Statistically Ranking Theis to Last Years Centers and comparing with Turner

[Somebody]

Statistically ranking Theis compared to other centers discounts the impact that the coach, team and system have on those numbers.  If you look at how some people played here vs. other locations, you will generally notice the positive impact Brad Stevens, Celtic culture and other players have had on the players being evaluated.  Jordon Crawford was a player of the month (I think) under Brad Stevens and literally did nothing anywhere else.  Evan Turner was made useful here and got a huge contract from Portland and stopped producing there.  Jae Crowder was unleashed in Boston.  IT4 never played better than he did in Boston.  Aaron Baynes got better here before taking his talents to Phoenix.

My point is that if Turner is potentially starting off with more raw talent than Theis, who is to say that Brad Stevens will not find better use of that talent?  Turner has some fantastic tools and I would bet that he can be better than Theis under the same system and with the same teammates.

Obviously we can all debate whether my comment is true or false and Danny Ainge (if given the opportunity by Hayward) will have the final say as to whether or not he believes it to be true, but in order to make a comparison, the situations need to be equalized.

And we adjust for that by ranking Turner slightly ahead of Theis even though the latter has a sexier statistical portfolio. The gap just isn't that large lol, it's similar to Ben Simmons not being the second coming of Magic Johnson no matter how much people on this forum are obsessed with "hurr he's a big athletic freak with SKILLZ".

[Tr1boy]

Qualifiers are all Centers who played at least 20 games and 18 minutes per game in those 20 games.

Results yielded 51 results.

Here is way the underrated Daniel Theis ranked.

Offensive Rating: 14th at 111.
Turner 107 ranked 36

Defensive Rating: 4th at 104
Turner 106.7 ranked 16

Net Rating 5th at +7
Turner 26th and .4

Assist % 24th at 10.4%
Turner 44t at 5.7%

Assist to Turnover% 5th at 2.06%
Turner 41st at 0.85%

Rebound % 33th at 12.9%
Turner 44th at 10.9%

EFG% 14th at 60.3%
Turner 36th at 53%

TS% 14th at 63.1%
Turner 36th at 56.6%

Steal% 37th at 13.4%
Turner 23rd at 16.4%

Block % 24th at 43.3%
Turner 6th at 57.4%

DWS 13th at .105
Turner 14th at .104

3 pointers attempted 24th at 1.5
Turner 9th at 4

3pt% 21st at 33.3%
Turner 18th at 34.4%

Thats nice.... End of the day, can you really get the thought out of Bam 2 and ones to completely change the complexion of game 6 with 6 mins to go?

Two years ago Giannis dunking on Theis repeatedly?  He literally told Theis he is coming from half court and Theis still got dunked on.

It is demoralizing for the team

It is not Theis fault. But why does he need to play big min/start?? He is a role big or third big at best.

Best is to try to obtain a higher skilled/physical talent.

Noel, Giles etc.

Or we can actually put Grant on Bam and Kanter/Baynes on Giannis. This is like blaming David Robinson for being "unable" to defend Hakeem because the latter's offensive skillset was the perfect storm for picking apart the former's ATG defence, the Spurs could've put Rodman on Hakeem in spurts instead of benching the lad

What?? Who could guard Hakeem? Who could guard Jordan? Or Kobe

Ask Bruce Bowen one of the best defenders, how easy it was to guard Kobe

Bam nor Giannis etc are at these levels. Theis is just a 6'8 undersized center that cant stop half the centers in the league. 1 on 1 anyways. Via team game he gets by.  In the playoffs, you cant hide it

Lets stop the focus on regular season and focus on how to succeed in the playoffs, where it counts the most

[Darth_Yoda]

Qualifiers are all Centers who played at least 20 games and 18 minutes per game in those 20 games.

Results yielded 51 results.

Here is way the underrated Daniel Theis ranked.

Offensive Rating: 14th at 111.
Turner 107 ranked 36

Defensive Rating: 4th at 104
Turner 106.7 ranked 16

Net Rating 5th at +7
Turner 26th and .4

Assist % 24th at 10.4%
Turner 44t at 5.7%

Assist to Turnover% 5th at 2.06%
Turner 41st at 0.85%

Rebound % 33th at 12.9%
Turner 44th at 10.9%

EFG% 14th at 60.3%
Turner 36th at 53%

TS% 14th at 63.1%
Turner 36th at 56.6%

Steal% 37th at 13.4%
Turner 23rd at 16.4%

Block % 24th at 43.3%
Turner 6th at 57.4%

DWS 13th at .105
Turner 14th at .104

3 pointers attempted 24th at 1.5
Turner 9th at 4

3pt% 21st at 33.3%
Turner 18th at 34.4%

Thats nice.... End of the day, can you really get the thought out of Bam 2 and ones to completely change the complexion of game 6 with 6 mins to go?

Two years ago Giannis dunking on Theis repeatedly?  He literally told Theis he is coming from half court and Theis still got dunked on.

It is demoralizing for the team

It is not Theis fault. But why does he need to play big min/start?? He is a role big or third big at best.

Best is to try to obtain a higher skilled/physical talent.

Noel, Giles etc.

Or we can actually put Grant on Bam and Kanter/Baynes on Giannis. This is like blaming David Robinson for being "unable" to defend Hakeem because the latter's offensive skillset was the perfect storm for picking apart the former's ATG defence, the Spurs could've put Rodman on Hakeem in spurts instead of benching the lad

What?? Who could guard Hakeem? Who could guard Jordan? Or Kobe

Ask Bruce Bowen one of the best defenders, how easy it was to guard Kobe

Bam nor Giannis etc are at these levels. Theis is just a 6'8 undersized center that cant stop half the centers in the league. 1 on 1 anyways. Via team game he gets by.  In the playoffs, you cant hide it

Lets stop the focus on regular season and focus on how to succeed in the playoffs, where it counts the most

In the Playoffs Theis was

9th in Offensive Rating / Turner 17th
3th in defensive rating / Turner 12th
5th in net rating / Turner 13th
10th in assist % / Turner 17th
17th in TRB% / Turner 9th
17th in EFG% / Turner 5th
18thi n TS% / Turner 11th
15th in steal % / Turner 18th
9th in block % / Turner 1st

Turner played a better playoffs than Theis, but in much fewer games and not playing with Sabonis. So take it for what it is worth.

[wdleehi]

Here is a challenge for you stat guys:


Can you compare how Turner does against the big men Theis struggles against?


To me, unless Turner is clearly better against those guys, what does he actually add to the roster at that price?

He doesn't do much better than Theis from what I know, I remember his h2h numbers against the behemoths of the league not being that great (can be seen from the eye test, he's a pretty slender shot blocker who struggles against power).

I mean that is what I also observed but I wanted to see if someone could give us a deeper statistical breakdown for this.

[wdleehi]

Also, how does his stats stat ranking changes when he is a true C without Sabonis next to him? 

[Darth_Yoda]

Also, how does his stats stat ranking changes when he is a true C without Sabonis next to him?

Playoff numbers above

[keevsnick]

So look, i get the advances numbers favor Theis to varying degrees. But i really feel that just looking at those numbers ignores all context.

We just saw what happens defensively to a center when you go from playing with the Celtics as the lone big surrounded by talented perimeter defenders to playing next to a big who has to drop. How did Al Horford look in that context? Turner was playing basically the same role next to Sabonis. The upgrade in setting going from having to be a PF to being a true center surrounded by three of the better perimeter defenders in the league (Smart, Jaylen Tatum) cannot be ignored. I honestly think Turner has all nab defensive upside in that context. He has some versatility, he can play drop but also has enough athleticism to switch onto most perimeter guys.

On offense Turner just had a bad year, he shot 34.4 % when his career 3 point percentage is 35.7 and his FT% is 77%. I think we could vary easily see a reversion to a 37%+ three point shooter next year. He's not gonna dish out assists like Horford, or post up much, but if he plays high level defense, holds up better against the better centers than theis did, and shooter 37% from 3 then he's great!

So basically I'm just not sure we should compared a guy in a sub optimal situation to a guy in pretty much optimal situation and draw HARD conclusions. Turner is only about 6 months older than Jaylen and I think clearly has some upside left to explore. He's under contract three more years and at worst can probably be used as matching salary for a better guy down the line. And if you do get him maybe you can explore flipping Theis for an asset.

I'd much rather have him then lose Hayward for nothing.

[Tr1boy]

When is the deadline for the Celts to pickup the team option on Theis?  Or the date the Celts can opt out?

[Somebody]

Here is a challenge for you stat guys:


Can you compare how Turner does against the big men Theis struggles against?


To me, unless Turner is clearly better against those guys, what does he actually add to the roster at that price?

He doesn't do much better than Theis from what I know, I remember his h2h numbers against the behemoths of the league not being that great (can be seen from the eye test, he's a pretty slender shot blocker who struggles against power).

I mean that is what I also observed but I wanted to see if someone could give us a deeper statistical breakdown for this.

I'm not sure how much deeper can we delve into the stats without slamming into a paywall, basic h2h numbers are probably the best that we can get. We'll probably have to do most of the legwork by using the eye test to apply context to the box stats in those h2h databases.

[Somebody]

So look, i get the advances numbers favor Theis to varying degrees. But i really feel that just looking at those numbers ignores all context.

We just saw what happens defensively to a center when you go from playing with the Celtics as the lone big surrounded by talented perimeter defenders to playing next to a big who has to drop. How did Al Horford look in that context? Turner was playing basically the same role next to Sabonis. The upgrade in setting going from having to be a PF to being a true center surrounded by three of the better perimeter defenders in the league (Smart, Jaylen Tatum) cannot be ignored. I honestly think Turner has all nab defensive upside in that context. He has some versatility, he can play drop but also has enough athleticism to switch onto most perimeter guys.

On offense Turner just had a bad year, he shot 34.4 % when his career 3 point percentage is 35.7 and his FT% is 77%. I think we could vary easily see a reversion to a 37%+ three point shooter next year. He's not gonna dish out assists like Horford, or post up much, but if he plays high level defense, holds up better against the better centers than theis did, and shooter 37% from 3 then he's great!

So basically I'm just not sure we should compared a guy in a sub optimal situation to a guy in pretty much optimal situation and draw HARD conclusions. Turner is only about 6 months older than Jaylen and I think clearly has some upside left to explore. He's under contract three more years and at worst can probably be used as matching salary for a better guy down the line. And if you do get him maybe you can explore flipping Theis for an asset.

I'd much rather have him then lose Hayward for nothing.

Yeah what we're doing is applying context to the numbers: we know that Turner played a larger role next to a less than ideal defensive cast, so we mentally curve up his numbers while we slightly curve down Theis' due to his smaller role and great defensive support. But the difference between the two isn't as big as people on this forum would like to believe, you'd think that Theis is some scrub who should never be playing a significant role for a team with serious aspirations while Turner is a defensive god waiting to be unleashed if you base your opinions on the two by only reading this forum.

We don't draw hard conclusions from the data, but we do get the signal that it is much more likely for Turner to be marginally better than Theis than Turner being a much superior player. I definitely wouldn't be crying if we traded Hayward for him, but I wouldn't be super ecstatic about it unless we get someone like Gallinari to somewhat fill in the playmaking/shooting/scoring void left by the departure of Hayward.

[Rondo9]

We won't win an NBA championship with Daniel Theis as our starting center.

Or kemba as our Point Guard.

! This claim is disputed.

Ugh don't remind me of what Twitter is doing.

[Tr1boy]

We won't win an NBA championship with Daniel Theis as our starting center.

Or kemba as our Point Guard.

! This claim is disputed.

Ugh don't remind me of what Twitter is doing.

It is mainly geared towards Trump

[Moranis]

So look, i get the advances numbers favor Theis to varying degrees. But i really feel that just looking at those numbers ignores all context.

We just saw what happens defensively to a center when you go from playing with the Celtics as the lone big surrounded by talented perimeter defenders to playing next to a big who has to drop. How did Al Horford look in that context? Turner was playing basically the same role next to Sabonis. The upgrade in setting going from having to be a PF to being a true center surrounded by three of the better perimeter defenders in the league (Smart, Jaylen Tatum) cannot be ignored. I honestly think Turner has all nab defensive upside in that context. He has some versatility, he can play drop but also has enough athleticism to switch onto most perimeter guys.

On offense Turner just had a bad year, he shot 34.4 % when his career 3 point percentage is 35.7 and his FT% is 77%. I think we could vary easily see a reversion to a 37%+ three point shooter next year. He's not gonna dish out assists like Horford, or post up much, but if he plays high level defense, holds up better against the better centers than theis did, and shooter 37% from 3 then he's great!

So basically I'm just not sure we should compared a guy in a sub optimal situation to a guy in pretty much optimal situation and draw HARD conclusions. Turner is only about 6 months older than Jaylen and I think clearly has some upside left to explore. He's under contract three more years and at worst can probably be used as matching salary for a better guy down the line. And if you do get him maybe you can explore flipping Theis for an asset.

I'd much rather have him then lose Hayward for nothing.

Yeah what we're doing is applying context to the numbers: we know that Turner played a larger role next to a less than ideal defensive cast, so we mentally curve up his numbers while we slightly curve down Theis' due to his smaller role and great defensive support. But the difference between the two isn't as big as people on this forum would like to believe, you'd think that Theis is some scrub who should never be playing a significant role for a team with serious aspirations while Turner is a defensive god waiting to be unleashed if you base your opinions on the two by only reading this forum.

We don't draw hard conclusions from the data, but we do get the signal that it is much more likely for Turner to be marginally better than Theis than Turner being a much superior player. I definitely wouldn't be crying if we traded Hayward for him, but I wouldn't be super ecstatic about it unless we get someone like Gallinari to somewhat fill in the playmaking/shooting/scoring void left by the departure of Hayward.

Turner played a lot more minutes though.  I mean in the regular season he had 32 games of at least 30 minutes, Theis had 10.  If you look at the games of at least 24 minutes, Turner had 54, Theis had 34.  And the discrepancy would have been a lot more but for Turner missing a bunch of games.  Minutes matter a great deal, especially for efficiency.  So does fit.  Keevs did a great job laying out the fit component, but he didn't really mention minutes, and I think that is a big factor as well.  If the metrics tell you that Daniel Theis is basically the same player as Myles Turner, then the metrics are wrong.

[Darth_Yoda]

So look, i get the advances numbers favor Theis to varying degrees. But i really feel that just looking at those numbers ignores all context.

We just saw what happens defensively to a center when you go from playing with the Celtics as the lone big surrounded by talented perimeter defenders to playing next to a big who has to drop. How did Al Horford look in that context? Turner was playing basically the same role next to Sabonis. The upgrade in setting going from having to be a PF to being a true center surrounded by three of the better perimeter defenders in the league (Smart, Jaylen Tatum) cannot be ignored. I honestly think Turner has all nab defensive upside in that context. He has some versatility, he can play drop but also has enough athleticism to switch onto most perimeter guys.

On offense Turner just had a bad year, he shot 34.4 % when his career 3 point percentage is 35.7 and his FT% is 77%. I think we could vary easily see a reversion to a 37%+ three point shooter next year. He's not gonna dish out assists like Horford, or post up much, but if he plays high level defense, holds up better against the better centers than theis did, and shooter 37% from 3 then he's great!

So basically I'm just not sure we should compared a guy in a sub optimal situation to a guy in pretty much optimal situation and draw HARD conclusions. Turner is only about 6 months older than Jaylen and I think clearly has some upside left to explore. He's under contract three more years and at worst can probably be used as matching salary for a better guy down the line. And if you do get him maybe you can explore flipping Theis for an asset.

I'd much rather have him then lose Hayward for nothing.

Yeah what we're doing is applying context to the numbers: we know that Turner played a larger role next to a less than ideal defensive cast, so we mentally curve up his numbers while we slightly curve down Theis' due to his smaller role and great defensive support. But the difference between the two isn't as big as people on this forum would like to believe, you'd think that Theis is some scrub who should never be playing a significant role for a team with serious aspirations while Turner is a defensive god waiting to be unleashed if you base your opinions on the two by only reading this forum.

We don't draw hard conclusions from the data, but we do get the signal that it is much more likely for Turner to be marginally better than Theis than Turner being a much superior player. I definitely wouldn't be crying if we traded Hayward for him, but I wouldn't be super ecstatic about it unless we get someone like Gallinari to somewhat fill in the playmaking/shooting/scoring void left by the departure of Hayward.

Turner played a lot more minutes though.  I mean in the regular season he had 32 games of at least 30 minutes, Theis had 10.  If you look at the games of at least 24 minutes, Turner had 54, Theis had 34.  And the discrepancy would have been a lot more but for Turner missing a bunch of games.  Minutes matter a great deal, especially for efficiency.  So does fit.  Keevs did a great job laying out the fit component, but he didn't really mention minutes, and I think that is a big factor as well.  If the metrics tell you that Daniel Theis is basically the same player as Myles Turner, then the metrics are wrong.

Dont mess on the Metrics now.


 
Theis, in Boston, has performed as well as Turner in Indiana.


however

Turner is Bigger
Turner is stronger (?)
Turner is a superior athlete
Turner has a better shot
Turner is younger and theoretically has more room for growth.
Turner has better defensive instincts


Next is:
With Turner increased natural gifts over Theis will he perform better than his past self in the Celtics system. And if so is it more than Theis? Substantially more than Theis? etc.

I am in the camp of cannot see why not.

[action781]

Theis is a pretty underrated player, which I think the data supports.  Imagine what those defensive numbers would look like if so many phantom fouls weren't called on him too!

The one stat that I hate seeing is how low he falls on the 3pta rankings.  He is not a great, but is a pretty good 3 point shooter.  I believe he is much better than 24th out of 51 centers at outside shooting and should be attempting more.  Especially in an offensive system that has seemed to value outside shooting from all 5 positions.   

I felt like he had much more of a green light to shoot the 3 last season, but would routinely pass down open looks this season.  I couldn't understand why.  Then it becomes especially confusing when you compare Theis' 3 point volume decrease to the increase in Marcus Smart's when they've converted on an equal percent of their 3pta over the past 2 seasons combined.