Sorry not a fan of Wanamaker

[jambr380]

Coming into the season, I was sure Edwards was going to take his role by mid-season - obviously I was wrong about that. Perhaps, even the front office thought the same thing since we do not have any other viable back-up PGs (I know, Smart, but he kind-of just plays wherever is needed).

Taking my original valuation of him, I would say that Wanamaker has certainly outperformed my expectations and is providing solid minutes while he is on the floor. I agree that his tunnel vision on drives has been frustrating at times, but his 3-pt shot has been money as of late and he plays tough D. A few additional passes here and there and maybe a prettier face and we might actually be singing his praise [even more].

[Androslav]

I made an exercise.
Who is a better backup PGs than Wanamaker?

The criteria are less than half of the games started and just taking this current season in the account.
Contract value and player age aren't considered.

Better backup PG's:
G.Hill - MIL
G. Dragić - MIA
D. Schroder - OKC
J. Teague - MIN/ATL
P. Mills - SAS

That's 5/30, IMO that puts him in the upper tier of backup PGs

Same tier PGs:
DJ Augustin - ORL
A.Holiday - IND
M.Morris - DEN
E. Mudiay - UTAH
J.Brunson - DAL
T. Jones - MEM

I can't say these guys are better than he is now,
but I do think that Brad is the best defender out of this 2nd group.

[RockinRyA]

I made an exercise.
Who is a better backup PGs than Wanamaker?

The criteria are less than half of the games started and just taking this current season in the account.
Contract value and player age aren't considered.

Better backup PG's:
G.Hill - MIL
G. Dragić - MIA
D. Schroder - OKC
J. Teague - MIN/ATL
P. Mills - SAS

That's 5/30, IMO that puts him in the upper tier of backup PGs

Same tier PGs:
DJ Augustin - ORL
A.Holiday - IND
M.Morris - DEN
E. Mudiay - UTAH
J.Brunson - DAL
T. Jones - MEM

I can't say these guys are better than he is now,
but I do think that Brad is the best defender out of this 2nd group.

You forgot about Marcus Smart 

[Androslav]

I made an exercise.
Who is a better backup PGs than Wanamaker?

The criteria are less than half of the games started and just taking this current season in the account.
Contract value and player age aren't considered.

Better backup PG's:
G.Hill - MIL
G. Dragić - MIA
D. Schroder - OKC
J. Teague - MIN/ATL
P. Mills - SAS

That's 5/30, IMO that puts him in the upper tier of backup PGs

Same tier PGs:
DJ Augustin - ORL
A.Holiday - IND
M.Morris - DEN
E. Mudiay - UTAH
J.Brunson - DAL
T. Jones - MEM

I can't say these guys are better than he is now,
but I do think that Brad is the best defender out of this 2nd group.

You forgot about Marcus Smart 

I consider him a wing.

[Fafnir]

You can consider Marcus Smart a wing all you want, he plays PG on offense/defense and runs the offense for a lot of his minutes. Especially when he's playing with bunch of bench players in the rotation.

The main thing is that you'll see him guard whichever threat is higher between him and Wanamaker, sometimes that is the PG, others its a SF etc.

Wanamaker is the team's 4th guard, he's been perfectly fine in that role.

[RockinRyA]

I made an exercise.
Who is a better backup PGs than Wanamaker?

The criteria are less than half of the games started and just taking this current season in the account.
Contract value and player age aren't considered.

Better backup PG's:
G.Hill - MIL
G. Dragić - MIA
D. Schroder - OKC
J. Teague - MIN/ATL
P. Mills - SAS

That's 5/30, IMO that puts him in the upper tier of backup PGs

Same tier PGs:
DJ Augustin - ORL
A.Holiday - IND
M.Morris - DEN
E. Mudiay - UTAH
J.Brunson - DAL
T. Jones - MEM

I can't say these guys are better than he is now,
but I do think that Brad is the best defender out of this 2nd group.

You forgot about Marcus Smart 

I consider him a wing.

Brad has always mentioned Smart as one of his Ballhandlers.

[Androslav]

You can consider Marcus Smart a wing all you want, he plays PG on offense/defense and runs the offense for a lot of his minutes. Especially when he's playing with bunch of bench players in the rotation.

Ever since IT came here Marcus isn't our PG. That's 5 years back.
He guards wings 90% of the time, basically all the time except when we switch.
Basketball reference has him playing the point 17% this year and 78% SG, 5% SF. And he is a SG 75% in the last 5 years.
Sure, he does officially start at PG when Kemba is out, but he also starts at the 2 when we are missing our starting 2s, 3s or 4s (Brown Tatum or Hayward).
He was drafted as a PG, but he found his role and his 2nd contract in the league as a versatile wing player.
When the game is on the line he will just about never dribble it up and create.
Naturally, as we have 4 more potent players with the ball in their hands on the floor in those times.
PGs never are the 5th most talented ballhandlers and creators in any teams lineup.
Not everyone that can pass well is a PG.

[Fafnir]

Do you know how basketball reference position estimation works? Because I don't (its a black box afaik), best guess is that its height and statistical profiling. Given that it thinks Magic was a SG his first four years. (aka they played with two ball handlers and since he's taller he gets to be SG)

Given that no one ball handler on this team averages a crap ton of assists it means he gets shoved into SG more often than not because he's taller than Kemba/Brad/Carsen.

He plays at ton of PG for us whenever he's coming off the bench especially.

He has the third most passes on the team only behind Kemba/Jayson. He has the second highest assist rate on the team, he has the second highest assists per possession on the team.

Marcus is clearly our backup PG on offense. He also will guard whomever to allow for our weaker defenders to hide or some sort of scheme to avoid switches ending a miss match. That doesn't mean he isn't running the point on the other end.

[RockinRyA]

You can consider Marcus Smart a wing all you want, he plays PG on offense/defense and runs the offense for a lot of his minutes. Especially when he's playing with bunch of bench players in the rotation.

Ever since IT came here Marcus isn't our PG. That's 5 years back.
He guards wings 90% of the time, basically all the time except when we switch.
Basketball reference has him playing the point 17% this year and 78% SG, 5% SF. And he is a SG 75% in the last 5 years.
Sure, he does officially start at PG when Kemba is out, but he also starts at the 2 when we are missing our starting 2s, 3s or 4s (Brown Tatum or Hayward).
He was drafted as a PG, but he found his role and his 2nd contract in the league as a versatile wing player.
When the game is on the line he will just about never dribble it up and create.
Naturally, as we have 4 more potent players with the ball in their hands on the floor in those times.
PGs never are the 5th most talented ballhandlers and creators in any teams lineup.
Not everyone that can pass well is a PG.

This is just so wrong. Smart has mostly been a ballhandler(in brad's classification) in Brad's system. Even when he plays with Kemba he periodically brings the ball and start the play, with Kemba playing off ball. He did it even when he started last year.

Also Smarts versatility allows him to guard all sorts of players, and in no Kemba lineup (SMart-Brown-Tatum-Hayward-Theis) there are times that Brown or Tatum will guard the PG and Smart will take on the toughest matchup. So does that mean he is a wing in that matchup? hell no.

[Androslav]

Do you know how basketball reference position estimation works? Because I don't (its a black box afaik), best guess is that its height and statistical profiling. Given that it thinks Magic was a SG his first four years. (aka they played with two ball handlers and since he's taller he gets to be SG)

Given that no one ball handler on this team averages a crap ton of assists it means he gets shoved into SG more often than not because he's taller than Kemba/Brad/Carsen.

He plays at ton of PG for us whenever he's coming off the bench especially.

He has the third most passes on the team only behind Kemba/Jayson. He has the second highest assist rate on the team, he has the second highest assists per possession on the team.

Marcus is clearly our backup PG on offense. He also will guard whomever to allow for our weaker defenders to hide or some sort of scheme to avoid switches ending a miss match. That doesn't mean he isn't running the point on the other end.

Cleaning the glass also sees him as a wing. I understand what you are saying, and I think he does some PG duties for us, however he also does wing duties as well. It is hard to mold and fit Smart in a single position. We all know that he is a Swiss army knife, maybe that is his position, or strech 6 as he nicknamed himself.
Sometimes he hits 11 three's, other time he guards Milsaps and sometimes he throws a wow pass.

But he doesn't fit my criteria as he started 60% of games he played for us this year.

[Fafnir]

No it doesn't, has him as a combo guard this year, same as Wanamaker. And overall Marcus runs point more minutes than Wanamaker. He's our backup PG. He's also our backup SG and our backup SF in effect (though he'd play G and just moves Jaylen to SF etc)

https://cleaningtheglass.com/stats/team/2#tab-offensive_overview look at this year's assignment.

FWIW how they calculate this.

https://cleaningtheglass.com/stats/guide/player_positions

In past years Marcus got classified as a wing largely because of who he has played with, not what his own responsibilities are. He ran the offense as much as Rozier if not more, even though Rozier was our "backup PG" and IT4 was our starter.

Marcus is a swiss army knife so he's always going to be hard to classify because his role changes depending on the year/team.

[RockinRyA]

No it doesn't, has him as a combo guard this year, same as Wanamaker. And overall Marcus runs point more minutes than Wanamaker. He's our backup PG. He's also our backup SG and our backup SF in effect (though he'd play G and just moves Jaylen to SF etc)

https://cleaningtheglass.com/stats/team/2#tab-offensive_overview look at this year's assignment.

FWIW how they calculate this.

https://cleaningtheglass.com/stats/guide/player_positions

In past years Marcus got classified as a wing largely because of who he has played with, not what his own responsibilities are. He ran the offense as much as Rozier if not more, even though Rozier was our "backup PG" and IT3 was our starter.

Marcus is a swiss army knife so he's always going to be hard to classify because his role changes depending on the year/team.

Yeah I definitely agree. He got classified as a wing before because of the 3 GUARD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! lineup. Remember the IT-AB-Smart lineup? His defensive versatility might confuse people, but just because he sometimes guard Bigs doesnt mean he is a Center.

[No Nickname]

I made an exercise.
Who is a better backup PGs than Wanamaker?

The criteria are less than half of the games started and just taking this current season in the account.
Contract value and player age aren't considered.

Better backup PG's:
G.Hill - MIL
G. Dragić - MIA
D. Schroder - OKC
J. Teague - MIN/ATL
P. Mills - SAS

That's 5/30, IMO that puts him in the upper tier of backup PGs

Same tier PGs:
DJ Augustin - ORL
A.Holiday - IND
M.Morris - DEN
E. Mudiay - UTAH
J.Brunson - DAL
T. Jones - MEM

I can't say these guys are better than he is now,
but I do think that Brad is the best defender out of this 2nd group.

Dude this is a great post. TP.

Sorry it got off track below as to whether Smart is a PG or not.

Back to your point, just having Wanamaker in this second tier is a feather in Danny’s cap on finding diamonds in the rough for cheap.

Hill would be great for sure, but it would ruin our salary cap.

[gouki88]

I made an exercise.
Who is a better backup PGs than Wanamaker?

The criteria are less than half of the games started and just taking this current season in the account.
Contract value and player age aren't considered.

Better backup PG's:
G.Hill - MIL
G. Dragić - MIA
D. Schroder - OKC
J. Teague - MIN/ATL
P. Mills - SAS

That's 5/30, IMO that puts him in the upper tier of backup PGs

Same tier PGs:
DJ Augustin - ORL
A.Holiday - IND
M.Morris - DEN
E. Mudiay - UTAH
J.Brunson - DAL
T. Jones - MEM

I can't say these guys are better than he is now,
but I do think that Brad is the best defender out of this 2nd group.

Not sure I agree with this ranking. This is not necessarily who I'd rather on my team, but these guys are better players. I have these guys ahead of Wanamaker:
Teague - ATL
Brunson - DAL
Morris - DEN
Holiday - IND
Rondo - LAL
Dragic - MIA
Hill - MIL
Schroder - OKC
Augustin - ORL
Mills - SAS
Ish Smith - WAS

So I have Brad right around the middle of the pack. Guys like Delon Wright, TJ McConnell and Tyus Jones are on his level

[Boris Badenov]

Not sure I agree with this ranking. This is not necessarily who I'd rather on my team, but these guys are better players. I have these guys ahead of Wanamaker:

Teague - ATL $19m
Brunson - DAL $1.5m
Morris - DEN $1.5m
Holiday - IND $2.2m
Rondo - LAL $2.6m
Dragic - MIA $17m
Hill - MIL $9.6m
Schroder - OKC $17m
Augustin - ORL $7.3m
Mills - SAS $12m
Ish Smith - WAS $6m

So I have Brad right around the middle of the pack. Guys like Delon Wright, TJ McConnell and Tyus Jones are on his level

See the above, average salaries listed after each player. We are paying Wanamaker $1.4m so he's literally the cheapest relative to that group...I'd say while he's a decent backup talent-wise, he's a terrific value relative to many of those guys.

Even D. Wright ($9.3m), McConnell ($3.5m) and Jones ($8.8m) are significantly more expensive.

With the fragility of our other PGs over the last two years, and our being up agains the cap, I think Wanamaker has to do down as an underrated coup of sorts by Ainge.