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LAC is the only one I would write off.
Bonner also led the team in points per 100 possessions while he was on the floor against the Grizzlies, at 107.4. Where he hurt them, was on defense, where he was second-to-last at 112.1 per 100 possessions.
So if anything, you can say he "choked" that series defensively.
LAC is the only one I would write off.
I'm actually curious if any of the bottom teams will tank or maneuver themselves to face the Spurs in the first round, a la Memphis last year, because of SA's perceived weakness in the front court.
Personally, I'd be pretty happy if the Grizzlies tried that again. Spurs are 3-0 against them this year, including 2-0 @Mem and I know there's no way we'd overlook them. It'd be pretty much the best way to guarantee that the Spurs would be "locked in" and focused from Game 1. Besides, the Grizzlies can't really shoot. I'm more worried about us playing teams that can hit open jump shots all day long than the bangers inside. Hot-shooting teams have been the ones who've killed us this year.
Of course my dream match-up would be the Nuggets. I'd beg the Spurs to tank game 1.
If you had to pick a single stat to encapsulate overall "value" to the team, +/- is probably the worst stat you can use.
PER to me was a step up from +/-, and most people agree that PER's lack of emphasis on defensive output is its fatal flaw.
Manu and Tim play a 2 man game with a high pick and roll that leads to an easy 2 points by Duncan. Should Danny Green really be credited "+2" for standing out on the wing and being lucky enough (if your goal is to win the +/- battle
To be fair, I'm not quite sure what to use as the ultimate "single" advanced stat. Win shares (WS) or WS/48 seems to be trending as of late. I usually look at a combination of PER, WS/48, and +/- but that's just me. I'm almost inclined to say that I'd rather look at PER than +/- if I was limited to using just one advanced stat. I really like PER's incorporation of the "usage" metric. Incorporating "usage" renders PER as more of an "individualistic" advanced stat than +/-.
I don't understand the fascination with +/-, but I'm totally open to argument.
The perimeter upgrades and a healthy Manu alone make the Grizz a much easier out. The Grizz aren't as good on the perimeter as they were last year either.
I was actually about to say something similar but you've covered it much better than I could have.If you had to pick a single stat to encapsulate overall "value" to the team, +/- is probably the worst stat you can use.
PER to me was a step up from +/-, and most people agree that PER's lack of emphasis on defensive output is its fatal flaw.
Manu and Tim play a 2 man game with a high pick and roll that leads to an easy 2 points by Duncan. Should Danny Green really be credited "+2" for standing out on the wing and being lucky enough (if your goal is to win the +/- battle
To be fair, I'm not quite sure what to use as the ultimate "single" advanced stat. Win shares (WS) or WS/48 seems to be trending as of late. I usually look at a combination of PER, WS/48, and +/- but that's just me. I'm almost inclined to say that I'd rather look at PER than +/- if I was limited to using just one advanced stat. I really like PER's incorporation of the "usage" metric. Incorporating "usage" renders PER as more of an "individualistic" advanced stat than +/-.
I don't understand the fascination with +/-, but I'm totally open to argument.
It's silly to expect Bonner to ever get as many 3-pt attempts in the playoffs where we'll play teams who'll game plan to take it away and who will rotate more aggressively. Where his value will shine (or not) is how he and the team reacts to those aggressive close outs.
If Bonner pump fakes and dribble drives and scores with his floater or if he can pass it to the right guy and that guy hits the shot, then Bonner is effectively doing his job of spacing the floor and making the other team pay.
If he misses those floaters or turns it over, that will be bad. We'll see. The variable he can't control is whether his teammates make their shots or not.
Tbh, I'm more worried about how Bonner will do on the defensive end, but that's not unique to him since I feel the same way about every single Spur. Like I've stated before, I think our magic number is 95. If we hold people to 95 or less, it should be a W and if it's not, it's the offense's fault. If we give up 96 or more and lose, it's the defense's fault.
Don't let it bother you too much. 228 had it under her user name in the form of a Spur and most people still thought she was a dude.
True. If he's closing out games, they aren't getting deep enough to meet OKC unless the plummet happens.
Playoffs AdvancedIf you had to pick a single stat to encapsulate overall "value" to the team, +/- is probably the worst stat you can use.
PER to me was a step up from +/-, and most people agree that PER's lack of emphasis on defensive output is its fatal flaw.
Manu and Tim play a 2 man game with a high pick and roll that leads to an easy 2 points by Duncan. Should Danny Green really be credited "+2" for standing out on the wing and being lucky enough (if your goal is to win the +/- battle
To be fair, I'm not quite sure what to use as the ultimate "single" advanced stat. Win shares (WS) or WS/48 seems to be trending as of late. I usually look at a combination of PER, WS/48, and +/- but that's just me. I'm almost inclined to say that I'd rather look at PER than +/- if I was limited to using just one advanced stat. I really like PER's incorporation of the "usage" metric. Incorporating "usage" renders PER as more of an "individualistic" advanced stat than +/-.
I don't understand the fascination with +/-, but I'm totally open to argument.
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Rk Player Age G MP PER TS% eFG% ORB% DRB% TRB% AST% STL% BLK% TOV% USG% ORtg DRtg OWS DWS WS WS/48
1 Manu Ginobili 33 5 174 22.3 .585 .507 1.3 12.3 6.7 23.6 4.0 1.2 16.2 28.3 107 102 0.3 0.3 0.6 .155
2 George Hill 24 6 189 15.6 .554 .440 3.0 15.8 9.2 12.7 2.5 0.8 11.2 17.7 112 104 0.3 0.2 0.5 .135
3 Matt Bonner 30 6 123 11.8 .646 .600 6.5 11.6 9.0 2.7 0.4 0.6 3.3 11.6 137 109 0.3 0.1 0.4 .159
4 Tony Parker 28 6 221 17.6 .531 .468 0.5 8.1 4.2 28.3 1.9 0.6 15.3 27.8 101 108 0.1 0.2 0.3 .070
5 Tiago Splitter 26 3 50 21.1 .577 .625 15.9 16.7 16.3 4.1 3.2 1.4 10.4 18.1 113 102 0.1 0.1 0.2 .156
6 Richard Jefferson 30 6 176 7.7 .544 .484 1.3 15.6 8.3 4.6 0.9 1.2 14.3 11.2 101 107 0.0 0.2 0.2 .054
7 Tim Duncan 34 6 212 15.5 .500 .478 8.6 26.4 17.3 14.1 0.7 5.1 19.1 20.8 94 102 -0.1 0.3 0.2 .053
8 Gary Neal 26 6 111 11.3 .469 .424 2.0 17.2 9.4 8.4 0.5 0.6 3.9 21.6 100 108 0.0 0.1 0.1 .053
9 Antonio McDyess 36 6 145 7.9 .435 .417 7.8 16.4 12.0 9.4 0.7 2.5 15.2 14.9 91 106 -0.1 0.1 0.1 .021
10 Danny Green 23 4 7 26.0 .417 .417 0.0 17.0 8.3 70.8 7.6 10.3 14.3 46.9 87 85 0.0 0.0 0.0 .027
11 Steve Novak 27 1 6 2.5 0.0 19.9 9.7 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 110 0.0 0.0 0.0 .029
12 DeJuan Blair 21 4 50 9.6 .366 .333 20.4 9.5 15.1 7.3 0.0 1.4 7.9 23.7 91 110 0.0 0.0 0.0 -0.021
Kindly point out to me who led the Spurs in WS/48 in the playoffs last season.
As for PER, Bonner was 6th, behind Manu (22.3), Tiago (21.1), Tony (17.6), Hill (15.6) and Tim (15.5) but ahead of Neal (11.3), Blair (9.6), McDyess (7.9) and Jefferson (7.7).
Again, if you want to lay blame for why the Spurs lost that series, I'd point to the starters with the exception of the guy with the broken arm. No matter what statistical tool you use, it's not going to lead you to the magic answer of Bonner being the main culprit or even in the top 5.
Bonner's role on offense is to take and make wide open 3pointers. Outside of game 1 he failed to do so. You can argue whether "choked" is too strong or too weak of a description but I think its an appropriate. Especially when you factor in his history of choking when its important.
Also, I agree that Bonner isn't the only player to blame, he was just the most disappointing to watch. Going from a regular season hero to a playoff zero is always tough to see and easy to criticize. RJ was terrible, he was terrible in the regular season too. Hill was below average, also a player who chokes in big moments.
Don't think that is fair about Hill. While he's not a consistent force, he's had some pretty big games in the playoffs (see Mavs/Spurs 2010)
Bonner's role SHOULD be to take and make wide open three pointers. That requires him not being on the floor enough to get exploited. When the guy that was shooting over him suddenly gets some confidence and goes off, then it goes way beyond "choking" or "disappointing".
Oh, I think you misinterpreted the point of my post. I wasn't arguing against your main point (in fact, as you just showed, PER and WS/48 tell a similar tale). My post was really more of a rant/aside on +/-
Also (just an FYI to others reading), if you like using basketball-reference, check out offensive rating (ORtg) and defensive rating (DRtg) as well. The differential there (ORtg-DRtg) can often give you a good sense of overall "value" to the team.
Blair lead the team in net +/- per 100 possessions against Memphis in the playoffs last season, but PER, WS/48, and ORtg-DRtg tell exactly the opposite story
Again, I agree with the intended argument you were trying to make. I just wanted to caution the use of +/- as a single advanced stat when trying to make that point.
It's absolutely mind boggling that the Matt Bonner debate is still going on after 2+ years of epic choking and softness.
Guys like Hedo, Mase, and RJ were let go after their poor playoff performances, meanwhile this ginger managed to get a contact extension. Even Bruce Bowen was traded when his skills began to decline.
Pop now actually has two vastly superior basketball players / bigmen in Tiago and Diaw and people are still making excuses for Pop on why Tiago is not getting enough of time and Diaw is probably gonna be left out of the rotation.
It's comical that people who watched Darrell Arthur bend Bonner over a chair repeatedly last year are still willing to give this proven choker and loser a chance over guys like Tiago/Boris.
Bonner's 5th in net +/- per 100 possessions, but if you look at his DRtg during Memphis, he was ranked 10th/13 (above Blair and Novak). He's 7th (out of 12) in PER.
I look at his ORtg = 137 and immediately realize that it's an artifact created as a result of limited shot attempts.
Bottom line - I think it's better to look at a wide variety of these advanced metrics. I think Blair's +/- per 100 possessions "fool's gold" compared to his atrocious PER, WS/48, and ORtg-DRtg represents an excellent proof of concept.
Bowen was not only traded when his skills began to decline, he was removed from the rotation when the other options weren't necessarily an improvement.
It's pretty evident that anyone pulling up advanced stats from the playoffs did NOT watch Darrell Arthur bend Bonner over a chair.
Bonner shot .464 in the regular season last year and .480 in the playoffs...
His true shooting percentage, factoring in threes, was .617 in the regular season, compared to .646 in the playoffs....
The area where he dipped was from .457 in 3s to .333 in the playoffs, but come on, we're talking about a sample size of 18 shots. If you think the best "clutch" shooters in the world didn't have 6-for-18 stretches during the playoffs, I don't know what to tell you.
As for the people who think Bonner turned into a turnover prone butter fingers in the playoffs, his turnover rate went from 6.7 in the regular season to 3.3 in the playoffs....
Again, his so-called "choking" came on the defensive end. On offense, he was the same ol' Matt Bonner.
You're wrong. Period.
That does not make sense. How can you not improve your perimeter when you add Rudy Gay?
firstly, all those who claim they know better than pop are full of crap. he is not just managing lineups, he is managing players' egos, injuries, aches and bruises. granted that the spurs have the least player ego problem out of everyone in the league, but that does not mean the issue is non-existent. he's managing many of the little things that we are not aware of (e.g. say a very close friend of tony or manu passes away - he needs to manage that situation that never makes the media)
if one looks at tiago's time with the spurs, you can see that he spent a lot of time on the injury list. some ppl may ask why not play him as much as ginobili? at the same time, you can look at yao ming for a counter-example: he played every game for several seasons, got overplayed, then he never finished another season in his career. since big men don't grow on trees, i would rather we played tiago 16-18 minutes per game, than 25+ minutes.
as far as tiago and tim sharing time on the floor - it's not going to happen this year, so why bother at this point? pop has much, much, much more information about tiago than the most informed, media craving, spurs fan. he managed to transform a top 5 defensive team for 5+ seasons (IIRC) to a top 5 offensive team, to compensate for the lack of personnel, so i think he knows what he's doing.
nevertheless, this is the nature of the beast - even when our team is winning, ppl will find something to and moan about. in 5-10 years, when the team would be rebuilding through the lottery, more than half of the ppl here will mysteriously disappear.
Please define "a lot of time".
No. Matt Bonner has to stay around the .450 % to be an NBA player, he has no other skills.
Exactly. Teams are taking away 3's in the playoffs but 2's are still available. If you get the rare good look you have to hit it but you still have to make them pay for the aggressive closeouts by creating something or getting a jumper.
Even if Bonner just passes the ball back and resets the play on a closeout it hurts the team. TP or Manu work hard to get the defense to collapse and then Bonner passes the ball away to allow the defense to reset.
It's just hilarious to me that people want to lay the blame of losing a series on the Spurs' 7th or 8th most important player.
Is it so hard to admit that Tim, Tony, RJ and Dice were all subpar? The Spurs starters got outplayed by Memphis' starters. That's it.
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