eWins 2022

[bchaikin]

Are you saying that if Jokic is a great passer, his team should therefore be the best shooting team in the league?
The normal question here is: how much better do they shoot with him on the floor than without him?

If they shoot better when he is on the floor are you saying that is solely due to him? If a team shoots better with a high assist player on the floor than without him is that always due to that high assist player?...

Jokic can't turn Monte Morris and Will Barton into those guys; nor can he turn them into Donovan Mitchell and Mike Conley.

wait a minute - on the one hand you are stating a player like jokic can increase his teammates' FG%s, but then in the same breath are saying only certain players?...

It's hard to say whether Jokic would make the Jazz win 14 more games or 6 more, or not even as many.

not even as many, as he is nowhere near the defender gobert is, and gobert on offense is more efficient than jokic...

They're a team built around Gobert, who doesn't have to do much on offense.

come again? at the time of the above W-L records gobert was scoring 19.1 pts/40min with offensive efficiency of 3.11 pts/0ptposs. how is that any different than jarrett allen (20.8 pts/40min, 3.43 pts/0ptposs), deandre ayton (21.2 pts/40mn, 2.79 pts/0ptposs), bam adebayo (22.8 pts/40min, 2.13 pts/0ptposs), or christian wood (20.8 pts/40min, 1.94 pts/0ptposs)? were they all also not doing much on offense?...

Denver with Gobert instead of Jokic would likely have trouble getting points.

based on what reasoning? no team loses a 26 pts/g scorer and then scores 26 less points per game, and at the time of the above W-L records there were 15 teams that scored more pts/g than the nuggets that threw for less ast/100poss than did denver, and 15 teams that scored more pts/g with lower ast/fgm ratios than denver's...

[DSMok1]

BPM really loves Jokic over Gobert, by 9.8 pts/100 poss
They both play about 32 mpg, or 2/3 of a game, so a team with Jokic should be 6.6 pts/G better than with Gobert.
This should result in about 14 more wins in 82 games.

eWins likes Joker by ~3 eWins, which by magical math would result in another 6 wins over Gobert.
Win Shares rates them closer yet, maybe 2-3 wins difference in a season.

With Hassan Whiteside as backup/alternative, Gobert adds about 4.5 points to Utah's offense and half a point to defense.
Relative to -- Jeff Green? -- at center, Denver prefers Jokic by 14 pts/100 on offense and 16 on defense. Go figure.

...Utah is 3rd worst in the league in ast/fgm,...

I don't know if higher or lower is better or worse. The Pelicans have one of the highest Ast/FG ratios and bottom-5 offense.
Seeing Utah opponents have the lowest Ast/FG ratio in the league, maybe their scorekeepers are just stingy with assists?

BPM is almost certainly significantly overrating Jokic's defense. I would consider him closer to a neutral defender, not a +4 defender.

[bchaikin]

stats.nba.com currently (12-17-2021) shows that among the 17 Cs to have faced 300+ FGAs on defense jokic is currently allowing the highest/worst FG% at 51.8%. the Cs allowing the lowest FG%s are doing so in the 38%-39% FG% range (and the league average FG% is 45%)...

and among the 31 Cs with 10+ games started jokic is blocking shots at just 1.2% BS, the 5th lowest/worst rate...

(where he does excel is at defensive rebounding - 2nd highest per minute rate among starting Cs, next to only gobert)...

[Mike G]

Teams surrender on avg 12.4 3FG per game at a success rate of .349
Utah opponents rank among the lowest in both 3FG (10.5) and 3fg% (.325) allowed. Others fitting the description: Cavs, Pacers.
Their defenses have elite shot-blocking. Does this allow them the opportunity to swarm the 3-pt line and discourage 3's, knowing they have a shot blocker behind them?

If so, then perhaps shot-blocking does not adequately define the defensive contribution of guys like Gobert/Whiteside, Myles Turner, Allen/Mobley.

among the 17 Cs to have faced 300+ FGAs on defense jokic is currently allowing the highest/worst FG% at 51.8%.

The flip side of Jokic's incredible defensive on-off -- due to Denver having no other viable C -- is perhaps that he's often "facing" FGA from a lot of players getting to the basket. The opponent strategy would be to wear him down, get fouls on him, and topple the Denver offense.

[bchaikin]

Their defenses have elite shot-blocking. Does this allow them the opportunity to swarm the 3-pt line and discourage 3's, knowing they have a shot blocker behind them?

currently 3 of the best 4 best shot blocking teams in the league are allowing higher than league average 3pt FG% shooting (phi, mem, nyk) on close to league average number of 3ptFGA/100poss. of the 7 teams allowing the fewest 3ptFGA/100poss 4 (chi, dal, sac, pho) are blocking shots at rates less than the league average rate of 4.9 bs/100poss...

If so, then perhaps shot-blocking does not adequately define the defensive contribution of guys like Gobert/Whiteside, Myles Turner, Allen/Mobley.

i have no idea what you are trying to infer here - are you trying to say they are better defenders than their shot blocking might indicate, or worse?...

The flip side of Jokic's incredible defensive on-off -- due to Denver having no other viable C -- is perhaps that he's often "facing" FGA from a lot of players getting to the basket. The opponent strategy would be to wear him down, get fouls on him, and topple the Denver offense.

so in lieu of actual data (as actual as we have now for individual player defensive FGM/FGA faced) that shows jokic allows a high/poor FG% on defense for a C are you instead trying to infer or rationalize that his on/off data is more indicative of his defensive contribution? or is that not what you are saying here?...

[Mike G]

If Jokic is not "facing" many shooters at the 3-pt arc, then we assume he's mostly defending shots inside the arc.
Denver is 2nd-worst in the league (after Cha) in 2FG% allowed, at .551. NBA avg is .527, and you say Jokic allows .518, which is a little to a lot better than those figures.

So he is about .040 better than his teammates at stopping 2FGA, even when it's vital that he not foul out.
If he's doing this and not putting many 77% FT shooters at the line, that's even better.

Of their top 5 players, he's the only one with DBPM better than minus-1.
He has as many DWS as any two others.

There doesn't seem to be a correlation between blocked shots by a team, and opponent 3FG or 3FG%. And we may realize that blocks are not all created equal: some lead to fast breaks, while others go out of bounds or tend to have fouls associated.
Some successful teams (Cle, Uta) seem to be cutting into opponent 3FG shooting, and I wonder if their interior defenders were part of the equation.

Here's a possibly complete list of players who have scored the most Pts/100 poss. at a given off-Rating (>500 minutes) :

Code: Select all

player       tm  ORtg  Pts/100
M Robinson  NYK   152   14.3
R Williams  Bos   138   16.6
Gobert      Uta   137   23.3
R Holmes    Sac   137   24.7
M Harrell   Was   133   27.9
J Butler    Mia   126   34.0
Jokic       Den   125   40.0
Giannis     Mil   118   40.2

https://www.basketball-reference.com/le ... _poss.html

They're a team built around Gobert, who doesn't have to do much on offense.

This was an off-hand comment I made, and not sure if it can be confirmed; but going over his Game Log, I find 12 Jazz wins in which he scored less than the team margin of victory. So if he plays but scores zero in those games, they still win (all else being equal). Another 4 to 7 in which he (or his replacement) may score half as many and they still win. And just 2-5 wins that needed his scoring.
https://www.basketball-reference.com/pl ... elog/2022/

For Denver, they needed all or most of the Jokic points in all but 4 or 5 wins.

[bchaikin]

sorry for the formatting - but current (12-18-2021) stats.nba.com individual player shot defense for all players to have faced 350+ FGAs to date. the bolded is the (defensive) FG% allowed:

PLAYER TEAM AGE POSITION GP G FREQ DFGM DFGA DFG% FG% DIFF%
Rudy Gobert UTA 29 C 29 29 100.0% 220 544 40.4 47.8 -7.4
Jaren Jackson Jr. MEM 22 F-C 29 29 100.0% 144 352 40.9 46.4 -5.5
Kevin Durant BKN 33 F 27 27 100.0% 149 351 42.5 45.3 -2.9
Evan Mobley CLE 20 C 25 25 100.0% 178 413 43.1 46.3 -3.2
Andrew Wiggins GSW 26 F 29 29 100.0% 160 370 43.2 45.4 -2.1
Wendell Carter Jr. ORL 22 C-F 30 30 100.0% 165 379 43.5 47.4 -3.9
Miles Bridges CHA 23 F 30 30 100.0% 201 459 43.8 45.3 -1.5
Mo Bamba ORL 23 C 27 27 100.0% 177 404 43.8 47.9 -4.0
Jarrett Allen CLE 23 C 28 28 100.0% 180 404 44.6 47.8 -3.2
John Collins ATL 24 F-C 29 29 100.0% 188 421 44.7 46.6 -1.9
Reggie Jackson LAC 31 G 30 30 100.0% 185 412 44.9 43.9 1.0
Franz Wagner ORL 20 F 31 31 100.0% 166 367 45.2 45.1 0.1
Christian Wood HOU 26 F 28 28 100.0% 201 443 45.4 45.4 0.0
Julius Randle NYK 27 F-C 30 30 100.0% 172 379 45.4 47.5 -2.1
Scottie Barnes TOR 20 F 27 27 100.0% 175 381 45.9 45.4 0.5
Clint Capela ATL 27 C 29 29 100.0% 208 451 46.1 47.9 -1.8
Anthony Davis LAL 28 F-C 27 27 100.0% 202 437 46.2 45.5 0.7
Nikola Vucevic CHI 31 C 20 20 100.0% 165 355 46.5 47.2 -0.8
Karl-Anthony Towns MIN 26 C-F 28 28 100.0% 186 399 46.6 48.1 -1.5
Lonzo Ball CHI 24 G 27 27 100.0% 170 363 46.8 44.1 2.7
Domantas Sabonis IND 25 F-C 31 31 100.0% 189 402 47.0 46.5 0.5
Myles Turner IND 25 C-F 30 30 100.0% 212 450 47.1 47.6 -0.5
Ivica Zubac LAC 24 C 30 30 100.0% 188 389 48.3 47.5 0.9
Jakob Poeltl SAS 26 C 21 21 100.0% 173 357 48.5 49.5 -1.0
Darius Bazley OKC 21 F 28 28 100.0% 178 364 48.9 46.0 2.9
Pat Connaughton MIL 28 G 32 32 100.0% 190 386 49.2 44.9 4.3
Jonas Valanciunas NOP 29 C 31 31 100.0% 222 444 50.0 48.8 1.2
Nikola Jokic DEN 26 C 24 24 100.0% 216 415 52.0 48.8 3.3

if you expand the list to all 178 players to have faced 200+ FGAs on defense, jokic's 52.0% allowed is still the 4th highest/worst...

[Mike G]

That's a lot of numbers (including 100% games/games played for everyone) to not bother with effective FG%. I mean, it's not that awesome to hold anyone to 40% from the 3-point arc. Seriously. Plain old FG% no longer exists in any practical sense.

https://www.basketball-reference.com/te ... 22/on-off/
Denver shoots .082 better eFG% when Jokic is on the floor, and opponents shoot .065 worse.
They also have 2.8 fewer turnovers per 100 poss. when he's running things.

Somewhere we should be able to find Opp FTA in the on/off setting.

[bchaikin]

also from stats.nba.com:

shot defense 0'-5':

44.7% 110/246 gobert
61.7% 127/206 jokic

jokic shot defense far worse in close to the basket, allows some 15% higher FG% than gobert...

shot defense 0'-9':

44.1% 138/313 gobert
56.8% 147/259 jokic

jokic shot defense far worse, allows some 12%-13% higher FG% than gobert within 10' of the basket...

Combine the top 10 player-seasons of the last 2 years, and as far ahead of the pack he was last year (if this makes any sense), Jokic is that far ahead of his own 20-21 performance this season.

these are huge FG% allowed differences - so you can quote numbers like PER, WS, BPM, and On/Off numbers all you want, but until they attempt to include individual player shot defense (and the numbers above are publicly available at stats.nba.com) they are wholly inaccurate in determining which players generate the most wins for their teams and will always favor players who excel on offense versus players who excel on defense...

and as both gobert and jokic have faced the most FGAs on defense on their respective teams (jokic 90 more than any nuggets teammate, gobert some 200+ more than any jazz teammate), and utah is on pace for 60+ wins and denver just 40+ wins, a key reason why is the excellent shot defense of gobert versus the poor shot defense of jokic...

[Mike G]

It's fairly challenging to compare an all-time great offensive player with an all-time great defensive player, even when they are both centers. Wilt vs Russell had people taking sides, and that debate may still not have reached a consensus. Team success vs individual numbers, again.

Of course those Celtics were loaded with all-stars, all-NBA, and future hall of famers; and they regularly were the best team in regular season and playoffs. Wilt teams only beat Russ teams one time in the playoffs?

If Denver and Utah meet in the playoffs, it will be similar. Among the top 10 players from each team (in minutes), the Nuggets have:
1 of top 7 TS% (and 4 of the top 10)
1 of the top 5 in 3FG% (5 of top 10)
1 of the top 4 in TReb% (5 of 10)
1 of top 3 Ast% (6 of 10)
1 of top 7 ORtg (4 of 10)
1 of top 3 DRtg (3 of 10)
1 of top 6 PER (5 of 10)
1 of top 9 WS/48 (2 of 10)
1 of top 8 BPM (2 of 10)

In each case, that 1 is Jokic.

Another tidbit: Turnover%
Jokic 14.7, Gobert 15.2

[Mike G]

Here are the players averaging at least 10 assists per 100 possessions. Also showing points and turnovers per100; and for this group, an expected TO rate predicted by their Pts and Ast rates, minimizing the difference.
Ranked from best to worst:

Code: Select all

per100:    Ast    Pts    TO   ?TO   diff
Paul      15.0   21.6   3.5   5.7   -2.2
Dejounte  12.1   25.5   3.4   5.0   -1.6
Lillard   10.1   31.1   3.9   4.7    -.8
LaMelo    11.9   29.1   4.6   5.1    -.5
Jokic     11.3   40.0   5.2   5.5    -.3

Trae      13.3   39.3   5.9   6.1    -.2
Lowry     11.9   20.1   4.7   4.7     .0
Rubio     11.4   22.1   4.7   4.6     .1
Draymond  11.8   13.5   4.9   4.3     .6
Giddey    10.2   17.8   4.8   4.1     .7

Garland   10.5   27.6   5.4   4.6     .8
Doncic    12.2   36.7   6.6   5.6    1.0
Westbrook 10.9   25.8   6.0   4.7    1.3
Harden    12.8   27.8   6.7   5.4    1.3

?TO = .31*Ast + .05*Pts
Chris Paul has always had great/low TO relative to all that he does. Dejounte Murray is a surprise contender.
Those at the bottom may try and do too much, relative to their handles and/or concentration.

[Crow]

Win impact is not necessarily linear
per increments of individual counted stat value (despite the metric premise) or equally across all teams, especially at the extremes.

A simulator probably could / should demonstrate both points.

[Mike G]

shot defense 0'-9':

44.1% 138/313 gobert
56.8% 147/259 jokic

OK, I tracked down the source of these numbers at nba.com. Here's a table of per game avg 'faced opponent' FG, FGA, FG%, and normal FG% in that range. FG- is FG denied beyond the normal.

Code: Select all

0-9 ft   G   dFG   dFGA   dFG%   nFG%    FG-    Stl    FG-   dPPG
Gobert  29   5.1   11.3   .447   .578   1.49    .77   1.95   3.90
Jokic   26   5.7   10.0   .568   .586    .18   1.33    .98   1.96

Gobert cuts .131 from the FG% of FGA within 9' of the rim.
.131 * 11.3 = 1.49 , so he stops about 1.5 shots per game that guys normally make.
Jokic gives up almost the normal FG% and only forces another .18 misses per game.

But if we add steals into the FG denial equation -- actually a steal is equal to a forced miss and a rebound -- there's less difference between them. The 2nd FG- just adds Stl*0.6, since about 60% of both guys' defensive confrontations seem to be in this 10' range.
Gobert is about 2 ppg better than Jokic on defense inside 10'.

[Mike G]

update on the MVP race, according to
https://www.basketball-reference.com/friv/mvp.html

Code: Select all

Prob%   mvp?    tm   W%     PER    WS  WS/48   BPM  VORP
23.2  Giannis  Mil  .649   31.1   5.3  .273   10.1   2.9
16.1   Jokic   Den  .515   32.3   5.2  .272   13.3   3.5
15.0   Curry   GSW  .794   23.7   5.1  .218    8.1   2.8
14.8   Durant  Brk  .697   25.7   4.6  .214    7.2   2.4
10.9   Gobert  Uta  .735   25.7   6.5  .289    5.6   2.1

I've replaced the per-game averages with some 'advanced' stats. Gobert now the strong favorite by Win Shares.
Giannis' stock rises with the Bucks' winning. Jokic takes a dive when the Nuggets go sub-.500
Steph's numbers are all well down from last year.

[Mike G]

Season at 44%

Code: Select all

e82     per36 rates    tm   Eff%   Sco   Reb   Ast   Stl   TO   Blk   e484
15.3   Nikola Jokić   Den  .626   30.9  15.9   7.0   1.6   4.2   .9   3.24
14.0   Stephen Curry  GSW  .603   32.9   5.8   6.0   1.4   3.6   .5   2.50
13.4   Antetokounmpo  Mil  .593   32.4  12.9   6.1   1.2   3.8  1.8   3.08
12.8   Kevin Durant   Brk  .612   31.6   7.5   5.0    .6   3.2   .9   2.37
12.5   Rudy Gobert    Uta  .706   21.6  17.6   1.2    .8   2.1  2.7   2.29

11.2   James Harden   Brk  .573   23.3   8.0   8.8   1.5   4.9   .7   2.02
10.9 Domantas Sabonis Ind  .627   20.7  13.2   4.1   1.2   3.2   .4   1.92
10.7   Trae Young     Atl  .567   27.2   4.2   8.6   1.0   4.3   .1   1.98
10.6   DeMar DeRozan  Chi  .576   27.3   5.3   4.2   1.0   2.2   .3   1.93
10.5 Donovan Mitchell Uta  .566   28.8   4.5   5.3   1.7   3.3   .2   2.03

e82     11-20          tm   Eff%   Sco   Reb   Ast   Stl   TO   Blk   e484
10.3   Joel Embiid    Phl  .578   29.3  11.8   4.0   1.2   2.8  1.6   2.64
10.3   Zach LaVine    Chi  .610   28.1   5.4   4.0    .6   3.0   .4   1.82
10.2   LeBron James   LAL  .618   29.0   7.1   5.6   1.7   3.3  1.1   2.37
10.0   Jayson Tatum   Bos  .524   24.0   8.5   3.5   1.1   2.9   .8   1.79
9.8    Karl-A Towns   Min  .617   26.6   9.5   3.4   1.2   3.8  1.2   2.00

9.4   Chris Paul      Phx  .562   16.7   4.7  10.2   2.1   2.6   .3   1.71
9.3   Jarrett Allen   Cle  .701   23.5  12.1   2.0   1.1   2.2  1.7   2.05
9.3  Dejounte Murray  SAS  .492   16.3   8.6   7.8   2.1   2.5   .5   1.79
9.1 Jonas Valančiūnas NOP  .591   20.7  14.3   2.5    .6   2.8  1.1   1.85
8.4   Devin Booker    Phx  .554   26.9   5.6   4.6   1.1   3.0   .4   1.86

e82     21-30          tm   Eff%   Sco   Reb   Ast   Stl   TO   Blk   e484
8.3   Fred VanVleet   Tor  .574   19.6   4.9   5.7   1.5   2.8   .6   1.42
8.2   Julius Randle   NYK  .508   18.4  10.3   4.8    .8   3.7   .7   1.44
8.2   LaMelo Ball     Cha  .543   19.2   8.2   7.4   2.0   3.6   .5   1.79
8.1   Anthony Davis   LAL  .559   22.9   9.8   2.6   1.2   2.3  2.1   1.90
8.1   Jimmy Butler    Mia  .586   25.8   6.7   5.5   2.7   2.1   .4   2.35

8.1 Russell Westbrook LAL  .513   17.8   7.9   7.3   1.2   4.9   .3   1.32
8.1   Clint Capela    Atl  .553   12.9  16.5   1.6   1.0    .8  2.0   1.68
7.9   Ja Morant       Mem  .565   26.8   6.6   6.6   1.4   3.6   .4   2.11
7.9   John Collins    Atl  .632   19.9   9.1   2.1    .8   1.3  1.4   1.55
7.8   Kr. Porziņģis   Dal  .553   24.5   9.8   2.6   1.0   1.8  2.1   2.07

e82     31-41          tm   Eff%   Sco   Reb   Ast   Stl   TO   Blk   e484
7.7   Paul George     LAC  .522   24.4   6.9   5.1   2.2   4.4   .4   1.81
7.7   Luka Dončić     Dal  .532   25.3   8.6   8.3   1.2   5.0   .5   2.11
7.5  Shai G-Alexander OKC  .518   21.6   4.6   4.8   1.0   2.4   .8   1.46
7.4   Darius Garland  Cle  .589   22.6   3.3   7.3   1.5   4.0   .1   1.50
7.3   Christian Wood  Hou  .540   17.0  12.4   2.2    .7   2.2  1.1   1.46

7.3   Bradley Beal    Was  .531   22.1   4.7   5.6   1.0   3.4   .3   1.42
7.3   Jrue Holiday    Mil  .571   20.0   5.0   6.6   1.8   2.9   .6   1.58
7.2   Jusuf Nurkić    Por  .607   18.2  15.0   3.0   1.5   3.2   .7   1.80
7.2   Nikola Vučević  Chi  .495   15.3  12.8   3.3   1.1   1.8  1.3   1.59
7.1   Andrew Wiggins  GSW  .580   24.2   5.4   2.1    .9   2.0   .7   1.51
7.0   Damian Lillard  Por  .541   20.6   4.3   6.4    .6   2.9   .4   1.36

#42-50: Harrell, Ayton, Myles Turner, Miles Bridges, Brunson, W Carter Jr, Love, Bane, A Edwards, Bojan B
51-60: Ingram, Draymond, Conley, Derrick White, Portis, Lowry, J Jackson Jr, T Harris, Brogdon