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Coasting mode is a relieving answer. I hope he really is. I can see his assists going up more because of the drive and dish play for the shooters.
Parker played a fantastic Eurobasket 6 months ago, he was the best scorer and the second best player of the tournament behind Juan Carlos Navarro who played out of his mind during all the Eurobasket with Spain.
Then Parker played great again in France with his club "ASVEL" and in the Eurocup.
At the end of november, he didn't play in a eurocup game because of an injured right soulder. His coach said at the time that Parker has been dealing with this injury for 3 months.
You can't be great 6 months ago and declining in 5 minutes.
A link about the injury :
http://projectspurs.com/2011-article...er-injury.html
Last edited by timaios; 01-10-2012 at 03:05 PM.
Coasting mode is a relieving answer. I hope he really is. I can see his assists going up more because of the drive and dish play for the shooters.
Great read timvp ! nicely put together some interesting data.
So TP is now a pass first PG but fans who wanted that for years are still not happy...
Timvp, do you have some useful stats that could demonstrate his lack on intensity on defense, to use nono expression. We cannot measure intensity for sure, but are his direct opponents scoring more on him than the previous years incl. Grizz serie?
Amen to that!
Agree, but 25 years is a bit much. Silas (even post-injury) and Moore were pretty solid points, though the position went to for the franchise between the time when Wes Matthews took over after Moore got sick and when Antonio Daniels lost his starting job, which was a span of about 16 years. Hard to believe that's only three years longer than the period since Tim and David brought San Antonio its first.
Ah, the championship days... when a 20-year-old Frenchman schooled one of the best point guards of all-time so viciously that the opposing team had to switch assignments and change their entire defensive strategy.Ah, the championship days...when Parker was subbed out for real PG's when the team needed it the mostExcept against Boobie Gibson of course
Interestingly, opposing point guards are averaging practically the same stats against him that they did back when Parker had the Twin Towers behind him and when Bowen was available to help him out. Doesn't really make sense for multiple reasons but I haven't figured out how those numbers could be lying ... especially since the point guard position is better now than it was back then.
Haha, Kidd was considered one of the best defensive PGs in the league until that series.Ah, the championship days... when a 20-year-old Frenchman schooled one of the best point guards of all-time so viciously that the opposing team had to switch assignments and change their entire defensive strategy.
Yeah, that makes it puzzling.
Guards can decline pretty damn fast. It seems like Iverson, Francis and Marbury fell off a cliff from one day to the next.
That said, I doubt we are seeing that severe of a dropoff with Parker. If we are, at least he's being graceful about it . . .
"I can't stop Tony Parker, OK? If I keep getting on the pick and roll, anybody can be like that. Anybody will beat you. Let me get in a pick and roll 65 times, and I can beat you, too. You get out here and play pick and roll, see how many times he will beat you"
- Gary Payton, 2004
Though he got it much worse back in '02
I'll let you know around the all-star break if I'm worried. Right now, I'm not too concerned. All players go through rough patches.
And lol at all the people wanting to trade Parker. I agree with timvp that he's under appreciated by many Spurs fans, even in 2007/2009 people were dogging him.
Those numbers are available. Would have to do a little bit of work to get 'em for the Grizz series but I'll make a thread about it soon since it's a pretty fascinating subject ... at least to me.
The nice thing about looking at those numbers is that they are pretty straight forward since Parker almost always has the sole job on defense of slowing the opposing point guard. He's not asked to do much in team defensive rotations or in terms of cross matching. So, in that sense, it's a pretty straight forward project.
Imo numbers didn't tell the story with Parker, but he did put up great stats. He's looked noticeably slower and the Grizz playoffs shows how he can be stifled if relied upon as a primary option.
Good stuff. I don't have anything to add other than I think Parker's assist numbers can be misleading, he can't get his team involved even like Jose Calderon can consistently and he doesn't have the legs to make teams pay like in the vintage Parker days. To me, this Tony Parker can be relatively easily gameplanned against, but thats both on Parker and the Spurs too1) The assists that aren't created equal are assists that lead to three-pointers. Tony Parker leads the NBA in such assists by a wide margin.
2) The Grizzlies cut down on the Spurs three-pointers but, tbh, that same penetrate and kick philosophy worked well in 03, 05 and 07. And the threes the Grizz mostly eliminated were by not doubling TD.
3) CP3 is a better pure point guard than Tony Parker. There's no debate on that. But comparing favorably to CP3 isn't the only judge of what a "true" PG is. I don't think TP is going to morph into John Stockton but there are signs that he can change his stripes a bit to fit what most consider "true".
Spurs and RJ are to blame for that play too, but to me thats also an example of how predictable Tony Parker's playmaking can be, and how it can be countered, ala Grizz.?
Most of your criticisms of Parker makes sense. This one doesn't. The league figured out a gimmick play in which Parker is only responsible for the pass ... and that's Parker's fault? Wha?
I don't think I've seen that play call this year. Though speaking of Parker, Jefferson's scoring this year can be directly attributed to Parker creating shots for him.
He seemed distant and out of it ever since the Eva fiasco, that particular highlight was interesting since I don't remember that happening to Manu or Duncan, but maybe its much ado about nothing.I don't think he was mentally into that game. But that happens to every player during the regular season. But, yeah, TP deserved blame.
Damage control imo, although actions do speak louder than French reporters.All of which he denied and proved false without a doubt after he signed his contract extension.
Entertaining for people who don't like the Spurs, but unfortunately it seems like a ty reality for the silver and black fans. I cringe whenever Brent Barry has to talk about the Spurs on NBATVThough an entertaining rumor, I never saw anything resembling proof.
Yes, Parker's actions were absolutely de able, especially for a family-like organization like the Spurs. Providing that TMZ was right, of course, and didn't Ms. Barry basically confirm the funny business too from her own website?A huge disappointment in class? Again, unless TMZ is your bible, there isn't any proof of lack of class. On the court, he's about as classy as there is ... if that even matters.
Defensively, Parker's never really been a player to write much about. But from the subjective eye test, he's been slipping on that end too.Defensively, stats show little to no decline in his play despite the Spurs as a team falling off a cliff in recent years.
True but doing so he plays off his man and has to gamble. Imo focusing on steals and passing lanes had to do more with Parker's 1v1 defense and trying to make him useful defensively.Hustling? He's coming off a season that saw a jump in steals and him playing the passing lanes. There are bouts of loafing but I wouldn't say Parker lacks hustle as a player.
I would've traded him during the LeBron sweepstakes and hopefully cashed in on a worthwhile big. But imo the trade offers for Parker probably weren't worth a damnWhen, exactly? Not before championship No. 4. 2009 was his career year. 2010 his value dropped due to injury. Earliest it would have made some sense to trade him was last year at the trade deadline -- but that wasn't exactly "a while ago" and trading him away when you have by far the best record in the NBA would have had Pop and RC committed.
If Parker doesn't have the legs anymore, than imo he is an average PG, and IIRC stats like PER indicates such as well since the playoffs. A slowed down Tony Parker doesn't seem worthwhile but the Spurs have a lot more problems than just TP9 when it comes to competing anywayEventually, yeah that'll probably be true. But as of this second, he' not a consistent scoring threat but I wouldn't classify him as average or easily replaceable.
Ah, the championship days... when a 20-year-old Frenchman schooled one of the best point guards of all-time so viciously that the opposing team had to switch assignments and change their entire defensive strategy.
I wasn't a very big fan of Moore and Silas only averaged more than 4.5 assists once during his career so I'm not sure how much of a point guard he really was ... but, yeah, I was speaking more ulatively.
(Looking at Silas really quick, his best Ast% as a Spur was 20%. Parker's career-low is 24%. Silas was actually closer to this year's Duncan who is at 16.7% [Duncan's career-high was 19.5% ... David Robinson's was 21.7%].)
A couple of seasons ago, I helped a couple of guys (statisticians) compile stats that showed, conclusively, that Tony Parker drew far fewer whistles per trip to the paint than any other top-tier point guard in the league. The point was to prove that certain players simply receive more "respect" from the refs than others, and the numbers were indisputable. Their plan was to submit it to the league. But before they did, they ran it by a mathematics professor, who had also played basketball in college and understood the game as well as the numbers. What he came back with sort of caught us off guard, but it made sense.
He said that the biggest cause of the discrepancy was that Tony is not as physically strong as players like Chris Paul and Deron Williams (to name a couple). My first thought was, "bull ... that has nothing to do with whether or not a whistle gets blown." But he went on to explain:
First, Tony does not get the elevation that many of the other top scorers get. And a lot of his shots are "scooped" upward, which means they get released much lower than a traditional shot. As a result, he said, the other guys draw contact high in the air, where it is more visible. Meh - maybe. But I still wasn't convinced.
Next, he said, Tony's cuts aren't as deep as the rest of the guys in the sample. He gets past defenders with his quickness, often making very small cuts and just scraping by the other player. Once again, my first thought was, "Okay... that should make for more contact, not less." But he went on to explain that the guys who make deeper cuts force defenders to reach at the last minute. And, more often than not, it is the reach that draws a whistle.
Finally, he said, because Tony is not as strong, and because of the way he approaches the paint, small amounts of contact tend to send him flying. And the refs just won't call fouls on those small amounts of contact - regardless of the outcome. About that time, I started thinking that it all made more sense than I wanted it to.
We went back and watched a bunch of clips of Tony vs. CP3, D. Williams, Chauncy Billups, and a few others. And what the egghead said was right. The numbers don't always tell the whole story, no matter how obvious they look. Yes, Tony draws a lot fewer whistles in the paint. But there's no zebra bias, and definitely no conspiracy. I know some people will get mad hearing someone say that Tony isn't the strongest guy out there, but it's true. Needless to say, nothing got submitted to the league.
-------
I don't know how you would prove it, but I feel like Tony has lost a little of his quickness. And given the nature of his game, even a small decrease in quickness would have a noticable impact on his results. But the numbers don't always mean what they look like. It could be that because Tim isn't drawing the hard double teams, there are more help defenders to block Tony's shots. It could be that coaches/defenders have learned to defend him a little more effectively. (All the video analysis they are doing on player tendencies is pretty amazing.)
But it could also be that things aren't as wrong as they appear. Strangely, even though his FG% is down, his FTA/36 is the highest in his career. And even though his scoring is down, his AST/36 is off the charts compared to the rest of his career (8.7 vs 6.3). And his TOV/36 is also off the charts low, compared to the rest of his career. As a result, his AST/TO ratio so far this year (4.92) is more than double his career average (2.28). So he's distributing the ball MUCH better than he ever has, and turning it over less. He's going to the paint less, but he's getting to the line more. And we're only nine games into the season.
Like I said, I feel like he's lost a half a step too. And it looks to me like he can't get out in front of a fast break like he used to. But the biggest concern is whether he can still get to the rim and score. If he improves that by mid-season, his FG% will naturally come up too - and he might be even more effective than he has been earlier in his career, because of the way he's distributing.
Last edited by GSH; 01-10-2012 at 03:54 PM.
...He played like he uses to play in Europe. Nothing new.
About Parker...today or next year...but he'll be declining. ..it's life..we must accept it....he started very young and he has a lot of miles in his legs. Plus his style of play wasn't the best to survive until the mid-30s at high level.
There is no miracles. In fact he was lucky because he never had big injuries like other players with the same style of play.
His best years are over.That's for sure. But today he's not done to score only 13 ppg on 40% .
He will play better this year.He's going to play worse every year.
There has to be some sort of decline in tp. 10 years in the league, playing for his NT, etc... That is alot of mileage on the legs. The question for tp, is can he compensate for his decline in speed and quickness?
I remember when Strickland went down with an injury and the Spurs tried to use Willie Anderson and Elliott as their PGs. Man, those were the days.
It seems like the only Spurs fans who have appreciated TP over the years are the ones who were fans before the championship days and can remember the 25 years of trash at point guard before some skinny kid arrived from something called Paris Basket Racing.
I think the Spurs even tried to use Vinney Del Negro in that role, before signing AJ for good.
You forget the major role Mo Cheeks played in San Antonio. Without him, we never get Strickland for 2 1/2 years.
Interesting, I wonder if this injury is still lingering. It might very well be
Come on, Juan Carlos Navarro is a fantastic player, but he was jordanesque during the Eurobasket. He was making insane shots after insane shots in every games.
It was a thing of beauty... except when he played against France !
GSH just put up an outstanding post. Interesting stuff about Parker's strengths, foul calls, and how he compares to top tier PG's in that regard
Anyway about injured PG's, yea I'm going to sound like I'm just trashing more on Parker, but remember when Parker did get injured and Manu led the team to its best victories of that season and the 7th seed? Imo Parker's impact was realistically replaceable on the Spurs unless he can shut me up and show that its just early in the season woes. Of course, Spurs are winning with Ginobili out as well....
Once thing a lot are over looking IMO is that one of the most negatively impacted player by Tim being not dominant anymore is TP. Life is much easier for a PG when you play behind a dominant front court especially when you are a PG like TP making most of his impact inside.
True. The French frontcourt during the summer was one of the best in the tournament and helped Tony play like Tony
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