Basketball Synergy and Jason Collins

[sofutomygaha]

I hadn't realized you could download the paper for free. It is RIVETING.

Seriously, thank you for posting this. I recommend everyone have a look. Some of my favorite takeaways for Celtics fans- according to this model:

1. We would have had a stronger team from 2005-2010 if we could have traded Rondo for Al Jefferson.

2. Kevin Garnett has been one of the most universally complimentary players in the NBA.

3. Jason Collins has the most positive defensive rebounding impact, but he also has the 7th WORST impact on offensive scoring. This is in spite of the fact that defensive rebounding is strongly synergistic with scoring.

4. Loading up on scorers is not synergistic- Steve Nash's impact will be diminished by Kobe Bryant. Dwyane Wade and Lebron James are probably limiting each other's potential. Ginobili and Duncan too.

5. Ryan Hollins and Kendrick Perkins should never touch the ball on offense.

6. The modern Celtics haven't actually been particularly complimentary... for as much as they have made each other better scorers and defenders, they have made each other worse at rebounding and turnovers.

[AshyLarry]

Whether or not people think he sucks, which I sort of did (never really seen him play) this data makes me feel a lot better. And I think It's Bill Simmons who gives out the Jason Collins award or something, representing a great teammate, dirty work guy, etc, so I wasn't upset about the signing.

[mmmmm]

The Celtics since 2007 have had one of the very best FG% in the league, and even last year were 5th overall at .460.  Teams that shoot the ball well happen to benefit the most from good defensive rebounders (whereas good offensive rebounders are often wasted in systems producing good FG%).

Yes, and to pile on to that - on the other end of the court the Celtics have been among the stingiest with opponent FG%, typically each year being the lowest or among the lowest in the league.  Last year they were #1, holding opposing teams to just 41.9% - which resulted in 46.3 missed shots per game.  The C's did 'okay', grabbing 31.1 (72.4%) of the 43 that were rebound opportunities (a few bounce out of bounds or a whistle gets blown or whatever).  That's pretty much league average.  But more defensive rebounds is always better.

Collins himself has never posted high DRB% numbers and should not be expected to grab a bunch of rebounds.  That said, every team he has played on since he came in the league has been above average at DRB% - and several times near the very top of the rankings.

Collins main selling point is that he does have a rep as a smart defensive player who knows how to play proper team defense.  As such, it may be a case that this is helping facilitate his teammates' ability to grab DRBs. 

[mmmmm]

The biggest drawback for me is that the data in the study only went to 2010, so I'm not sure how '11 and '12 looked for Collins in the same skill areas.

As I alluded to in my other post, I went back as far as 2001-02 (when Collins came in the league) and every team he was on was above average in DRB%.  And several were top 5.

So we have correlation.  Not necessarily cause, of course. 

I assume that Danny & Doc do their due diligence and actually scout guys before they sign them, of course.

[the_Bird]

The Celtics since 2007 have had one of the very best FG% in the league, and even last year were 5th overall at .460.  Teams that shoot the ball well happen to benefit the most from good defensive rebounders (whereas good offensive rebounders are often wasted in systems producing good FG%).

Yes, and to pile on to that - on the other end of the court the Celtics have been among the stingiest with opponent FG%, typically each year being the lowest or among the lowest in the league.  Last year they were #1, holding opposing teams to just 41.9% - which resulted in 46.3 missed shots per game.  The C's did 'okay', grabbing 31.1 (72.4%) of the 43 that were rebound opportunities (a few bounce out of bounds or a whistle gets blown or whatever).  That's pretty much league average.  But more defensive rebounds is always better.

Collins himself has never posted high DRB% numbers and should not be expected to grab a bunch of rebounds.  That said, every team he has played on since he came in the league has been above average at DRB% - and several times near the very top of the rankings.

Collins main selling point is that he does have a rep as a smart defensive player who knows how to play proper team defense.  As such, it may be a case that this is helping facilitate his teammates' ability to grab DRBs.

The explanation COULD be that Collins is good at getting a body on his man (something the C's have often been terrible at), helping his teammates to accumulate rebounding stats.  Hard to say without watching a lot of tape (which I assume that Danny has done).  I always had the impression (which could have been wrong) that Scal was like that, he had terrible rebounding numbers but he was pretty good at blocking out. 

I'm not sure how complicated the Collins signing really was, though.  The pickings for free agent bigs (at the vet min) were pretty slim; of the guys we could afford, it's hard to say that anyone was markedly better.  Chris Anderson might have been better, but he's a lot higher-risk and you don't really need the drama from your 12th man.  Collins plays good D and doesn't screw up; that might have been enough to point the C's in his direction.

[mmmmm]

I'm not sure how complicated the Collins signing really was, though.  The pickings for free agent bigs (at the vet min) were pretty slim; of the guys we could afford, it's hard to say that anyone was markedly better.  Chris Anderson might have been better, but he's a lot higher-risk and you don't really need the drama from your 12th man.  Collins plays good D and doesn't screw up; that might have been enough to point the C's in his direction.

That sounds like too much common sense, dude!

[GreenFaith1819]

Thanks for the post, gift.

KG has made decent centers even BETTER.

He did it in Minny with Rasho Nesterovic.

He did it here with Kendrick.

He complimented Shaq VERY well.

I don't think we heard as much about Rasho when he left for TOR.

Kendrick took KG's number 5 in OKC and is now anchoring OKC's defense and making Serge better.

I have no doubt that KG will help to get the most out of Jason.

I figure that at WORST Collins will get under the skin of Dwight and Andrew, and that in itself is GOOD.

[LooseCannon]

Collins might be the worst player in the NBA

Cory Higgins says hi.

[TripleOT]

Ainge knows what he's going to get with Collins.  That guy will put his body on someone every trip up and down the floor, something the Cs desperately needed last year. 

[Roy H.]

To clarify, are you saying that 5-man teams tend to be dramatically better on defensive boards when one of the 5 is Jason Collins?

This is interesting, especially in light of Collins' rebound rate, which is nothing special. Is the argument here that Collins excels at boxing out and making defensive rebounds for his teammates?

Yeah, I'd be interested to hear this, too.  How is Collins' VORP in terms of defensive rebounding leading the NBA?  He's ranged from a poor to an atrocious defensive rebounder over the last several seasons.

When I see results like that, it makes me question the methodology unless there's a reasonable explanation.

[lightspeed5]

Collins might be the worst player in the NBA

is shelden williams still playing

[bfrombleacher]

Jason Collins has the most positive defensive rebounding impact

like he said*
Impact, not rebounding period. Maybe he creates space for his teammates to get rebounds.

[billysan]

Jason Collins has the most positive defensive rebounding impact

like he said*
Impact, not rebounding period. Maybe he creates space for his teammates to get rebounds.

This is potentially huge, if not quantifiable.

example: I remember an argument several years ago where people believed that Al Jeffersons rebound numbers were inflated because Perkins was on the floor 'occupying' the other teams best big man. There is no way to really prove or disprove just quoting stats. You would have to watch film to see matchups on each possession and weight that with individual player performance.

I am sure a case can be made for other teammate situations as well. For me, as long as Collins plays inspired and (for him) mistake free basketball for 5-7 minutes per half when needed then we have another winner.

I think it will be less minutes as Wilcox will hopefully be KG's primary backup.

[Surferdad]

The Celtics since 2007 have had one of the very best FG% in the league, and even last year were 5th overall at .460.  Teams that shoot the ball well happen to benefit the most from good defensive rebounders (whereas good offensive rebounders are often wasted in systems producing good FG%).

Yes, and to pile on to that - on the other end of the court the Celtics have been among the stingiest with opponent FG%, typically each year being the lowest or among the lowest in the league.  Last year they were #1, holding opposing teams to just 41.9% - which resulted in 46.3 missed shots per game.  The C's did 'okay', grabbing 31.1 (72.4%) of the 43 that were rebound opportunities (a few bounce out of bounds or a whistle gets blown or whatever).  That's pretty much league average.  But more defensive rebounds is always better.

Collins himself has never posted high DRB% numbers and should not be expected to grab a bunch of rebounds.  That said, every team he has played on since he came in the league has been above average at DRB% - and several times near the very top of the rankings.

Collins main selling point is that he does have a rep as a smart defensive player who knows how to play proper team defense.  As such, it may be a case that this is helping facilitate his teammates' ability to grab DRBs.

The explanation COULD be that Collins is good at getting a body on his man (something the C's have often been terrible at), helping his teammates to accumulate rebounding stats.  Hard to say without watching a lot of tape (which I assume that Danny has done).  I always had the impression (which could have been wrong) that Scal was like that, he had terrible rebounding numbers but he was pretty good at blocking out. 

I'm not sure how complicated the Collins signing really was, though.  The pickings for free agent bigs (at the vet min) were pretty slim; of the guys we could afford, it's hard to say that anyone was markedly better.  Chris Anderson might have been better, but he's a lot higher-risk and you don't really need the drama from your 12th man.  Collins plays good D and doesn't screw up; that might have been enough to point the C's in his direction.

Bingo.  It's nice to know there are stats out the that support the signing, but unlikely the stats were the key factor in the decision to sign.  I'm not a Collins fan and either but he will serve an important purpose on the roster.

[Mencius]

... I'm not expecting much out of him other than some solid defense on some of the bigger C's in the league (Howard/Bynum/Bogut/M. Gasol/HIbbert.)

This gets at the nut of it, to me.  All our other bigs could be just simply overwhelmed physically by the guys listed above.  We had nobody to put a body on them that wouldn't be steamrolled.  I suspect that against just about all teams other than ones with the big centers listed above, we'll be better using our other big combos (without Collins), but he's worth his contract if only for when we face them.