X's and O's Discussion (With Video)

[Omar Little]

[JLinfanJoe]

Thanks for the comments above, everyone.

Would it be fair to say that Byron Scott is employing some sort of junk defense to hide the fact that he doesn't have a real center out there?

Or is what he has been trying to do from start of year, and simplified recently, not just being executed properly by the players?




e. g. This article on Byron Scott's coaching stint with New Orleans seems to indicate he used a junk defense there when injuries occurred on that team:

http://www.thebirdwrites.com/2009/5/1/860620/the-past-present-and-future-of

[anpherknee]

[fiendishoc]

[fiendishoc]

[22]

[JLinfanJoe]

Anyone know if there an assistant coach working with Lin to improve his "point guard instincts" and "defensive rotations", or is he supposed to figure out everything all by himself?

Look at what Mike Malone did with Isaiah Thomas last year on Kings: http://probasketballtalk.nbcsports.com/2014/01/01/mike-malone-working-to-mold-isaiah-thomas-into-starting-point-guard/


Or how Steve Horacek brought out the best in Goran Dragic last season, too: http://grantland.com/the-triangle/how-to-train-your-dragic-the-suns-star-talks-about-his-evolution/




(seems like Steve Nash could have been invaluable as a mentor and teacher to Lin now, but unfortunately he still hasn't rejoined the team, and also that Goran Dragic would not have become the Dragic everyone saw last year if he had stayed in Houston and continued to develop under Kevin McHale, especially within the rigid confines of Moreyball idealogy)

[Omar Little]

It is fair to criticize Lin's deficiencies, including consistency and point guard instincts. But when you deny him time with guys who he works well with, and seem to punish him for aggressively attacking and doing what he does well, and seem to want him to not play like a point guard, they do ring somewhat hollow.

I'm stuck between being disappointed with Lin and feeling like he is being set up to fail.
_________________
“We must always take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented.” ― Elie Wiesel

[fiendishoc]

[JLinfanJoe]

To me, it is still a much, much, much better situation than the Houston Rockets, but I also feel organization hasn't really gotten behind him like he was their first round draft pick and try and put him in position to succeed (not just one game, extended period of time where he gets to play through his mistakes, even if Byron Scott does pull him temporarily because he is getting too aggressive and out of control at time).

e. g. not deploying Lin and Ed Davis together, either on first unit or second unit, but moving Davis to first unit and switching Lin to second unit at same time.

[fiendishoc]

Now that we've covered defense, let's look at the offensive advanced stats. It doesn't look like too much has changed offensively for the better, even with Swaggy back for this entire stretch of games.

Offensive rating
When we last looked at them, the Lakers had an offensive rating of 104.4. Now 10 games later, that rating on the season has slid a bit to 103.8, falling to the 17th ranked offense in the league. It's not as big a fall as their improvement on defense over the ten game stretch, so the team overall should have gotten marginally better.

Their effective field goal percentage has improved slightly from 46.9% to 47.4%, likely due to taking more threes, although they are still the 6th worst in the league. Over the last ten games, they've taken 20.7 threes a game, making 34.8% of them, versus averaging 18.4 on the season at a 32.6% rate.

However, their true shooting percentage stayed mostly the same at 52%, sliding one spot to 7th worse in the league, as they're not getting the line as much. Their FT rate over the last ten games has been 27% versus 30.7% on the season. Even more worrying, their offensive rebound rate has gone way down from the start of the season. Over the last 10 games, their OREB% has been 22.5%, 6th worse in the league, versus the first 12 games where they were 4th best in the league at 29.1%. Maybe it's reversion to the mean, or maybe the bigs are just settling for hanging out too far from the basket.

Their turnover ratio remains strong though, as they are still 4th in the league in hanging on to the ball.

Long 2 point shooting
Last time I said that they could be average on offense as long as they kept up their hot shooting from long 2 point range, but I wouldn't count on it continuing. So let's take a look at the shooting stats. Unfortunately, the Lakers are taking the same proportion of their shots from between 16 ft and the 3pt line, at 24.8% of total shots, still the second most in the league.

They're now making 40.9% of those shots, down from 43.9%

Season FG% on long 2s ten games ago vs now:
Kobe 50.6% -> 47.1%
Hill 32% -> 36.7%
Boozer 31% -> 36.2%
Ellington 80% -> 52.9%

So while Hill and Boozer have improved their percentages, Kobe's gotten worse from this distance. Nick Young and Sacre are shooting over 40% from that distance, but the rest of the team is in the low 30s or below (Price at 23.8%).

However, the lack of offensive rebounds seems to be the bigger problem in terms of the drop in offensive efficiencies.

Last two games
As we all know, the major change in the last two games have been moving Price and Davis into the starting lineup. While the defensive efficiency has not changed much from the rest of the recent 10 game stretch, the offensive efficiency for these two games has nosedived to 95.1 points per 100 possessions. The offensive rebound percentage for these two games was a measly 20.8%, despite having the team's two best rebounders starting together. Possibly, it may be because teams are able to pack the paint even more now. Fast break points in these two games have halved from their season average to only 6 FBPs a game. Yes two games is not a real sample size but watching the team, it's not hard to draw the conclusion that if there's not another change to the starting lineup (preferably a guard who can shoot, hint hint), this trend will continue.

Stagnant offense:
Watching the team also gives you the impression that the sets are stagnant and dependent on isolations. This comes through in the passing stats. On the year, the Lakers have the 3rd fewest passes per game, are second to last in secondary assists, and second to last in points created by assists.

Another problem that eye test identifies is that the bigs generally suck at setting screens. The stats confirm this, as the Lakers are the worst team in terms of their Solid Screen % at 77.93%, which are the screens that either make contact with the defender or reroute them. They also have had the fewest percentage of open shots in the league, which is almost certainly due to both of the above two problems.

[JLinfanJoe]

One observation on why I think the Houston Rockets and ClutchFans forum became so toxic for Lin fans:

To me, ClutchFans website has to be viewed as a de facto extension of Daryl Morey and Rockets front office.

There appears to be a good number of front office insiders or at least friends of front office who post on that forum (typically original 1999 members, I think), and I think they drink the same Kool-Aid front office does in terms of Moreyball idealogy and "solving" basketball using analytics. Harden also came across as jealous of Lin's entertaining and crowd pleasing game and didn't seem to want to share the limelight with him, and Rockets needed to appease him by making sure Lin isn't even given the opportunity to outshine Harden on court from time to time.

Passive Aggressive Jealousy?:

Lin also doesn't fit Moreyball "the earth is flat" idealogy (threes, shots at rim, free throws, no midrange), and in some sense, is a data point that disproves his religion and thus had to be destroyed. In addition to lack of pnr partner in Houston, Lin needs to represent a true triple threat driving to the basket (drive, SHOOT, or pass) in order to be effective. With Moreyball idealogy, opposing big just waited to block Lin at rim (never had to run out and contest an unexpected or deliberately conceded pull up jumper), and everyone else just waited to pick off pass out to three point line that they knew was coming. Lin was basically reduced to driving to hoop by hopping on one leg, and with one hand tied behind his back. No wonder he wasn't as effective as he could have been.

Les Alexander (owner of Rockets) apparently is the one who wanted Lin just to fill Toyota Center ( http://www.quora.com/What-is-Jeremy-Lins-revenue-potential-with-the-Houston-Rockets ) (he also said he wanted his teams to run forever), but seems like Daryl Morey and Kevin McHale never believed in him from the start. IIRC, Knicks original offer to Lin was 4 years / $24 million, that was original offer from Rockets, but later had to add the poison pill (3 year / $25 million / poison pill $15 million third year to make sure Knicks couldn't match without paying a large luxury tax: http://etane.net/jeremy-lin/rules-to-live-by/

The CF forum don't necessarily represent the whole Houston Rockets fan base, but in the eyes of many Lin fans, that's all they know (the cries of racism seem to me to come mainly from some Lin fans who live outside the U. S. and so their "prism" looking in on America (not just Lin) is different; few others seem to be trying to live vicariously through Lin for perceived insults they may have received on recreational basketball court as an Asian American baller, but that subset seems to actually have become more realistic as Lin has appeared to struggle on court at times with Lakers). LOL, at times, some Lin fans have actually become harsher on Lin (passive, etc.) than his true haters!

Also have to note that 60% of Houston never actually was able to watch Lin play, with their own eyes and on their own tv sets (just watch box scores and read false narratives after the fact), ever since he arrived two seasons ago, and all the way up to point he was traded to Lakers this summer (I think games were finally shown and ATT and DirectTV, in addition to CSN Houston, just after this current season started): http://www.khou.com/story/news/2014/07/22/11861564/




At this point, it's become the Hatfields and McCoys, or even a generational blood feud, where the last insult by other side has to be avenged, even if no one remembers what the original insult was.

I think there was no adult supervision by Clutch locking down threads or very quickly banning extremists on both sides (at least until the purges that took place there immediately after Lin trade), as has been done here, and I think that is part of reason why things are so toxic between Lin fans and that website.

Best thing Clutch could do, this me, is lock down the remaining Lin or Laker threads and don't let anyone start any thread like that (except he probably generates good revenue from the clicks an incendiary thread like that generates).

[22]

[fiendishoc]

I don't want to see this thread turn into another JLin discussion, but I'll address some of your points:

1) Moreyball is definitely working this year.

2) I don't think there's any overarching conspiracy holding Lin down, but no, I'm not going discuss that with you here. Nor does it really matter what went down at CF.

3) I think Lin would fit well in a modern offense that emphasizes getting to the basket and 3s. You just need sets that magnify his strengths. (see San Antonio).

4) If you want to continue (outside of debating the merits of Moreyball, which I'm happy to do), please wait until the official JLin thread is open to do so.

[koen]

@JlinfanJoe Please keep this out of the X's and O's thread. If the Lin thread ever gets unlocked, you can post this over there.

[JLinfanJoe]

Sorry everyone.

Other post was thoughts that just popped into my head based upon what was written above (scatter brain stream of consciousness writing style ).

22, fendishoc, koen: I see what you mean that it should have gone in another thread. I'll try to remember to stay on topic in any given thread.

[Inigo Montoya]

[JLinfanJoe]

I am not trying to pick a fight here, and probably do deserve some of the criticism above for calling Moreyball an "earth is flat" Kool-Aid idealogy, but until they win a championship, to me, nothing is proven.

With the best center and best shooting guard in league, I would think alot of systems should work well.

Rockets haven't even gotten beyond first round last few years.

[fiendishoc]

[fiendishoc]

On the winning the championship thing- I mean Byron said it too, but he's wrong:

A good way to look at it is to compare A) The single preseason game that had everyone freaking out about dinosaur ball, the Lakers shot something like 45 long two point jumpers and got smashed, and B) The Spurs, during the ENTIRE Finals series, shooting 51 long twos combined,.

[JLinfanJoe]

Hi fiendishoc:

I did state above that I know nothing about team wide x and o, and that is why I started asking questions in this thread.

But from watching Lin play in that system for two years, seems to me that Lin doesn't "fit" that idealogy at all:


Dallas Mavericks game last December that Harden didn't play Lin had 5 turnovers and said he felt every pass was being deflected. Watching that game, to me, reason was that Mavericks knew that they didn't have to honor his pull up jump shot at all (center just waits to block him at the rim, and everyone else just plays him for the pass).

Rockets Mavericks (12_23_2014): http://popcornmachine.net/gf?date=20131223&game=DALHOU



vs.


Lin also beat the Mavericks and Spurs on back to back nights at end of January when Harden didn't play, so IIRC represented more of an individual scoring threat than that early Mavericks game:

Rockets Spurs (1_28_2014): http://popcornmachine.net/gf?date=20140128&game=SASHOU

Rockets Mavericks (1_29_2014): http://popcornmachine.net/gf?date=20140129&game=HOUDAL

[44TheLogo]

[Inigo Montoya]

[fiendishoc]

Teams do know that they have to stop their opponent from getting to the basket, so the "not honoring the pull up jump shot" is the logical counterpart strategy on defense, and you can expect to see a lot of tall guys camped under the basket. That's why if you can hit the short jumper around 50% (hopefully around 5-10 feet not 15-20 feet away), then you become an even bigger threat. That's probably why he was working on his floater so much over the summer (tho he probably should have learned the Harden ref mind control technique instead). But in no way invalidates the offensive philosophy.

[Inigo Montoya]