Wayshrine of Lonnie Walker

[Chinook]

I'd be more convinced if during this current run Lonnie's advanced stats improved in some way, but they haven't at all. He's still a hugely net negative player. In the month of February (10 games), his ORtg/DRtg was 103/122-- upside down to the extreme-- and that's during a personal best run. His career ORtg/DRtg is 101/115, which is pretty bad-- so during his recent breakout, his impact on the floor actually got worse rather than better. And keep in mind, the Spurs famously have a decent point differential for a losing team this year, so Lonnie's advanced stats should reflect that at least a little bit. I wish the guy well and think he could be the 8th/9th guy on a good team, but dreams of Walker becoming the next Manu or even the next Brent Barry look pretty unreasonable.

I understand desire for easy-to-use advance stats, but there are problems with this. The first is that using February's numbers as a counter to the "last seven games" argument doesn't really work. He is minus 15 in regular plus-minus over his last seven games (when the team was minus 9). If the net rating numbers meant what I think you implied, it wouldn't make sense. The Spurs are basically two points worse when Lonnie is on the court recently. You're right that that is worse than they have been for the season (where he is minus 1.1). In on-offs, he's minus 2.8 for the season. That's actually a dramatic improvement over last year (where he was minus 8.6). Net-rating as a BBRef stat factors in rebounding and other counting stats to "estimate" the impact a player has per 100 possessions on either end of the court. Big tend to dominate in that category, though guards who dominate the ball or excel at getting the non conventional counting stats can creep up there.

That Lonnie's even been a negative this year is not a universal position. 82games.com actually has him as a neutral to positive player, especially when he's able to play as a SG. http://www.82games.com/2122/21SAS5.HTM in terms of on-off, he was actually positive for much of year but fell off recently. We'll see if his performances can pull him back into the green.

I'd be much more worried about Walker's numbers if he seemed to be stagnating as a player. Where he's at isn't good enough. But if you're going to go from bad to good, then you're likely going to go through different levels of bad on your way up. Then only way he's going to improve his stats is by putting in one good performance at a time. He's not going to fix them overnight. Even if he continues this stretch for the rest of the season, he's likely to still grade out negatively in a lot of stats. If you're like Ex and basically made up your mind that Walker has to go just because Samanic was cut, then there's nothing he can do. But PATFO isn't playing Primo, Richardson or Langford over him. They didn't waive him to find a new opportunity. I think it's reasonable to believe they haven't given up on him developing, and they have to be encourage with how he's playing right now, even though there are things they still has things he can improve on.

[R. DeMurre]

That Lonnie's even been a negative this year is not a universal position. 82games.com actually has him as a neutral to positive player, especially when he's able to play as a SG. http://www.82games.com/2122/21SAS5.HTM in terms of on-off, he was actually positive for much of year but fell off recently. We'll see if his performances can pull him back into the green.

82games.com is a site I've looked at a bunch in the past, but this year they're in the process of updating their approach, and haven't kept current. If you look at the main page, it specifically says:

San Antonio Spurs
2021-2022 NBA Season Stats
Last update: 12/6/2021

http://www.82games.com/2122/2122SAS.HTM


Looking at the other generally well regarded sites, I'd say there is universal agreement that Walker is a net negative, be it the RAPTOR stats of fivethirtyeight, the EPM of Dunksandthrees.com, or the BPM or VORP of Basketball Reference. So, i'm not using one easy to understand stat-- i'm using multiple stats from multiple sites. Your rebuttal is using one easy to understand stat, despite the fact that the site themselves says their updates are two months old, and despite the fact every other major advanced stat site also shows Lonnie to be a net negative. I didn't want to bog down the original quick post with numbers from five different sites, but I probably should have.

[Maddog]

This is unsustainable, Lonnie is not even looking at other players anymore. Probably the best way for him to score, but can you really build around that on that second unit? Pop is maybe trying to see with the last few games if it is possible , just trying to feed Lonnie a ton and taking the leash off hoping something breaks in a good way.

I get the impression they told him to stop trying to be a playmaker and that's part of why he's taking off

[Maddog]

This is unsustainable, Lonnie is not even looking at other players anymore. Probably the best way for him to score, but can you really build around that on that second unit? Pop is maybe trying to see with the last few games if it is possible , just trying to feed Lonnie a ton and taking the leash off hoping something breaks in a good way.

I get the impression they told him to stop trying to be a playmaker and that's part of why he's taking off

[Chinook]

82games.com is a site I've looked at a bunch in the past, but this year they're in the process of updating their approach, and haven't kept current. If you look at the main page, it specifically says:

San Antonio Spurs
2021-2022 NBA Season Stats
Last update: 12/6/2021

http://www.82games.com/2122/2122SAS.HTM


Looking at the other generally well regarded sites, I'd say there is universal agreement that Walker is a net negative, be it the RAPTOR stats of fivethirtyeight, the EPM of Dunksandthrees.com, or the BPM or VORP of Basketball Reference. So, i'm not using one easy to understand stat-- i'm using multiple stats from multiple sites. Your rebuttal is using one easy to understand stat, despite the fact that the site themselves says their updates are two months old, and despite the fact every other major advanced stat site also shows Lonnie to be a net negative. I didn't want to bog down the original quick post with numbers from five different sites, but I probably should have.

Honestly, I should have checked on that myself. On one hand, I do agree that it not being as current means it hasn't captured any of the recent play. However, it also means that for the first two games or so, he wasn't actually grading out that poorly in advanced stats. That jives with what I said in terms of his on-off numbers being positive for much of the season. That he had a good 20-plus game stretch of being a positive in terms of impact stats suggests it's not something beyond him. None of that negates BBR's net-rating not really being designed for guards though. If anything, Walker's number suggests a player who's struggled on offense during February. I would agree with that, given how he started the month. But there are other ways to get splits than BBRef. NBA.com let's you choose recent games. Sorting out the last seven games gives this:

https://www.nba.com/stats/players/ad...mID=1610612759

(I haven't read about how NBA.com does their net-rating, so I don't know if it has the same caveats than BBR's does.)

If you know a way to sort the advanced stats you mentioned to isolate this stretch I'd really like to know, but this and things like plus-minus are the best I've got. As I said, I'd agree with you if Lonnie were at the end of his developmental curve and was putting up these impact stats, it would speak horribly to him. Most of us were not pounding the table to bring him back before this stretch. But now that he's had this stretch, things are different. The uncut advanced stats are aggregate stats, and as I said in the previous post, he isn't going to fix those overnight. The hope is that next year he doesn't have the bad stretches and just has mostly good ones. That's how development works. If he were a second-year player, no one would be batting an eye over this. It sucks that the Spurs don't have two more years of rookie contract for Walker, but it is what it is. He's showing marked improvement now, while also showing areas for future improvement. If the Spurs still think his ceiling is high, they should aim to keep him rather than being inflexible about his age or tenure.

[rankingtear]

Lonnie isn't the PG. It's not his job to get others involved. If he can find a better mix of scoring and passing, he should pick up more assists (he should have had three last night -- they didn't count one of his passes for some reason). But he's not like Mills was where he has to even be the nominal PG while letting a passing wing run the offense. It's not sustainable to expect him to shoot lights out every game, but he's shots 53 percent from the floor and 40 percent from three over this stretch. That is sustainable if he continues to grow. His actual attempts aren't unsustainable either. Murray averages more shots per game for the whole season than Lonnie has averaged over this stretch. DeJounte can do it while still leaving room for guys like Johnson and Poeltl to get a lot of touches. Lonnie can do, especially if his shooting has recovered.

Now overall, is it sustainable for Pop to play Walker in this way if his wants to give developmental touches to other guards? That'd be harder, but the same is also true for Murray. If these touches are what's made Murray and All-Star and what's unlocked Lonnie's consistency, then they've well-spent. For all we know, Walker might end up being a 20ppg scorer himself next year. The Spurs shouldn't get into the habit of needing second contracts to bring out potential, but they can still afford it one or two more times.

DJ did it so Lonnie can do it, basically is your argument. Completely different players. This is a development year for us somewhere along the line Primo or a future pick needs to put up more than 3 shots a game.

[Chinook]

DJ did it so Lonnie can do it, basically is your argument. Completely different players. This is a development year for us somewhere along the line Primo or a future pick needs to put up more than 3 shots a game.

https://www.nba.com/stats/players/to...=TOUCHES&dir=1

Walker isn't touching the ball more than any starter other than McDermott. Me bringing up Murray isn't to just say, "Well DeJounte did it, so Walker can." It's that "DeJounte can take the most touches and get the most shots AND STILL the other guys in the lineup can get a lot of touches and shots. So it doesn't follow that Walker touching the ball more is hurting anybody else." As those stats show, Lonnie's scoring are due mostly to a e in efficiency. Him touching the ball is the best thing the team's had going for the past couple of weeks. The Spurs' reaction to seeing this shouldn't be, "Wow, Lonnie is finally showing how talented he is. But Primo needs to shoot more. Guess we'll have to tell Lonnie to go back to being passive. We can't possibly do something like start Primo for McDermott (who's not really needed if the team is in a development year at this point) and give him some of the starters' touches. No, we have to take touches away from the guy scoring at a high rate despite not even being in the top-five most touches on the team."

Development isn't just something you do for development's sake. If the thing the team wanted Primo to do was dominate the ball, he would still be in Austin. If the team's top priority was getting him NBA touches, they could do so in other ways. But besides fan disputes, the Spurs don't really have a reason to curtail the development of a guy who looks like he's finally on the accelerated part of his curve to have Primo take the role. Lonnie isn't Forbes. He came into the league with every bit as much talent and potential as Primo did. The whole goal of developing players is to have a guy who can consistently score 20 points on good efficiency and put pressure on the defense from all three levels. Whether that's Primo, Johnson, Vassell or Walker didn't really matter. If anything, letting Primo play off a guy who's performing the way Lonnie has been recently is much better for his development than getting touches by default. In Austin, he wasn't going to learn how to be a complimentary player. With a passive Lonnie, he wasn't going to learn it either. If the goal is to hopefully have a star perimeter scorer and a team capable of supporting him, then this is as close to live practice as they're going to get, especially from a bench player.

[rankingtear]

https://www.nba.com/stats/players/to...=TOUCHES&dir=1

Walker isn't touching the ball more than any starter other than McDermott. Me bringing up Murray isn't to just say, "Well DeJounte did it, so Walker can." It's that "DeJounte can take the most touches and get the most shots AND STILL the other guys in the lineup can get a lot of touches and shots. So it doesn't follow that Walker touching the ball more is hurting anybody else." As those stats show, Lonnie's scoring are due mostly to a e in efficiency. Him touching the ball is the best thing the team's had going for the past couple of weeks. The Spurs' reaction to seeing this shouldn't be, "Wow, Lonnie is finally showing how talented he is. But Primo needs to shoot more. Guess we'll have to tell Lonnie to go back to being passive. We can't possibly do something like start Primo for McDermott (who's not really needed if the team is in a development year at this point) and give him some of the starters' touches. No, we have to take touches away from the guy scoring at a high rate despite not even being in the top-five most touches on the team."

Development isn't just something you do for development's sake. If the thing the team wanted Primo to do was dominate the ball, he would still be in Austin. If the team's top priority was getting him NBA touches, they could do so in other ways. But besides fan disputes, the Spurs don't really have a reason to curtail the development of a guy who looks like he's finally on the accelerated part of his curve to have Primo take the role. Lonnie isn't Forbes. He came into the league with every bit as much talent and potential as Primo did. The whole goal of developing players is to have a guy who can consistently score 20 points on good efficiency and put pressure on the defense from all three levels. Whether that's Primo, Johnson, Vassell or Walker didn't really matter. If anything, letting Primo play off a guy who's performing the way Lonnie has been recently is much better for his development than getting touches by default. In Austin, he wasn't going to learn how to be a complimentary player. With a passive Lonnie, he wasn't going to learn it either. If the goal is to hopefully have a star perimeter scorer and a team capable of supporting him, then this is as close to live practice as they're going to get, especially from a bench player.

This is Lonnie's offense, he can't do both get others involve and score, you keep saying more scoring equates more assist for him , it has proven to be the opposite. Summer League, G league, last seven games vs rest of season. Accept him for who he is, expect less than 2 assist per game on from him on this featured role. Pop tried making him more of a secondary playmaker and it did not work, now pop is busting this simplified offense with him as a lead. Lonnie didn't turn into a new player overnight like you liked to believe this is by design pop is just living with the consequence while seeing how high the upside is.

[Chinook]

This is Lonnie's offense, he can't do both get others involve and score, you keep saying more scoring equates more assist for him , it has proven to be the opposite.

I do think that as he improves as a scorer, he'll get better passing opportunities. That's actually normal. Nothing about what he's done in seven games has "proven" anything. An issue that you're having is that you're looking at him like a PG, where he's supposed to be assisting as his primary function. Usually for them, they have assists numbers that don't track with their scoring. But scoring wings develop passing as a way to take advantage of their extra attention. You can see that for someone like Kawhi, whose assist (including rate stats and counting stats) went up as his scoring went up. DeRozan showed the same trajectory. Lonnie ALREADY averages more assists per possession than either of those guys did at his age. https://stathead.com/basketball/pcm_...p2yrfrom=2013; https://stathead.com/basketball/pcm_...&p2yrfrom=2015

So no, Walker's not "who he is" just because toward the end of his fourth year in the league he's going through a stretch of games where he's calling his own number more than ever before.

https://www.nba.com/stats/players/pa...TIAL_AST&dir=1

https://www.nba.com/stats/players/pa...TIAL_AST&dir=1

If anything, Walker's passed the ball more over this stretch and has averaged more attempted assists (meaning shots that would have given him an assists if his teammates didn't miss) than he has done over the year in aggregate. So he's shooting more, setting his teammates more and even on the whole is already better at assisting than eventual star wings were at his age. It's just not going to fly to argue Lonnie scoring like a first-option on great efficiency is something the Spurs should be trying to curtail.

Pop tried making him more of a secondary playmaker and it did not work, now pop is busting this simplified offense with him as a lead. Lonnie didn't turn into a new player overnight like you liked to believe this is by design pop is just living with the consequence while seeing how high the upside is.

Pop doesn't develop wings like that. I'm not going to argue he hasn't tried to see if Walker could play PG. He's done that with multiple players, Primo being an obvious example. People might even remember that he ran Danny Green at point on for multiple games. That Walker wasn't ready to be a PG early in his career (dude just learned to dribble at an NBA level in the 2020 off-season) doesn't mean Pop think Lonnie is a score-only player. It damn sure doesn't mean that Lonnie scoring great while being assertive somehow is running against the team's developmental wishes. Lonnie's closer to Vassell in age than he is to Murray. I don't think it's a defensible position to say, "He is what he is," in the middle of a conversation about how different he has been recently.

[KobesAchilles]

This is exactly how Lonnie should’ve been used to begin with. creating for others. That takes years to learn. Start simple. Make him a gunner. Get him looking for his own shot. Get HIS confidence up before he worries about others. The dude was shooting like 22% from 3 for a good chunk of the season. I’m not going to rag on him bc his advance stats haven’t improved. Baby steps with that stuff. If Lonnie can consistently create for himself then we have officially 2 players on our team that can do that. It’s still a far cry from having a competent roster but I’m glad to see Lonnie just playing instead of thinking. He’s not really a thinker

[rankingtear]

I do think that as he improves as a scorer, he'll get better passing opportunities. That's actually normal. Nothing about what he's done in seven games has "proven" anything. An issue that you're having is that you're looking at him like a PG, where he's supposed to be assisting as his primary function. Usually for them, they have assists numbers that don't track with their scoring. But scoring wings develop passing as a way to take advantage of their extra attention. You can see that for someone like Kawhi, whose assist (including rate stats and counting stats) went up as his scoring went up. DeRozan showed the same trajectory. Lonnie ALREADY averages more assists per possession than either of those guys did at his age. https://stathead.com/basketball/pcm_...p2yrfrom=2013; https://stathead.com/basketball/pcm_...&p2yrfrom=2015

So no, Walker's not "who he is" just because toward the end of his fourth year in the league he's going through a stretch of games where he's calling his own number more than ever before.

https://www.nba.com/stats/players/pa...TIAL_AST&dir=1

https://www.nba.com/stats/players/pa...TIAL_AST&dir=1

If anything, Walker's passed the ball more over this stretch and has averaged more attempted assists (meaning shots that would have given him an assists if his teammates didn't miss) than he has done over the year in aggregate. So he's shooting more, setting his teammates more and even on the whole is already better at assisting than eventual star wings were at his age. It's just not going to fly to argue Lonnie scoring like a first-option on great efficiency is something the Spurs should be trying to curtail.



Pop doesn't develop wings like that. I'm not going to argue he hasn't tried to see if Walker could play PG. He's done that with multiple players, Primo being an obvious example. People might even remember that he ran Danny Green at point on for multiple games. That Walker wasn't ready to be a PG early in his career (dude just learned to dribble at an NBA level in the 2020 off-season) doesn't mean Pop think Lonnie is a score-only player. It damn sure doesn't mean that Lonnie scoring great while being assertive somehow is running against the team's developmental wishes. Lonnie's closer to Vassell in age than he is to Murray. I don't think it's a defensible position to say, "He is what he is," in the middle of a conversation about how different he has been recently.

C'mon potential assist went up by .5 with a 5 minutes jump and 5% usage jump. Too lazy to calculate but his potential assist could have easily went down if you adjust it. It is definite per 36 assist during that stretch from 3.5 season to 2.2. Watch the game it is evidently clear. You counter argue with all star caliber players which i can't do anything about that, i could probably win every argument if i reference all stars. Tim avg 10 - 10 in his freshman season no reason this guy who avg 10 10 can't be a top 10 player etc. etc.

Lonnie was so bad this year offensively compared to the season before that what we might be seeing is what regression to the mean looks like. Jakob is a 50% ft shooter for his career, if he shoots 25% in first two months he is shooting 70% for the rest of the season like clockwerk.

What i did notice is Lonnie not doing much of circus shots anymore that has 20% chance of going in, might just be because pop is running everything going to his right but still a good development.

[RobinsontoDuncan]

Is it crazy for us to just enjoy Lonnie's recent run of great play? I'm a Spurs fan, and this season has been all about watching the young guys develop. It's been fun to see Lonnie making some big plays for us lately. I hope he keeps it up.

[duncan2150]

Sometimes it's better to watch games than to talk only about stats or advanced stats ... Lonnie is better this year, especially during last weeks.

He's a better finisher at the rim ( thanks to ginobili), the FT rate is better and now he starts to be a little bit regular on offense.

Let's see if he can stay like that till the end of the season.

[mystargtr34]

He literally does nothing but put his head down, and go to he rack, sort of a worse version of Westbrook, minus and dishing or rebounding.

Except he doesn’t have Westbrook’s biggest flaw, which is shooting.

[Chinook]

C'mon potential assist went up by .5 with a 5 minutes jump and 5% usage jump. Too lazy to calculate but his potential assist could have easily went down if you adjust it. It is definite per 36 assist during that stretch from 3.5 season to 2.2. Watch the game it is evidently clear. You counter argue with all star caliber players which i can't do anything about that, i could probably win every argument if i reference all stars. Tim avg 10 - 10 in his freshman season no reason this guy who avg 10 10 can't be a top 10 player etc. etc.

So Lonnie can't do anything about whether guys make or miss the shot opportunities he creates for them. That's why looking at potential assists is a better comparison, especially over a sample size that small.

You couldn't win any of these arguments by referencing All-Stars if you try to bring Tim Duncan (who was literally an MVP candidate his rookie season) as an example for why guys can't develop. You misunderstood (I'm assuming willingly) what the comparison shows. You assumed that there is a negative relationship between a player scoring more and picking up more assists. You provided no evidence for your assumption. In reality, that assumption is false. Play-making is a skill scoring wings develop. Leonard and DeRozan are relevant examples. Kawhi couldn't make plays at all for most of his career as a Spur. He was a black hole when he became a star. He had to learn to pass more as he developed. DeRozan didn't show much passing ability at all until he developed.
I used them because they are the last two high-scoring Spurs wings, but the trend is pretty clear. Jimmy Butler, Khris Middleton, Eric Gordon, Evan Fournier, whomever. Not all of them had dramatic developmental curves, and for some of them their assists might go down in an odd year. But the trend of the assists increasing with scoring is still there, and the trend of assists going down with scoring going up is not.

But the trend is underpinned with logic as well. When a player has the ball, the defense has to make a decision to play the pass or the shot. The more often the player tends to pass, the less the defense commits to contesting the shot and the more they commit to playing the passing lanes. Walker had been so tentative that the opponent had started to play the pass, meaning he couldn't score or get the ball to his teammates. By scoring more, he's taking advantage of a scouting report that is having players not commit 100 percent to stopping him. Once the reports get updated to where teams guard him more aggressively, the passing lanes will open back up again. That's why it's a balance. It's not so other people can get shots just because it's good that they get shots. In a vacuum, it shouldn't matter who's shooting if the scoring is efficient. But the more a player scores, the more a defense will key in on them. Sometimes that doesn't matter, like with Ja a couple of games ago. Most of the time, though, that's where passing comes into play. So the threat of passing is what allows a player to be a consistent lead scorer, and the threat of scoring is what allows a player to get passes off. The two necessarily work together.

Getting the mix that creates the most efficient looks for the whole team is the goal, not getting X player however many touches. That's not Walker's problem to worry about. He needs to be the man or find the open man. Of course, if Primo or whomever is on a hot streak, Walker and the rest of the Spurs need to get them the ball. But that isn't an issue one can accuse Walker of having.

[R. DeMurre]

Sometimes it's better to watch games than to talk only about stats or advanced stats ... Lonnie is better this year, especially during last weeks.

He's a better finisher at the rim ( thanks to ginobili), the FT rate is better and now he starts to be a little bit regular on offense.

Let's see if he can stay like that till the end of the season.

It's better to do both. The eye test has inherent shortcomings-- namely that it tends to over-rate whatever recent highlights are fresh in the mind. Advanced stats cover every second a player is on the floor, not just arbitrary games watched mixed in with occasional games missed.

[ginobilized]

Does anyone else wonder if Manu’s influence has been part of Lonnie’s surge of late?
I’d like to hope that’s the case. Manu seems like the perfect mentor for Lonnie.

[John B]

Does anyone else wonder if Manu’s influence has been part of Lonnie’s surge of late?
I’d like to hope that’s the case. Manu seems like the perfect mentor for Lonnie.

I think it’s a combination of three, and not particularly in any order
1. Manu’s talks
2. White leaving creating opportunity
3. Contract year