With tonight’s win, the Spurs win total now equals last year’s

[Dejounte]

Not really what anyone predicted at the start of the season.

[Chinook]

Does it account for the 10 fewer games? Like sure, I agree that it's been nice seeing the team find offense after losing so many PPG. Murray being an All-Star, Johnson becoming a knock-down shooter and Walker showing a nice stretch are definite highlights. But I would still say last year's Spurs were comfortably better than this years' edition on the whole. With that said, last year's team absolutely limped into the play-in and deservedly lost to a much hungier Grizzlies team. The year's team has a chance to go into the game with momentum and hopefully advance.

[offset formation]

Not really what anyone predicted at the start of the season.

I'd actually like to have a refresh on that prediction thread. Don't remember exactly but I think I predicted like 30 or 35 wins. Pretty much right between that now.

[offset formation]

Does it account for the 10 fewer games? Like sure, I agree that it's been nice seeing the team find offense after losing so many PPG. Murray being an All-Star, Johnson becoming a knock-down shooter and Walker showing a nice stretch are definite highlights. But I would still say last year's Spurs were comfortably better than this years' edition on the whole. With that said, last year's team absolutely limped into the play-in and deservedly lost to a much hungier Grizzlies team. The year's team has a chance to go into the game with momentum and hopefully advance.

You just reminded me how much I dislike playing against Dylan Brooks.

[Dejounte]

(If you did predict it, kudos to you. Majority believed the team would be at the bottom of the standings)

[HemisfairArena]

The last few seasons have shown Pop obviously is NOT the Goat.

[mo7888]

Does it account for the 10 fewer games? Like sure, I agree that it's been nice seeing the team find offense after losing so many PPG. Murray being an All-Star, Johnson becoming a knock-down shooter and Walker showing a nice stretch are definite highlights. But I would still say last year's Spurs were comfortably better than this years' edition on the whole. With that said, last year's team absolutely limped into the play-in and deservedly lost to a much hungier Grizzlies team. The year's team has a chance to go into the game with momentum and hopefully advance.

To answer your question...33-39 last year....so same win total with 10 fewer games...

[Arcadian]

I thought they'd be slightly better than last year, a borderline playoff/playin team.

[R. DeMurre]

Looks like Adam Silver's play-in tournament is doing what it set out to do by keeping more teams interested in winning and more fans involved late in the season... In the past, being the 10th seed, 5 games behind the 8th seed with 4 games to go, meant the fanbase would essentially be saying "oh well, there's always next year." Now instead, everyone's fully engaged, hoping for some play-in upsets, and bragging about finishing ahead of the Lakers.

[KingKev]

I’ll admit I had the under on 30 and they will probably exceed my expectations by 10 games when all said and done but let’s not get ahead of ourselves here we were a bottom 6-7 team for almost the entire season and some of the ground we made was due to other teams full out tanking.

This season had alot of positive takeaways but we are still a long ways away from a true playoff team.

[The Truth #6]

I was thinking around 32-34 wins at the beginning of the season, in part because I was blaming a lot on DDR's presence, but for the majority of this season, 32-34 wins didn't look possible. Tanking and the lack of McBuckets/arrival of Josh Richardson probably played a role, with tanking the more obvious one as KingKev mentions.

[Seventyniner]

Looks like Adam Silver's play-in tournament is doing what it set out to do by keeping more teams interested in winning and more fans involved late in the season... In the past, being the 10th seed, 5 games behind the 8th seed with 4 games to go, meant the fanbase would essentially be saying "oh well, there's always next year." Now instead, everyone's fully engaged, hoping for some play-in upsets, and bragging about finishing ahead of the Lakers.

Teams have an incentive to tank hard once they fall out of contention for the playoffs. The play-in pushes that point much further out for several teams.

[duncan2k5]

Not really what anyone predicted at the start of the season.

Not true... Last season I said we would be better without DeRozan

[duncan2k5]

I’ll admit I had the under on 30 and they will probably exceed my expectations by 10 games when all said and done but let’s not get ahead of ourselves here we were a bottom 6-7 team for almost the entire season and some of the ground we made was due to other teams full out tanking.

This season had alot of positive takeaways but we are still a long ways away from a true playoff team.

Teams were tanking last year too

[KingKev]

Not true... Last season I said we would be better without DeRozan


Even if we win out we aren’t better than last year when adjusting for games played.

[John B]

Not true... Last season I said we would be better without DeRozan

I think everybody agreed it would be more fun to watch without Demar (and the vets) and just watching the young guys work. But nobody expected them to be on a play in.

[MultiTroll]

Please don't let the #7 or #8 draft order get the #1 overall. :lol
Or 2. Or 3.

[Dex]

I think I put them at 32 which they have surpassed, thinking we end with 34 at this point.

[R. DeMurre]

Last year's record was 33-39 for a .458 win percentage. This year it's 33-45 and a .423 winning percentage.

Losing DeRozan had very little effect, especially since a bunch of his minutes were taken by McDermott, whose overall impact has been a disaster.

[KingKev]

Last year's record was 33-39 for a .458 win percentage. This year it's 33-45 and a .423 winning percentage.

Losing DeRozan had very little effect, especially since a bunch of his minutes were taken by McDermott, whose overall impact has been a disaster.

It’s nice to see Spurs fans come around to how garbage McLovin actually is.

[itzsoweezee]

I thought they'd be slightly better than last year, a borderline playoff/playin team.

Same. My point was that the spurs didn’t lose much with Demar’s departure

[MannyIsGod]

Not really what anyone predicted at the start of the season.

Uh, I think most rational win estimates were ~34.

[MannyIsGod]

Last year's record was 33-39 for a .458 win percentage. This year it's 33-45 and a .423 winning percentage.

Losing DeRozan had very little effect, especially since a bunch of his minutes were taken by McDermott, whose overall impact has been a disaster.

The best five man lineup since the trade deadline includes McDermott. Hardly a disaster.

https://www.nba.com/stats/lineups/advanced/?Season=2021-22&SeasonType=Regular%20Season&TeamID=1610612759&DateFrom=02%2F10%2F2022&sort=MIN&dir=1


Jakob, McDermott, Keldon, Vassal, and DJM - 120 minutes total over 9 games with a net rating of +8.5


Simply replacing him with Josh Richardson is still pretty good, but slightly worse. Replacing him with Primo is a statistical disaster making them ~11 points worse overall.

[MannyIsGod]

I think everybody agreed it would be more fun to watch without Demar (and the vets) and just watching the young guys work. But nobody expected them to be on a play in.

Where do you guys get these narratives from? I saw a lot of mid 30 win projections and I know that models like RAPTOR had them at this point from the get go. Looking at the initial RAPTOR projection had them at 36 wins and a 1/5 chance at the playoffs. I remember posting on here that this teams most likely outcome was a mid 30s win total and an outside shot at reaching .500 ball. This is almost exactly who the Spurs were projected to be this season.

[MannyIsGod]

Does it account for the 10 fewer games? Like sure, I agree that it's been nice seeing the team find offense after losing so many PPG. Murray being an All-Star, Johnson becoming a knock-down shooter and Walker showing a nice stretch are definite highlights. But I would still say last year's Spurs were comfortably better than this years' edition on the whole. With that said, last year's team absolutely limped into the play-in and deservedly lost to a much hungier Grizzlies team. The year's team has a chance to go into the game with momentum and hopefully advance.

I think if you played both end of year teams against each other they'd be pretty close. Last year's team has the advantage of being able to go to Demar at the end of games, but the improvement for everyone else beyond that this year is pretty sizable.

[KobesAchilles]

I mean I don’t think anyone had us worse than the Rockets and the Thunder. I thought we would be better than the Kings too since they always suck. LAL was the only surprise this year tbh. I didn’t foresee us being better than them.

[R. DeMurre]

The best five man lineup since the trade deadline includes McDermott. Hardly a disaster.

https://www.nba.com/stats/lineups/advanced/?Season=2021-22&SeasonType=Regular%20Season&TeamID=1610612759&DateFrom=02%2F10%2F2022&sort=MIN&dir=1


Jakob, McDermott, Keldon, Vassal, and DJM - 120 minutes total over 9 games with a net rating of +8.5


Simply replacing him with Josh Richardson is still pretty good, but slightly worse. Replacing him with Primo is a statistical disaster making them ~11 points worse overall.


120 minutes over the course of a season is a teeny tiny sample size. Even if you take into account that 5 man line up for 120 minutes, that's 600 minutes out of a team total of 18,845 minutes, so like 3% of the season. I won't bother to document a dozen examples of how bad McDermott has been-- RAPTOR, EMP, on/off +/-, etc... I'm sure you've seen them already and chose to ignore them. The Net Rating using ORtg & DRtg is an estimate of points produced and allowed. It's not the same as +/-, which accounts for the actual points scored and allowed while players are on the floor. This is why a player or team can have a positive rating but a negative result on the floor or vice versa. Devontae Cook has a very skewed team best net rating of +40. Keldon Johnson is -1.0, Dejounte is + 5, Poeltl is +13, and McDermott is -5. The Phoenix Suns have the best record in the league and their "best" 5 man line up has Paul, Crowder, Booker, Bridges, & Ayton playing 156 minutes over 8 games, with a net rating of +3.2... so they're not quite as good as the Spurs?

[The Truth #6]

"There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics."

[R. DeMurre]

:lol Statistically speaking, most people would agree with that.

[MannyIsGod]

120 minutes over the course of a season is a teeny tiny sample size. Even if you take into account that 5 man line up for 120 minutes, that's 600 minutes out of a team total of 18,845 minutes, so like 3% of the season. I won't bother to document a dozen examples of how bad McDermott has been-- RAPTOR, EMP, on/off +/-, etc... I'm sure you've seen them already and chose to ignore them. The Net Rating using ORtg & DRtg is an estimate of points produced and allowed. It's not the same as +/-, which accounts for the actual points scored and allowed while players are on the floor. This is why a player or team can have a positive rating but a negative result on the floor or vice versa. Devontae Cook has a very skewed team best net rating of +40. Keldon Johnson is -1.0, Dejounte is + 5, Poeltl is +13, and McDermott is -5. The Phoenix Suns have the best record in the league and their "best" 5 man line up has Paul, Crowder, Booker, Bridges, & Ayton playing 156 minutes over 8 games, with a net rating of +3.2... so they're not quite as good as the Spurs?

Obviously it's a small sample size but you've said it's been a disaster because once again you look at advanced metrics without any context. You guys don't want to think about basketball or watch basketball or analyze it. You want a single stat to tell you what is happening.


I don't care what raptor or emp or bpm say about McDermott for the entire season. I care about how it's looked later in a year with the players that are still here and not those that have been shipped off.

Doug is not a good defender so his net rating is going to be bad. The question is not whether or not Doug will be a good defender and thus have a good net rating. The answer to that has always been no. The question is if the Spurs can find a way to use Doug that makes the team better as a whole. The answer is maybe, which is far from anything a reasonable person would call a disaster.

[Dex]

"There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics."

If you have the data, you can make it tell the story you want.

[R. DeMurre]

Obviously it's a small sample size but you've said it's been a disaster because once again you look at advanced metrics without any context. You guys don't want to think about basketball or watch basketball or analyze it. You want a single stat to tell you what is happening.


I don't care what raptor or emp or bpm say about McDermott for the entire season. I care about how it's looked later in a year with the players that are still here and not those that have been shipped off.

Doug is not a good defender so his net rating is going to be bad. The question is not whether or not Doug will be a good defender and thus have a good net rating. The answer to that has always been no. The question is if the Spurs can find a way to use Doug that makes the team better as a whole. The answer is maybe, which is far from anything a reasonable person would call a disaster.

No, you're the one that scours all the stats and finds one that agrees, and then ignores all the others. You yourself have mentioned RAPTOR numerous times in posts, but with McDermott you avoid it like the plague because it rates him as the worst player on the team. Then you resort to the lamest insult of "you don't watch games," which of course is not even remotely true.

[MannyIsGod]

Well yeah if by scour you mean look at more than one metric to find out how players fit in. Raptor is great which is why I use it to compare players to each other. But raptor alone and put of context isnt the end all be all. Especially in dynamic team settings.

McDermott is not a good defender. All advanced metrics bear this out. But once again, that was always the understanding and expectation. Did you think he would all of a sudden be a good defender? Do you think the Spurs signed him to be a good defender? McDermott was brought in for his offensive skillet and the question was whether or not the Spurs would have the players to hide him on defense. Turns out they might. This is precisely the indicaton those lineup stats I linked above show.

What about McDermotts play this year is a surprise to you that you would label him a disaster.

I don't know if you guys understand that the average NBA player is not a positive influence on their own. This is why replacement level players are negative in advanced metrics and why looking at things like net rating alone don't tell you about how a player fits in a team.

[R. DeMurre]

Well yeah if by scour you mean look at more than one metric to find out how players fit in.




No, you're the one that scours all the stats and finds one that agrees, and then ignores all the others.

[The Truth #6]

I haven’t looked at any statistics but it seems obvious to me that Josh Richardson has been an upgrade from McBuckets, and maybe even White, at least in how the team plays. I’m exaggerating, but Richardson has sort of like been a poor man’s hybrid of White and McB, without their weaknesses?

Anyway. As for defending McB and trying to see how we can best utilize him—that seems like more work than I’m up for. Yeah, let’s try to get what we can out of him while he’s on the team, but not playing seems like a good option more often than not. Also, he’s a horrible fit with Keldon. We need an actual 4 and then let Keldon be our worst starting defender. That’s the direction I’d like to see.

[MannyIsGod]

I mean like I said, you want a lazy one stop number to tell you the whole story but that doesn't exist. You are scared of nuance and context.

[MannyIsGod]

Just to be clear, the Spurs should try to upgrade McDermott in the off-season with a real 4 but if anything he's been better than expected so it's hard to say he's a disaster.

[R. DeMurre]

.


I don't care what raptor or emp or bpm say about McDermott for the entire season.


I mean like I said, you want a lazy one stop number to tell you the whole story but that doesn't exist. You are scared of nuance and context.

Sorry, but you're describing yourself. I like looking at all of the stats and adding it to the eye test. You go out of your way to never address any stat that negates your opinions.

[MannyIsGod]

Sorry, but you're describing yourself. I like looking at all of the stats and adding it to the eye test. You go out of your way to never address any stat that negates your opinions.

I've literally addressed it in multiple posts. Those stats are bad for Doug because he's a bad defender. He's literally one of the worst defenders in the league according to Raptor. This was known coming in, was it not? Once again, did you expect him to be a good defender or not? Did you expect Doug to have good RAPTOR numbers? Did anyone? Doug was brought in to play good offense and I'd argue that he's done that better than was expected. So if the guy isn't brought in to be good defensively, why would I care about the metrics that factor defensive play in evaluating him? I mean honestly why?

Furthermore, looking at an entires year of stats as if nothing on this team has dramatically changed is just plain bad. That's why I looked at lineups post trade deadline. As I've told you before, where is the RAPTOR data that don't encompass the entire year?

[Proxy]

yeah, weird to call out Doug, was fine this season. He was expected to be a Bones/Fin type and was exactly that

[FutureMan]

(If you did predict it, kudos to you. Majority believed the team would be at the bottom of the standings)

I was really hoping for both. Something like the 2018-19 season where 30 wins would get you the 6th pick.

[R. DeMurre]

I've literally addressed it in multiple posts. Those stats are bad for Doug because he's a bad defender. He's literally one of the worst defenders in the league according to Raptor. This was known coming in, was it not? Once again, did you expect him to be a good defender or not? Did you expect Doug to have good RAPTOR numbers? Did anyone? Doug was brought in to play good offense and I'd argue that he's done that better than was expected. So if the guy isn't brought in to be good defensively, why would I care about the metrics that factor defensive play in evaluating him? I mean honestly why?


You can't evaluate a player exclusively on one side of the ball. Obviously anyone on the court is switching between offense & defense multiple times a minute. If you're a great offensive player and an average defender, you help your team. If you routinely give more than you get, you don't. How can you possibly argue that the the total statistical picture is less important than the offensive alone? That's absurd. If a player's +6 on offense and -4 on D, you've still got an overall positive impact. if you're +1 on offense and -4 on D... I mean, c'mon. This is basketball 101. Using your logic, the Spurs would be wise to sign Bryn Forbes again this summer.

[MannyIsGod]

You can't evaluate a player exclusively on one side of the ball. Obviously anyone on the court is switching between offense & defense multiple times a minute. If you're a great offensive player and an average defender, you help your team. If you routinely give more than you get, you don't. How can you possibly argue that the the total statistical picture is less important than the offensive alone? That's absurd. If a player's +6 on offense and -4 on D, you've still got an overall positive impact. if you're +1 on offense and -4 on D... I mean, c'mon. This is basketball 101. Using your logic, the Spurs would be wise to sign Bryn Forbes again this summer.

Of course you can evaluate players on one side of the ball. We do it all the time, because basketball is a team sport. They don't just add up your teams net ratings at the start of the game to figure out who won, do they? There's a reason we have role players. Almost all teams have players taht are just good at one thing. You can hide bad defensive players on a good team. Its literally done all the damn time.

Once again, you don't seem to realize that the average NBA player is a net negative. You guys parrot these stats and don't even understand them.

[R. DeMurre]

They don't just add up your teams net ratings at the start of the game to figure out who won, do they?



Dude, that's literally what you did in your post about McDermott's 5 man line up being the "best" the Spurs have to offer. You used Net Rating, which is an estimate of points scored or allowed based on stats. It doesn't measure what actually happened in any game. You don't even understand the stats you're using in your own arguments.