So you want Vassell to play like prime klay or reggie? It would be great if he can model himself after that.
At this point it’s not really his offence I’m worried about, it’s his total lack of defence that’s killing me. At least keldon tries, Vassell doesn’t even do that.
Hahaha. We've been through this long time before. Manu should be classed a franchise player that accepted his role off the bench for the spurs.. Thats why its a unfair comparison to Dev .
Manu has carried multiple teams on his back consistently. Thats what franchise players do.
That said. The type of Game Manu lays on the court . Would he last a whole nba season as the number 1. Doubt it.
For me, there has been about 15 franchise guys in nba history and Manu isn’t one of them. But he was a of a player all the same. Top 5 SG
not sure what kind of problem does the spurs community has with devin.. he's been pretty darn good, consistently.
15? That’s a pretty short list.
Jordan
LeBron
KAJ
Duncan
Hakeem
Shaq
Magic?
Bird
Jokic
Giannis
Dirk
Moses
Kobe
Wade?
Wilt
Russell?
Mikan?
Isiah
Currry
Durant?
Not challenging you, but wondering if the following players would be considered franchise guys, I know some of them never rung but most would put them as franchise guys:
Barkley
KG
Ewing
Malone
Stockton
Robinson
David Thompson
Dr J
Bernard king
Stevie franchise (just because of the name)
AI
Tmac
Jason Kidd
Pre injury grant hill and penny
Nash
Nique
I would say those are franchise guys myself.
And yes, I don’t consider Manu a franchise guy, but he’s my second favourite of all time though.
There are tiers to me when it comes to that kind of stuff. For instance, to me a franchise player means you lead a team to multiple les or have one dominant le run while contending for numerous years.
Everything just below that. The Ewings, the Malones, Robinson, Wade,Barkley, KD, IT, Kobe,KG- these are players that are all time greats. Top 15-30 all time. They aren’t just mere all stars. They are clearly above that as they have won MVPs and had numerous years as contenders. But they aren’t franchise players either. Guys you just put on any franchise and they just win. I don’t have a name for these players and plenty of people just group them as franchise players. Maybe I should just come up with a name for them? Idk.
But Tim Duncan could’ve played for the Grizzlies and won a le. Malone would’ve still ended up short. There’s a difference between the two and I don’t think they belong in the same tier.
Russell
Wilt
KAJ
Moses
Bird
Magic
Dr J
Logo
Jordan
Hakeem
Shaq
Duncan
Steph
Jokic
lebron
Dirk
Maybe Giannis ( he’s kinda like Robinson to me where his flaws just undo his team in the playoffs and his teammates the bed as well but he has a le but if you take away the le what has he really done)
The problem is that he actually hasn’t been that good, and certainly hasn’t been consistent. The only thing he’s consistent at is being inconsistent.
Here’s his game by game Game Score since coming back from missing the game against SAC on 12/6:
3.8
15.1
-2.9
19.0
7.4
10.9
6.4
9.2
20.3
5.0
16.8
11.3
8.0
3.8
18.6
16.7
10 is considered an average performance. He’s been below average in half of those games. Neither good, or consistent.
wtf is game score lol
It’s just a shorthand metric used to give a quick numerical estimation of how good (or bad) a player performed. Kind of how Soccer has game ratings, but this is done using an objective calculation. It’s not a perfect stat by any means, but it is a quick and easy way to put a players counting stats into one metric.
Here is how it is calculated:
- GmSc - Game Score; the formula is PTS + 0.4 * FG - 0.7 * FGA - 0.4*(FTA - FT) + 0.7 * ORB + 0.3 * DRB + STL + 0.7 * AST + 0.7 * BLK - 0.4 * PF - TOV. Game Score was created by John Hollinger to give a rough measure of a player's productivity for a single game. The scale is similar to that of points scored, (40 is an outstanding performance, 10 is an average performance, etc.).
- The problem is that, like with all counting stats, it simply ignores any non-box score impact a player had on the game.
But to say a player is “good” and “consistent” we need something by which to measure that claim against.
Or maybe stop being dense and call them what tons of people who know more than u call them...what do you think a franchise is or means...its a team! So when a player is a teams best player and remains their best player long enough that they're trying to build around them...by definition that's a franchise player!
thanks for explaining.. i do remember this stat now that you mentioned Hollinger, didn't know people still took it seriously. It is wrong however to call it a stat, it is a function.
I agree that he should become more of an offball player, but the iso thing is by design cause our team sucks. It ain't his fault that the coaching staff wants him to do more than he's currently capable off. I always said we need speed at the 1 and that would really open up Vassell's game.
The funny thing is that if you look at his +/- since he became a starter (since you like to bring +/- up frequently), he's only a -1.8 while shooting horrible percentages.
Seems accurate to me. If players 1-30 would be a team's #1 option, 31-60 a team's #2 option, and 61-90 a team's #3 option... then Vassell would be a decent #3 option for us and we still need that #2 guy.
I was happy with him as our draft selection. He seemed like an elite-role player at a time before we decided to tank. What I really liked was that (in college) he averaged above 1 in every stat except turnovers. He just did a little bit of everything and played within himself. But then we emptied the team and he was our #1 option by default and was asked to do too much. If we can get that #2 and Vassell can go back to playing within himself, I still think he can fit on the team.
He's -1.8 *per game* since he entered the starting lineup (December 19), but that's second worst on the team. In fact, only 3 guys who are in the regular rotation have a negative +/- over that span: Keldon (-1), Devin (-23), Bassey (-43). Not exactly sure what point you're trying to make on his behalf here. That our highest paid player in team history is better than our 3rd string center on a min deal?
I will give you your first point though. I'm on the side that Vassell was a very fine draft pick, we've just failed to fully optimize his development and have put him in a situation that doesn't foster optimizing that development. This is the problem with the tanking. You got guys like Keldon and Vassell who spent their prime developmental years in a tanking environment, encouraged to play hero chuckball. It's hard (and this isn't their fault) to just switch away from that. You usually have to completely overturn the roster after you are done tanking, but the Spurs have chosen to go down a path where they are hoping to convert their tank commanders into winning players. That usually requires a change of scenery. Maybe the Spurs can buck that trend, but it's not looking great so far.
Last edited by scott; 01-17-2025 at 01:32 PM.
How do you propose we evaluate whether he has been "pretty darn good, consistently"? What other game-by-game stat/function/metric/rubric/equation/algorithm do you feel would be a better gauge? Picking the metric to debunk that's "pretty darn good" is easy. We can just look at CraftedPlusMinus (37th percentile player), or LEBRON (45th percentile player), or DARKO DPM (40th percentile player). Sounds pretty mid, at best.
How do you want to measure "consistently?
Sounds like you have extremely low standards.
Stats and math period haven't ever been my strong suit, but gotta bring it to hang with the likes of you, my dude.
I agree - to an extent and tentatively.I've repeatedly said (as have others) Devin is at his best as a 3rd or 4th option who isn't playing ISO ball and spending his time dribbling. I'm not sure Fox is an apt comparison, be he is a PG who plays in a completely different style of offense. But just looking at our team, I'd like to see Devin's offensive game develop somewhere inbetween where he is today and Champ, who takes 75% of his shots with 0 dribbles and 93% of his shots with less than 3 dribbles. Right now Devin is at 35% of his shots with 3 or more dribbles. I'd like to see that number get closer to 20-25%. He's also taking nearly 25% of his shots over 10 feet in tight or very tight coverage. Compare that to Fox (12%), Champ (10.5%) or someone like Desmond Bane (10.7%). Devin shots are more difficult than they should be (some of that is on Devin, and some of that may be on the lack of talent around him).
I don't want Devin to become a spot up shooter like Champ, but I do want to see his offense become a bit more centered around off-the-ball movement and quick offense. Most of the time, there is no reason for Devin to dribble the ball more than 3 times to create a shot.
But I'm more pre-disposed to thinking that Dev has had this type of role both encouraged and relatively forced upon him. Guys like CP3 and even Barnes, Sochan, et al can't create their offense possession after possession (at least anymore). Devin is basically being asked to be a creator that he really isn't. He's got limitations, and he wasn't able to use this off-season to expand them or at least improve where he's best.
Things that piss me off about Devin usually don't directly involve Devin is my point. You rarely see the coaching staff - even with Mitch in control - doing things like running him off Reggie/Klay/Rip style baseline or backscreens, for instance. Instead, it's always some type of dribble hand-off at the wing or top of the 3 point line expecting him to do something with it. He should be a guy who we repeatedly run off screens to tire people out. When he's not injured, they basically don't limit his minutes in a meaningful way, so they must trust his conditioning (the coaches, that is). They should be using that as a weapon in a more efficient manner, basically.
When you give him the ball at the top of the key asking to create, it's already stacking the odds against a favorable outcome. He should be Rip 2.0 and they want him to fill more of a Manu-type role. Just ain't happenin'. That's not DV's fault, really. I think, in a vacuum, that's also why his +/- is so bad. When Wemby goes to the bench, they run the offense through him as a ball-handler for 3-4 minutes straight at times and that's where we run into trouble.
Well, I always like to remember the +/- king Matt Bonner. Not exactly the most effective player, but for some reason, having that stretch "5" next to Timmy paid dividends. Yet, Bonner barely passed the eye test for such eye-popping plus minus #s. Long story short, I think it's a reflection of how basketball is a team sport and even moreso, a game of runs that tends to be won in the first half or even first quarter on some nights. Castle had a career game basically (considering the compe ion) and was -14 two nights ago vs MEM. There's no way I see his stat line and what he did in the 4th and think he was a net negative.I will strongly disagree about +/-. It's not a perfect catch all stat, and it's also not that helpful of a stat when everyone on the team is all negatives (because your team is really bad) or all positive (because your team is really good), but when it has a polarity against others on the team, it's quite telling. After all, the only stat that matters at the end of the game is whether you have more points than the other team. If you pump in great individual stats, but your team loses points when you are on the floor... then you aren't contributing to winning.
I agree with your middle section that it's not necessarily all Devin's fault. As RC_Drunkford has correctly pointed out, and as you do here, this is the game plan that the team has put forth and the position they've put Devin in, and in no small part as a function of the roster that the FO has constructed. There just really isn't anyone else to give the ball to in those situations. In a lot of ways I feel bad for Devin - he didn't necessarily choose to be put in this position (though he clearly idolizes Kobe, so maybe he relishes this role), but it's going to be really hard to break out of this mold (either for the Spurs or elsewhere) and it will probably result in him just being a career tank commander chucker. At least he'll be rich.Stats and math period haven't ever been my strong suit, but gotta bring it to hang with the likes of you, my dude.
I agree - to an extent and tentatively.
But I'm more pre-disposed to thinking that Dev has had this type of role both encouraged and relatively forced upon him. Guys like CP3 and even Barnes, Sochan, et al can't create their offense possession after possession (at least anymore). Devin is basically being asked to be a creator that he really isn't. He's got limitations, and he wasn't able to use this off-season to expand them or at least improve where he's best.
Things that piss me off about Devin usually don't directly involve Devin is my point. You rarely see the coaching staff - even with Mitch in control - doing things like running him off Reggie/Klay/Rip style baseline or backscreens, for instance. Instead, it's always some type of dribble hand-off at the wing or top of the 3 point line expecting him to do something with it. He should be a guy who we repeatedly run off screens to tire people out. When he's not injured, they basically don't limit his minutes in a meaningful way, so they must trust his conditioning (the coaches, that is). They should be using that as a weapon in a more efficient manner, basically.
When you give him the ball at the top of the key asking to create, it's already stacking the odds against a favorable outcome. He should be Rip 2.0 and they want him to fill more of a Manu-type role. Just ain't happenin'. That's not DV's fault, really. I think, in a vacuum, that's also why his +/- is so bad. When Wemby goes to the bench, they run the offense through him as a ball-handler for 3-4 minutes straight at times and that's where we run into trouble.
Well, I always like to remember the +/- king Matt Bonner. Not exactly the most effective player, but for some reason, having that stretch "5" next to Timmy paid dividends. Yet, Bonner barely passed the eye test for such eye-popping plus minus #s. Long story short, I think it's a reflection of how basketball is a team sport and even moreso, a game of runs that tends to be won in the first half or even first quarter on some nights. Castle had a career game basically (considering the compe ion) and was -14 two nights ago vs MEM. There's no way I see his stat line and what he did in the 4th and think he was a net negative.
As for +/-, I actually look at the MEM game and Castle's +/- as a pretty fair reflection of what the expected outcome of a game like that from Castle would be. Yes, he pumped in a career high 26... but it was a very inefficient 26 points and not in the style of play that is conducive to our winning. This isn't Castle's fault per se, but rather a credit to MEM's game plan and an indictment of Mitch's inability to adapt. Castle kept us in the game with his scoring as long as he could... but when we play like that, we're probably going to lose. Most of Castle's points came in the second half, which is when we got destroyed. Basically, we played right into MEM's plan. If Castle pumped in 26 on 9/13 shooting instead of 9/21 it would have been another story.
I know +/- isn't perfect, but sometimes there is no need to overthink it, especially when considered with core players. Role players like Bonner (and my man Bassey last year) get sucked into artificially high +/- numbers that can and should be discounted, but when the guy who is second on the team in MPG (like Vassell is since he returned to the starting lineup) is second worst on the team in +/- (like Vassell is since he returned to the starting lineup), I think there is clear signal there.
I think you're overthinking it.
It was a case of a clearly better team half-assing it in the first half, then realizing they need to lock in for the second half if they're to win the game.
Yeah, offense could've been better in the second half, but defense was the issue.
Memphis scored 43 in third quarter and 35 in fourth.
It's not Castle's fault Wemby went 3-12 in second half.
If we hadn't allowed 88 points in the second half, it would've been a close game.
As I wrote in game thread, for me the issue is that we played the same sets and completely ignored the mismatches.
Castle is a bad shooter, but there was no reason not to tell him to attack Edey over and over again because he can easily beat him to the rim.
Instead we had Edey sag off Castle while we were running some bs pindown screens for Devin and Barnes.
Geeze somebody woke up in a bad mood. This place is to discuss differing ideas and opinions about basketball. And I was just hit with the dreaded “think exactly how everyone else thinks” mindset. I have an issue with saying Lillard is a franchise player or Sharif Abdul Raheem. I mean Chris Bosh and Kevin Love are franchise players to you but they aren’t to me.
Funny thing about this place is I constantly hear how wrong I am about stuff only to wait awhile and suddenly most people with me.
Yes... MEM turned it on in the second half and part of that was gameplan. Part of that gameplan was shutting down Wemby (successful) and letting Castle be the guy who scored (successful). The result, huge victory. It's the same when you play MIN, your gameplan is to let Julius Randle go off and shut down everyone else.
Edey didn't even play after he was subbed off at the 6min mark in the 3Q, and that's when Castle started scoring (he only had 9 points at that point). As you state, Castle wasn't attacking Edey at all. Had he done that, he might have had a more efficient night. You've pretty much just hammed down the point that Castle's 26 points and his -14 aren't at all inconsistent. We didn't have Castle attacking Edey, we ran pindowns instead. Then MEM turned it on and decided stopping Castle wasn't high on their priority list. Turns out, great choice by them.
The issue is that other than Wemby, noone on the team is worth stopping.
Devin could go off, but unlikely to hapapen at this point.
Anything other than Champagnie shooting like 70% from 3pt on high volume and we're useless without Wemby scoring 25+, we can only beat good teams in low scoring games.
Not counting OT against the Hawks, we won 1 game against non-tanking teams when they score more than 110, it was that game in Sacramento when they were down bad.
We're allowing just 102ppg in wins, OKC has the best DEFRTG at 103ppg.
Allowing 117ppg in losses, Wizards are at 118 as the worst defensive team in the league.
Since we obviously don't have enough firepower, the only way to win games against good teams is playing the best defense we can.
Yes, that's exactly my point. We shouldn't get overly excited about our guys putting up low-efficiency high scoring games because that's exactly what other teams want. It's no coincidence that high scoring games from Vassell and Castle are equally as likely to come with a negative +/- as they are a positive +/-
For example
With Vassell, of the 8 games this season where he has scored over 20 points, 4 have a negative +/-
With Castle, of the 5 games where he has scored over 20 points, 4 have a negative +/-
Compare that to Wemby, he has 24 games where he has scored 20 or more points, and only 7 of them have a negative +/-. Meanwhile, of the 9 games where Wemby has scored less than 20, 8 of them he has a negative +/-.
What does all of this tell us? The Spurs usually win Wemby minutes when Wemby scores, and usually lose Wemby minutes when Wemby doesn't score. But Vassell or Castle being scorers doesn't really correlate to winning or losing those minutes. Basically, the old adage comes true: shut down the opposing team's star and let the other guys beat you.
This isn't even Devin or Castle's fault... like you said, there is just no one else worth stopping.
Hopefully the FO notices this and sees it as a clear sign that we need a #2 (which most of us can already see).
That’s unfair to bassry though. He subs for wemby so of course his +/- is the worst on the team.
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