My personal pick for Most Improved of the Quarter (as a TWolves fan) is Bones Hyland. He's gone from a selfish "mixtape hooper" to the 7th best guy on a contender very quickly. I don't think he has had the highs that Black has, but he started from a much lower point.
That's a good choice, for sure. I still kind of assume Minny will make a move for someone to take his minutes, but he's performed pretty well in his opportunities!
Watched BOS v DET, round 4. 80s basketball with 2020s brain. Cade is a bigger Brandon Roy and a problem for the Cs. Jaylen Brown put together a good game on opportunistic offense and pitbull D. The role players for both teams stayed in their lanes. Javonte Green, babyyyyy!!
I'll make the brief case for why Jaylen Brown was a bad pick:
Let's take a deeper look at why the Celtics have the 2nd ranked offense:
- 2nd lowest turnovers per possession in the league
- 5th highest offensive rebounding rate in the league
- highest 3pt attempts in the league
None of these have anything to do with Jaylen. In fact, he's leading the team in turnovers by far and doesn't shoot that many 3s or get that many offensive boards.
On defense, Brown has always been lackluster off-ball and his offensive load means he's been worse on-ball this season than in past years.
They're 9.6 points per 100 possessions worse with him on vs off, a trend that has held for the last several seasons. I maintain that the Celtics would be a better team without him.
In fairness, SGA was my pick. I just didn't want to write about him yet again, so I had Brown as runner-up.
I agree with some of your points and disagree with others, particularly when you limit your numbers to just the quarter (Brown was much better and the Celtics with Brown were much better in Q2). Per EPM, Brown's lowest EPM in Q2 was higher than his best EPM in Q1!
Someone has to be the driver of the offense for 35 minutes per game, and Brown's ability to do so is what frees up everyone else to excel in their role (This is almost the exact same argument I've made in defense of Jayson Tatum's poor performances in the playoffs, now that I think about it). And while he's terrible off-ball defensively, I think he's still been quite good on-ball this year despite the heavy burden. There aren't many other guys carrying loads like Brown's at all, much less contributing defensively.
But certainly, this is subjective. I don't pretend Brown is a definitive answer here. Who would you pick instead?
- Yep sorry "bad pick" as in, I wouldn't have him in my top 20 for this quarter or whatever.
- When you say "lowest EPM", what do you mean? As in, the rolling EPM on dunksandthrees evaluated each day?
- Jayson Tatum has a great historical on/off across large samples
- If someone is the "driver of the offense" for 35 minutes and the team's net rating is +4.4, that doesn't seem like a top-10 player to me. Similar profile to Devin Booker: both are score-first guards buoying a +5 net rating offense that has little creation outside of them, except JB has a -6.5 on/off and Booker is +7.
I had the team's net rating with Brown on NBA.com as +7 something for the quarter, iirc, which is more impressive, but Leonard was like +8 or 9, so a bit ahead. Leonard has a similar statistical profile to Brown, (slightly lower usage and higher efficiency for the quarter, fewer assists and fewer turnovers), but there's also no one on Boston who counterweights defensive attention like James Harden does for Kawhi on the Clippers.
Leonard is a more than worthy pick and probably would've been third if I had done a full hypothetical ballot (again, both Brown and Leonard would rank WAY below SGA for me). And as a tiebreaker, it's hard to shake the memory of watching Brown dominate the Clippers while Leonard looked helpless on both ends against him.
I think he was, if not a hindrance, not particularly good in previous seasons as Tatum's second banana, and I've said so plenty of times in the past. It was a little bit of the Jalen Williams situation, where Williams' on/off last year was ungodly terrible, like -12 or something, and that had more to do with his shortcomings as the bench alpha without Shai AND his inability to space the floor ideally for Shai when he played with him. Brown, next to Tatum, had very similar issues and, as you said, had poor on/off numbers for several years (although last year it was basically neutral).
This year feels and looks different to me. Now, as the starters' alpha, he's carrying a FAR larger load and doing so with solid efficiency. I think one thing raw on/off is burying that is important to realize is that the team's offense is actually better with him on the court than off! In other words, the quarter-best offense was a bit better with him on the court than off. That deserves credit.
This year, it's the defense that falls apart and ruins his on/off numbers. And despite his off-ball shortcomings, I'm hard-pressed to say that his presence is the reason the team gives up 6 more points per 100 when he's on. For example, opponents are shooting a whopping 4%+ better on rim attempts when Brown's in the game, a huge difference, and that has little to do with him.
Advanced stats have never really loved Brown, and I've largely agreed. He's far from my favorite player to watch. But I also think that this year, most of them are season-long (or multi-season-long) numbers that haven't caught up to what he did in the last month. It's possible he reverts back to more of what he did in Q1, when he wasn't as impressive, but this is an MVP for the second quarter only. And he's been the straw that stirs the drink on arguably the best team of the quarter.
Bickerstaff's embarrassment of defensive riches also includes Paul "per minute" Reed.
Yep! And daniss jenkins, and holland. Even Cunningham has turned himself into a legitimately solid defender.
Bickerstaff deserves credit for the evolution of some of these guys, too, a pattern we’ve seen since he was an assistant in Memphis.
My personal pick for Most Improved of the Quarter (as a TWolves fan) is Bones Hyland. He's gone from a selfish "mixtape hooper" to the 7th best guy on a contender very quickly. I don't think he has had the highs that Black has, but he started from a much lower point.
That's a good choice, for sure. I still kind of assume Minny will make a move for someone to take his minutes, but he's performed pretty well in his opportunities!
Can't wait for the Watson deep dive!
Friday is the plan, unless trades get in the way!
Watched BOS v DET, round 4. 80s basketball with 2020s brain. Cade is a bigger Brandon Roy and a problem for the Cs. Jaylen Brown put together a good game on opportunistic offense and pitbull D. The role players for both teams stayed in their lanes. Javonte Green, babyyyyy!!
I'll make the brief case for why Jaylen Brown was a bad pick:
Let's take a deeper look at why the Celtics have the 2nd ranked offense:
- 2nd lowest turnovers per possession in the league
- 5th highest offensive rebounding rate in the league
- highest 3pt attempts in the league
None of these have anything to do with Jaylen. In fact, he's leading the team in turnovers by far and doesn't shoot that many 3s or get that many offensive boards.
On defense, Brown has always been lackluster off-ball and his offensive load means he's been worse on-ball this season than in past years.
They're 9.6 points per 100 possessions worse with him on vs off, a trend that has held for the last several seasons. I maintain that the Celtics would be a better team without him.
In fairness, SGA was my pick. I just didn't want to write about him yet again, so I had Brown as runner-up.
I agree with some of your points and disagree with others, particularly when you limit your numbers to just the quarter (Brown was much better and the Celtics with Brown were much better in Q2). Per EPM, Brown's lowest EPM in Q2 was higher than his best EPM in Q1!
Someone has to be the driver of the offense for 35 minutes per game, and Brown's ability to do so is what frees up everyone else to excel in their role (This is almost the exact same argument I've made in defense of Jayson Tatum's poor performances in the playoffs, now that I think about it). And while he's terrible off-ball defensively, I think he's still been quite good on-ball this year despite the heavy burden. There aren't many other guys carrying loads like Brown's at all, much less contributing defensively.
But certainly, this is subjective. I don't pretend Brown is a definitive answer here. Who would you pick instead?
- Yep sorry "bad pick" as in, I wouldn't have him in my top 20 for this quarter or whatever.
- When you say "lowest EPM", what do you mean? As in, the rolling EPM on dunksandthrees evaluated each day?
- Jayson Tatum has a great historical on/off across large samples
- If someone is the "driver of the offense" for 35 minutes and the team's net rating is +4.4, that doesn't seem like a top-10 player to me. Similar profile to Devin Booker: both are score-first guards buoying a +5 net rating offense that has little creation outside of them, except JB has a -6.5 on/off and Booker is +7.
I would have picked Kawhi Leonard.
I had the team's net rating with Brown on NBA.com as +7 something for the quarter, iirc, which is more impressive, but Leonard was like +8 or 9, so a bit ahead. Leonard has a similar statistical profile to Brown, (slightly lower usage and higher efficiency for the quarter, fewer assists and fewer turnovers), but there's also no one on Boston who counterweights defensive attention like James Harden does for Kawhi on the Clippers.
Leonard is a more than worthy pick and probably would've been third if I had done a full hypothetical ballot (again, both Brown and Leonard would rank WAY below SGA for me). And as a tiebreaker, it's hard to shake the memory of watching Brown dominate the Clippers while Leonard looked helpless on both ends against him.
I'm not saying I'm right, but that's my case!
Curious as to your thoughts on the multi-year negative on/off sample?
I think he was, if not a hindrance, not particularly good in previous seasons as Tatum's second banana, and I've said so plenty of times in the past. It was a little bit of the Jalen Williams situation, where Williams' on/off last year was ungodly terrible, like -12 or something, and that had more to do with his shortcomings as the bench alpha without Shai AND his inability to space the floor ideally for Shai when he played with him. Brown, next to Tatum, had very similar issues and, as you said, had poor on/off numbers for several years (although last year it was basically neutral).
This year feels and looks different to me. Now, as the starters' alpha, he's carrying a FAR larger load and doing so with solid efficiency. I think one thing raw on/off is burying that is important to realize is that the team's offense is actually better with him on the court than off! In other words, the quarter-best offense was a bit better with him on the court than off. That deserves credit.
This year, it's the defense that falls apart and ruins his on/off numbers. And despite his off-ball shortcomings, I'm hard-pressed to say that his presence is the reason the team gives up 6 more points per 100 when he's on. For example, opponents are shooting a whopping 4%+ better on rim attempts when Brown's in the game, a huge difference, and that has little to do with him.
Advanced stats have never really loved Brown, and I've largely agreed. He's far from my favorite player to watch. But I also think that this year, most of them are season-long (or multi-season-long) numbers that haven't caught up to what he did in the last month. It's possible he reverts back to more of what he did in Q1, when he wasn't as impressive, but this is an MVP for the second quarter only. And he's been the straw that stirs the drink on arguably the best team of the quarter.