There's something about Romeo's poise when he's on the court that is enticing. I can't really quantify that, there's just something about the way he moves on the court that makes me think there's something there.
That said, Nesmith has shown more and is a more natural fit alongside the J's as someone who is already good at moving without the ball and spotting up.
It's not just his poise. Something magical often happened when Romeo was on the court last season.
Some things I noticed - They'd be a number of unexpected deflected passes, an opposing shooter unwilling to shoot over him, a blindsided blocked shot, a rebound that leads to a fast break, etc. Unappreciated plays like this is why he got so many minutes. The team as a whole did better when he was on the court. Too many of his naysayers overlook this and only focus on his offense. He has a synergistic effect on those around them and makes them look better.
He didn't have a good summer league offensively. I thought he was a lot better playing along side the veterans.
I think that your memory may be playing tricks on you. Romeo had the worst plus minus on the team call mom and it wasn’t particularly close.
https://www.statmuse.com/nba/ask/boston-celtics-player-with-best-plus-minus-2021
You know a guy lost his argument when he resorts to plus minus stats.
Where were you when we traded Jeff Teague last season? He was our 6th best player (according to your plus/minus stat)!!!
Holy cow, Green Kornet was our 8th best player, why isn't he still on the roster?
When somebody makes the claim that “The team as a whole did better when he was on the court”, looking at the teams performance is the only way to validate that claim. It doesn’t hold up.
Or, do you think that the team was in fact playing better with him on the court, despite routinely being outscored?
Do better. You are single-handedly bringing down the level of discourse around here.
Calm down. I think he has a legit point about +/- numbers not really being a good indicator of what they are used for. The Teague thing is a good example of that.
except the team didn't actually do better when Langford was on the court. They were outscored by nearly 11 points per 100 possessions, and were nearly 13 points worse per 100 possessions when Langford was in the game, as opposed to when he was on the bench. In other words, the exact opposite of what he said is true. Remember this is what he said: "The team as a whole did better when he was on the court." That just isn't true. The team was significantly worse with him on the court.
As Celtics2021 said above, the stat alone doesn't really make a solid case for what you're claiming it does. For lots of reasons. Sample size, for one, but it's also a very noisy stat that could be affected by all kinds of context that doesn't have to do with Langford's specific impact on the court.
Except the comment is specifically about the team’s play. And the team did not play better with Romeo in the game. That’s incontrovertible.
No, it isn't, and it speaks to the problem with +/-.
The team could theoretically play better with Romeo on the court but if Romeo is always on the court against superior competition and off the court when the competition is worse the C's could win the minutes without Romeo.
Whether or not that's what happened, I don't think +/- is incontrovertible proof of very much.
In your hypothetical (which has no basis in reality), why isn't that pattern reflected with any other player?
But, as noted multiple times in this thread, it's not just our raw +/-, it's our net rating. The Celtics were 12.9 points per 100 possessions better with Romeo on the bench. Our Off Rtg is much worse, our eFG% was much worse, we turned the ball over significantly more, and our defense was only marginally better.
It has not basis in reality? Coaches don't play their best players against the better competition and let their benches play against other benches (in other words, worse competition)? You don't think the level of competition affects +/- or net rating for individuals?
I don't know how common it is but I recall a lot of conversation when "the numbers" said Kawhi was dragging down the Spurs' defense a couple of years ago even though he's a great defender: https://www.reddit.com/r/nba/comments/6arl1x/why_is_the_spurs_defense_so_much_better_this_year/
The likely reason is the Spurs have a good defensive system that carries over to the bench and so their bench outperformed other benches to a high degree while Kawhi, because of how good of a defender he is, was only on the court when the best offensive competition was as well.
Romeo, because he wasn't part of the regular bench rotation, might not have had the benefit of playing against other benches the way someone like Teague, even though he was shipped out because he was bad, did, thus inflating his +/-.
The point isn't to defend Romeo. I just don't think +/- is proof of much of anything.
Raw +/- doesn’t control for opponents and it also doesn’t control for teammates. Net ratings have the same issues.
There are various species of adjusted plus-minus. The problem with them is that the differences between players can be minuscule. That has led to statisticians folding in ‘box score priors’ to amplify the numbers, to create more meaningful rankings. The best-known version of this is ESPN’s Real Plus-Minus. The trouble with this approach is that there are players who help their team without putting much in the box score, so they’re under-ranked by this stat.
That doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t use those statistics (I do) - just that you ought to take into account their limitations when you do.
When it comes to Romeo, the sample size is tiny. You need to ‘add salt’ to his numbers, including +/-.
In the end there’s just no getting around it: you need to be a little bit of a coach and watch a player play basketball. That means rewinding
a lot and listening to experts - not watching the ball and listening to Charles Barkley or the bros on CLNS. Oh and a dose of humility helps.
As to Romeo. I see a future in the NBA for him, but not in Boston. Richardson and Smart will take a lot of wing minutes, and Nesmith’s emerging ability to create good shots off the dribble is just too valuable. I think that Romeo is the odd man out.