I had a similar thought when I saw the numbers. Basically, if you are going to play Blair, you better play him next to Duncan if you have any hope of not getting killed defensively.
I agree. I also think you have to bring familiarity into the equation too. Tim just isn't going to be as comfortable playing with Tiago out there as he is with Matt or Blair, guys he has played with consistently with for one season or more.
With that said, that we're seeing such high production from Tiago is certainly encouraging...
Those would have been my guesses before seeing the numbers. Interesting that the numbers back it up.
Yeah, that's the question. I personally think it's a lack of chemistry. But even though I really, really believe that ... it's obviously not something anyone can prove.
Last edited by timvp; 02-10-2012 at 05:55 PM.
ElNono I love your posts man but I can't for the life of me figure out what most of those pie charts (beyond minutes played) are supposed to tell us
Looking at points per 100 possessions - what does 100% of the pie chart represent? What do we take away from the fact that Splitter-Bonner = 12.16% in this category?
And looking at the numbers, I have to agree... for all the (rightful) praise Matt gets for his good work on defense so far, that Blair-Bonner combo numbers just resonate all too well with confirmation bias...
The thing though, if you really want to build some Splitter-Duncan chemistry, now it's the time to do it. You can't wait until the playoffs.
Yes, the Spurs reserves are playing much better than most other team's reserves. Where as the starter's output is more of a wash compared to the other teams starters.
Nice work with the graphs, ElNono.
That reminds me of the classic Rasheed Wallace quote: "Pass the god damn ball to whoever Bonner is guarding!"
The Spurs are actually best at grabbing defensive rebounds when Bonner is on the court. The top three in that stat are Bonner, Duncan and Leonard.
Agreed on both counts.
But regarding minutes, what do you think is an acceptable sample size? It's probably too small now but it's gotta be getting pretty close . . .
Sorry, I admit the pie chart might not be as useful (except for the minutes distribution), but I though at least the sorting of the legends ranked by the percentage was helpful.ElNono I love your posts man but I can't for the life of me figure out what most of those pie charts (beyond minutes played) are supposed to tell us
The legend is sorted by most productive to less productive (in that case). What that tells you is that the Splitter-Bonner combination scores more points per 100 possessions than any of the other combos. It's basically the same list timvp posted, but sorted by that specific criteria, instead of minutes.
With that said, I'd like to get the most useless pie chart award for the Possessions per 48 chart...
As much as these stats make Bonner look good, I've calculated the same stats based solely on his work in the playoffs. And let's just say those numbers are even uglier than I thought. I mean ... wow . . .
Tiago-Bonner and Tim-Bonner have the largest positive scoring differentials.
Not only does Tim-Tiago have a negative scoring differential, they don't even rank the best in terms of points allowed per 100 possessions.
Of course, given that all of these stats are correlations anyway, it's possible to rationalize this away by saying "maybe just coincidentally when Tiago and Tim have been on the floor together our perimeter players have dropped the ball with poor defense and the spurs were primarily outscored at the perimeter." This is certainly plausible (but again, unprovable).
My "eyeball test" has shown the Tiago-Tim combination to generally have the best defense around the rim. Interesting stats all around, though.
This makes sense. Duncan is still by far the Spurs best defender (best big man) and pairing the weakest of the 4 with him only makes sense at this point. It makes 0 sense to start Tim/Tiago when your backups or 2nd unit will consist of Bonner/Blair. Saying that, Blair is still getting too many minutes and Tiago needs to take those. At the end of the day another big man is needed.
On another note, Bonner has played well all year long and the people hating on him will never stop. His defensive #s this year have been fantastic but the haters refuse to acknowledge them. When the Spurs struggle he will always be a scape goat.
Bonner will only gain redemption in the playoffs... that's the reality of it...
Bonner's drop in 3pt % once the bright lights turn on is indeed frustrating and there's no excuse for it. He does serve a purpose out there in this particular offense though and that is to spread the floor and open up the paint.(hence the offensive #s are up when he's in the game) He does this quite well when he's on the floor at all times, even when his shot isn't falling at 50%. As #s continue to show he isn't as bad defensively as people make him out to be and this fallacy really needs to go away.
All this being said I don't think Bonner is more than a 3rd or 4th big man on a championship team. Certainly not a 2nd. We still need to trade for a big man IMO and eliminate Blair from the equation.
Disagree. Most acknowledge him in the regular season. We just see its been fools gold come playoff time to date. Even if he doesn't choke this year, it doesn't change that fact and at this point we have to hope he miraculously changes history.
His defense in the playoffs and rebounding has been atrocious. It's not a fallacy.
Spurs must do whatever it takes to get another big, a starting caliber big to remove Blair from the equation.
Since the defensive stats this year make Matt Bonner look like the second coming of Hakeem Olajuwon, here's a reminder of how much Bonner's defense has historically fallen off in the playoffs.
In the graph below, the blue line illustrates how many points the Spurs allowed per 100 possessions with Bonner on the court during that year's playoff run, the orange line is how many points per 100 possesions the team allowed as a whole, and the yellow line is how many points per 100 possessions the Spurs allowed when Bonner was on the bench.
It's interesting that the defense minus Bonner hasn't gotten that much worse since the championship days. But when Bonner is added in, the Spurs just can't defend in the playoffs.
What's odd is that Bonner's regular season defensive numbers are usually either good or great. Come playoff time, though, those numbers go on the toilet.
What are some possible explanations? Is anyone going to claim small sample size? Does the above graph make Bonner regular season fool's gold?
I didn't mean to derail the thread but I don't think it's worthwhile to get too excited about Bonner's defense unless there's a way to solve his defensive struggles in the postseason . . .
Hopefully these are a bit more useful
Nice graphHopefully these are a bit more useful
. This one's much easier to read.
As an aside, is it me or have the Spurs hidden RC since The Incident? He's been a ghost this year it feels like.
Now you've done it...
I was claiming small sample size up until about a postseason or two ago. It was easy to claim small sample size when he had played 132 playoff minutes (through '08-09). Not so much now that he has played 429 playoff minutes.
As far as possible explanations, I can think of a few, but none of them are particularly encouraging or solvable. Can't play under pressure? Increased level of compe ion in the playoffs? Different style of play in the NBA in the playoffs?
The only one I can currently think of that is remotely optimistic is that maybe the Spurs didn't match up with the right teams for Bonner's style of play. While that gives you a little hope that he can contribute in certain series, it doesn't bode well for anything resembling a le run.
Hypocritical to say that people don't acknowledge him when you say hes been playing well all year. The first 15 games of the season he looked completely done as a NBA player. Whether he was injured or out of shape, he looked terrible. Bonner looked awesome since then and most have agreed.
Also, his defensive rating is worse than last years and on par with 2 years before that. His offensive rebounding % has been reduced by half since last season (5.0 in 2011, 2.3 this year.) His total rebounding % has dropped since 2006. All things considered, his defense is still below average.
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