Jeff Green couldn't even be the FOURTH best player on a championship team.

[kozlodoev]

To be a nice guy to Jeff and give him the benefit of the doubt, I've decided to only use his wp48 over the last 3 seasons (which omits is absolutely abysmal rookie year). As a result, JG clocks in at .107.

That's dandy. And Rondo, with his career WS of about .140 would have solidly been the fourth best player of all of these teams. Sounds about right, yes?

Well given that Rondo was pretty much the 4th best player on Boston all those years, that is probably pretty accurate, wouldn't you think?

Given that his ws48 has trended downwards over all those years, that probably means he's regressed since 2008, too?

[snively]

I've been impressed by Jeff this year.  Still prone to long periods of invisibility, maddeningly weak on the boards and generic on D, but the stats don't lie.

My beef with Jeff has always been that he's a tweener - a guy who can't defend/rebound as a 4, but can't really score as a 3.

But 16-17ppg on excellent efficiency, within the flow of the offense, while playing almost exclusively at the 3, where he's capable of solid, if unexceptional D?  Plus 3-point range? That's the kind of 2-way player you can start on a contending team.

[kozlodoev]

I've been impressed by Jeff this year.  Still prone to long periods of invisibility, maddeningly weak on the boards and generic on D, but the stats don't lie.

My beef with Jeff has always been that he's a tweener - a guy who can't defend/rebound as a 4, but can't really score as a 3.

But 16-17ppg on excellent efficiency, within the flow of the offense, while playing almost exclusively at the 3, where he's capable of solid, if unexceptional D?  Plus 3-point range? That's the kind of 2-way player you can start on a contending team.

His shotblocking seems to have disappeared though. Remember those LeBron-style, come-from-behind swats? Nowhere to be found anymore

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I've been impressed by Jeff this year.  Still prone to long periods of invisibility, maddeningly weak on the boards and generic on D, but the stats don't lie.

My beef with Jeff has always been that he's a tweener - a guy who can't defend/rebound as a 4, but can't really score as a 3.

But 16-17ppg on excellent efficiency, within the flow of the offense, while playing almost exclusively at the 3, where he's capable of solid, if unexceptional D?  Plus 3-point range? That's the kind of 2-way player you can start on a contending team.

I agree.  Rondo will only improve his efficiency, we might expect, right?

Green seems to have that generic-ness that is called versatility when expertly utilized.

Still a hole at the top of the roster, but Green can surely start on a contender.  Heck, he started out of position when OKC was a threat in the west.

What does a Green/Sully//Asik front line amount to, with Rondo running the show and perhaps a Crawford, Bradley, or better player starting at SG?

I wish he wouldn't look so passive on the weak side, though.  He doesn't look like he's looking for an opportunity to develop; just loitering, mostly.

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Jeff Green would start on the Heat replacing Battier's role.

Leonard is a very good offensive player, on a cheaper contract, so if I'm the Spurs I like him better than Green. But if Pop had Green, he would start because of his defense.

Players aren't piano keys, they all complement their teammates in different ways, and the best teams are those who find the best complementary role players to their main stars. If you had the best PG in the game (don't look now, Rondo haters) and a difference-making center, like Marc Gasol, do you think a guy like Jeff Green could be useful as the starting SF?

but he's not a #1 option, yadayadayadda... BS. You have to build a team, and that's Danny Ainge's job, with the help of Coach Stevens. You need 5 guys who can score, pass and defend at all time, 48 minutes, and you want the best possible talent. You don't have to model your team after the Heat, the Spurs or the Pacers, it's about maximizing the players you have and the players you are able to trade for or draft or sign.

It's sad to go through 5 pages of a thread whose OP is arguing Jeff Green isn't worth to have on the Cs. But like the "trade Rondo" threads, it's another of CelticBlog's charms. Good job, good effort.

TP4this.

[byennie]

I think people that don't understand this really just don't understand how a basketball game is won (# of possessions * efficiency of each possession).

...

The whole point is, there's a colorable argument here that even if you factor in defense, JG is merely an equivalent player to Bonner. And Bonner is essentially a role player. Hence how one might come to the conclusion that JG could not, under any circumstances, be even the fourth best player on a championship team.

Of course the people who don't understand stats or what I'm saying will just repeat themselves - "Stats can show anything!" (actually no, they can't). Or they'll just claim that what I'm saying is preposterous and can't simply be true "Come on, you don't REALLY think that Bonner is better, do you? You're obviously insane." (despite the fact that Bonner has a higher TS%).

I'm pretty sure it's you who doesn't understand how to interpret the stats. This is a bleeding example of confirmation bias - you took a hypothesis (Jeff Green is a low efficiency player who would be 5th best or worse player on a championship team), and went out to find numbers that supported your opinion.

Even if you just focus on win shares, which is a nice metric but not the only one out there, you have to at least consider total win shares and the team they were on.

When SA won the title in 2006-2007 they won 58 regular season games over which Bonner was 10th on the team in total win shares (2.2).

By contrast, in Jeff Green's first 2 years in OKC he contributed 10.8 win shares to teams that won a total of 73 games.

By that measure, Bonner contributed 3.8% of his team's wins, and Green contributed 14.8%. If you gave Bonner 3x the minutes AND his efficiency stayed exactly the same playing 30+ minutes against starters and bad matchups for him, he still wouldn't carry as big of a share.

So yeah, I didn't even need to change metrics to go find a straightforward argument that Green is better. See how numbers can be used to support an already formed opinion?

[celticsclay]

This kind of crushes the bonner point great job. It would be cool to see the op admit they were being a little over the top for once....

I think people that don't understand this really just don't understand how a basketball game is won (# of possessions * efficiency of each possession).

...

The whole point is, there's a colorable argument here that even if you factor in defense, JG is merely an equivalent player to Bonner. And Bonner is essentially a role player. Hence how one might come to the conclusion that JG could not, under any circumstances, be even the fourth best player on a championship team.

Of course the people who don't understand stats or what I'm saying will just repeat themselves - "Stats can show anything!" (actually no, they can't). Or they'll just claim that what I'm saying is preposterous and can't simply be true "Come on, you don't REALLY think that Bonner is better, do you? You're obviously insane." (despite the fact that Bonner has a higher TS%).

I'm pretty sure it's you who doesn't understand how to interpret the stats. This is a bleeding example of confirmation bias - you took a hypothesis (Jeff Green is a low efficiency player who would be 5th best or worse player on a championship team), and went out to find numbers that supported your opinion.

Even if you just focus on win shares, which is a nice metric but not the only one out there, you have to at least consider total win shares and the team they were on.

When SA won the title in 2006-2007 they won 58 regular season games over which Bonner was 10th on the team in total win shares (2.2).

By contrast, in Jeff Green's first 2 years in OKC he contributed 10.8 win shares to teams that won a total of 73 games.

By that measure, Bonner contributed 3.8% of his team's wins, and Green contributed 14.8%. If you gave Bonner 3x the minutes AND his efficiency stayed exactly the same playing 30+ minutes against starters and bad matchups for him, he still wouldn't carry as big of a share.

So yeah, I didn't even need to change metrics to go find a straightforward argument that Green is better. See how numbers can be used to support an already formed opinion?

[BballTim]

To be a nice guy to Jeff and give him the benefit of the doubt, I've decided to only use his wp48 over the last 3 seasons (which omits is absolutely abysmal rookie year). As a result, JG clocks in at .107.

That's dandy. And Rondo, with his career WS of about .140 would have solidly been the fourth best player of all of these teams. Sounds about right, yes?

Well given that Rondo was pretty much the 4th best player on Boston all those years, that is probably pretty accurate, wouldn't you think?

  All those years meaning 2008 and 2009. If we had 3 players better than him in any year since we'd have easily won the title.

[kozlodoev]

To be a nice guy to Jeff and give him the benefit of the doubt, I've decided to only use his wp48 over the last 3 seasons (which omits is absolutely abysmal rookie year). As a result, JG clocks in at .107.

That's dandy. And Rondo, with his career WS of about .140 would have solidly been the fourth best player of all of these teams. Sounds about right, yes?

Well given that Rondo was pretty much the 4th best player on Boston all those years, that is probably pretty accurate, wouldn't you think?

  All those years meaning 2008 and 2009. If we had 3 players better than him in any year since we'd have easily won the title.

Ironically, 2008 and 2009 were his strongest years, using the metric discussed in this thread.

Rondo's WS48 since 2008:
0.15, 0.18, 0.16, 0.13, 0.12, 0.11.

[BballTim]

Well I'm glad at least Moranis and Pho Sita are picking up what I'm putting down. Definitely better than comments like "the game isn't played on calculators"...

The fact of the matter is, in the NBA it's much, much more valuable to be REALLY GOOD at 1-2 things than it is to be merely average at everything. Average players simply have no place in championship-caliber teams, other than as dead weights who can fill in minutes.

I think people that don't understand this really just don't understand how a basketball game is won (# of possessions * efficiency of each possession).

Everybody here in particular has mocked the notion that Matt Bonner could be more useful to the Spurs. That simply can't be possible, can it? The Red Rocket versus somebody who looks like an actual basketball player? Well guess what, it's more than possible. If you put JG on that Spurs team, every shot he takes is a shot that he takes away from Duncan, Parker, Ginobili, or Leonard. The other team WANTS him to shoot more, and not those guys. On the other hand, Bonner comes in and rarely ever shoots, so he doesn't take any shots away from those very good players. When he does shoot, it's almost exclusively a corner 3, of which he hit 47 percent of during the Spurs' playoff run. So when he does shoot, he's helping his team. When he doesn't shoot, he's helping his team (by leaving the shooting to the more efficient players).

JG on the other hand might provide better better defense, but he's going to harm them on offense with his pedestrian shooting. This is why Green's career TS% is .535 while Bonner's is .588. In other words, this isn't a hypothetical scenario at all... Bonner has DEMONSTRABLY BEEN PROVEN to help his team more on offense over the course of actual NBA games. All of this, without even considering the disparity in salary, which is definitely a factor that leans far in Bonner's favor.

The whole point is, there's a colorable argument here that even if you factor in defense, JG is merely an equivalent player to Bonner. And Bonner is essentially a role player. Hence how one might come to the conclusion that JG could not, under any circumstances, be even the fourth best player on a championship team.

Of course the people who don't understand stats or what I'm saying will just repeat themselves - "Stats can show anything!" (actually no, they can't). Or they'll just claim that what I'm saying is preposterous and can't simply be true "Come on, you don't REALLY think that Bonner is better, do you? You're obviously insane." (despite the fact that Bonner has a higher TS%).

  A couple of things from someone who "doesn't understand stats". For starters, Jeff Green scores more efficiently than any of Duncan, Parker, Ginobili, or Leonard this year, and he scored more efficiently than 2 of them last year. So that part of your post was all wrong. Also, Bonner has about the same career TS% as Manu and Leonard but higher than Duncan or Parker. That obviously means that he *doesn't* help the Spurs by leaving more shots for the other players who are *less* efficient scorers than him.

  Also, you seem to be pretty excited about Bonner hitting 47% of his corner threes, that's about the same rate Green hits them at. I could go on, but suffice to say your grasp of the stats of the players you're talking about and things like whether it's better or worse to have more efficient players shoot more should make you rethink your condescending tone.

[Sketch5]

I've been impressed by Jeff this year.  Still prone to long periods of invisibility, maddeningly weak on the boards and generic on D, but the stats don't lie.

My beef with Jeff has always been that he's a tweener - a guy who can't defend/rebound as a 4, but can't really score as a 3.

But 16-17ppg on excellent efficiency, within the flow of the offense, while playing almost exclusively at the 3, where he's capable of solid, if unexceptional D?  Plus 3-point range? That's the kind of 2-way player you can start on a contending team.

Agree. They said last night he's averaging 16/17ppg on 12 shot attempts per game. If you can bring in one more big name guy with Green,Rondo and Sully, thats going to be a good team. 

[BballTim]

To be a nice guy to Jeff and give him the benefit of the doubt, I've decided to only use his wp48 over the last 3 seasons (which omits is absolutely abysmal rookie year). As a result, JG clocks in at .107.

That's dandy. And Rondo, with his career WS of about .140 would have solidly been the fourth best player of all of these teams. Sounds about right, yes?

Well given that Rondo was pretty much the 4th best player on Boston all those years, that is probably pretty accurate, wouldn't you think?

  All those years meaning 2008 and 2009. If we had 3 players better than him in any year since we'd have easily won the title.

Ironically, 2008 and 2009 were his strongest years, using the metric discussed in this thread.

Rondo's WS48 since 2008:
0.15, 0.18, 0.16, 0.13, 0.12, 0.11.

  Possibly. I like stats and all but anyone who thinks a composite stat like that is an absolute measure of how good players are don't understand the limitations of the stat, or how it's just a best guess at what's important to a team by a particular statistician.

[kozlodoev]

Possibly. I like stats and all but anyone who thinks a composite stat like that is an absolute measure of how good players are don't understand the limitations of the stat, or how it's just a best guess at what's important to a team by a particular statistician.

I agree. I just wanted to illustrate how the stat is inadequate in what it's been used for in this thread.