maybe we'd more seldom be in the situation of needing a run in the 4th quarter to have a chance to win the game. Sure, he sometimes will pick up fouls, and if he does I can live with falling back on our second best PF. But why tie a hand behind our back to begin with?

<<PART OF THIS? PART OF THIS? Who was harrassing Antoine Walker on the perimeter? KURT. Who was guarding Jason Collier and Kevin Willis? FREEWAY. Who almost put the win in jeopardy by fouling Walker at the end? FREEWAY.>>

And a mighty fine job he did on Walker, allowing him to put up 28 ppg on 48% shooting against us this season. If Walker averaged those numbers he'd be a perennial All-Star. 

<<It should be obvious that a player's PER is hurt when he guards the top assignment. Kurt guards the top assignment. Sprewell guarded the top assignment. Who do you think has the higher PER, the guy who guards Melo, or the guy who guards Greg Buckner?>>

Maybe his PER is hurt by guarding the top assignment. But guess what? He doesn't guard the top assignment particularly well, as evidenced by the fact that 2/3 of the PF's above played better than they usually do while matched up with KT, so maybe we don't particularly need him around to do it. 

<<I don't recall Kittles ever being known for thriving in transition until Kidd showed up, but I don't follow NCAA, and didn't catch many Net games back in those days.>>

This has always been a huge asset for him. Coming into the league he was known for combining his shooting skills with top tier athleticism and ability to run the court.

<<I think it's safe to say that in the little we saw of Amare/Steph last year, Amare was way better after Marbury was traded.>>

I'll concede that Marbury wasn't a great fit with Amare Stoudemire. 

How come nobody asks why Nowitzki is having the best offensive season of his career now that Nash is gone?

<<Crawford is also only 2nd on the defense's list with NY. He was the only player that could score on Chicago last year. You would think that Marbury would improve Crawford a bit more than .020 given the circumstancs.>>

So I apply the same exact statstical measure as you do, and I get you making excuses as to the validity of that statistical measure. Marbury's shooting the highest percentage of his career by a good margin, while Crawford leads the team in FGA per game, so frankly I question the extent to which Marbury really is 2nd on the defense's list. I'm still waiting for you to explain Nazr's FG% this season being 5.2 percentage points higher than his career mark. Has Kidd EVER had a teammate who experienced a bigger increase?


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## townknave (Jun 28, 2003)

Argh, why can't I ever get quoting to not glitch my entire post? Anyway, it should be obvious enough which of Rashidi's points my points were in response to.

Argh.


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## son of oakley (Dec 24, 2003)

Town, I keep trying to write how to do the quotes but then the program turns it into a quote losing the description in the process. This will be confusing but lets give it a shot.

Let's say this is the text you want to quote: TT stinks

Take out every dash in the following description: 

start the text with -[-q-u-o-t-e-]-

and end it with -[-/-q-u-o-t-e-]-

so it would look like this (without any dashes):

-[-q-u-o-t-e-]- TT stinks -[-/-q-u-o-t-e-]-

so it's: 

bracket quote bracket TT stinks bracket /quote bracket

I think if I reverse them it will foil the program, so it's:

[/quote] TT stinks


> but reverse what I start and end the text with. the difference is that the backslash before quote goes after the text.
> 
> Does that make sense? Let me know if it doesn't.
> 
> It's a lot of work but it's worth getting used to it.


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## townknave (Jun 28, 2003)

Here goes...



> KT's D is overrated!


Hopefully this works.

Thanks for the help, Oak!

Edit: Yes, it worked!


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## son of oakley (Dec 24, 2003)

> Originally posted by <b>townknave</b>!
> Here goes...
> 
> 
> ...


Looking good, bro.


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## Rashidi (Oct 2, 2003)

> Garnett 54% FG, season 49%


Didn't Kurt just hold him to a bad game?



> Brand 22% FG, season 50%


Yet another good performance against a top PF.



> Duncan 50% FG, season 50%


I will gladly take breaking even with Duncan.



> Nowitzki 53% FG, season 46%


It's well known that Dirk is one of the toughest guards in the league, and when you consider what the rest of the Knick defense did that day, holding Dirk to only a 7% increase is pretty good by comparison. There isn't a player on the Knicks that can guard Dirk effectively.



> Gasol 36%, season 51%


Another top PF kept in check by Kurt.



> Jefferson 57%, season 54%


Are you actually considering Jefferson a PF here? It should be blatantly obvious that Kurt can't guard him anymore than Pau Gasol or Dirk Nowitzki could. Kurt's a PF, Jefferson's a perimeter player, a SG or SF.



> Haslem 71%, season 53%


I'm sure this had nothing to do with Shaq.

A bunch of these are pretty obscure. The only PFs that ripped into Kurt by 10 FG% points were Kenny Thomas, Jermaine O'Neal, Jason Collins, Udonis Haslem, Zach Randolph, and Drew Gooden. The biggest increase was Jason Collins, at 25%, most of them coming on open jumpers because the defense collapsed on someone driving into the lane.



> and he doesn't play any help defense as evidenced by the fact that he makes our team defense worse more than ANY other player on our team who isn't a recovering alcoholic, just why do you continue to insist he's some great defender? Can you even show me ONE tiny bit of quantitative proof?


Very simple. It's called watching a game. I don't just stat whore.

I see Kurt Thomas bodying up on Kevin Garnett, while Olowokandi trades baskets with Freeway. I see Kurt Thomas bodying up on Pau Gasol and taking him out of the game. I see Kurt chase around players who are much quicker and versatile, with range out to the 3pt line, like Antoine Walker and Dirk Nowitzki.

You know why the other guys on the team have better defensive stats than Kurt? Because Kurt is guarding these guys, and they're not. Who gives a **** if Freeway or Fat Albert is a better shot blocker than Kurt? I would die laughing watching one of them "chase" Dirk or Walker. They would buy every crossover and stutter dribble, get drilled fom the outside, or taken to the lane. The only PF on the Knicks capable of guarding Antoine Walker is Jerome Williams, and he's only 210 pounds or so. He's not capable of guarding Kevin Garnett or Tim Duncan, or even Chris Webber. Kurt is. Sweetney is not. Freeway is not. Freeway can guard Jason Collier. Sweetney can guard Othella Harrington.

Like I said before, if you really want to buy into your defensive statistics, then just say with a straight face that Sweetney would do a competent job against KG/Duncan/Dirk/Brand/Webber/Gasol/Jermaine. Those are the top 7 PFs in the game, and KT did pretty well against all of them but Jermaine. Although, I do remember at the end of that Pacer game that Jermaine was ripping through Sweetney like a hot knife through Swetney's favorite perservative.

I will just wait for the *****ing to commence when Shawn Marion scores 26 against the Knicks and we blame it on Kurt's defense, instead of the Suns 1-3-3-3-4 lineup.


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## Fordy74 (May 22, 2002)

stats stats stats stats stats stats stats


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## truth (Jul 16, 2002)

WTF is going on here????????????????

ITS %$%^&*ING TEAM defense that wins titles.....

Its getting up in your mans jock and moving your feet..And its coming over from the weak side and helping......

Individual comps help but it dosnt account for how many times Steff,TT and H20 get beaten off the dribble and KT has to help..


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