How Inconsistent is Jeff Green, really?

[vinnie]

I think when people say that Jeff Green is inconsistent, they mean he has a lot of really bad games.

2014 Jeff Green -- Games below 40% FG%:  27 out of 69
1988 Larry Bird -- Games below 40% FG%: 10 out of 76

The other part of the "consistency" Green lacks (that stars usually possess) is the ability to impact the game in other ways when their shot isn't falling.  When Larry wasn't shooting well, he usually impacted the games through rebounding or passing.  Green doesn't do that.

(One rough estimate of impact on a game is John Hollinger's "game score" (http://www.basketball-reference.com/about/glossary.html).  In 1988, Larry only had 4 games where his game score was below 10.0; so far in 2014, Jeff Green has had 36 such games, including 5 where his game score was negative.  I know you weren't comparing them as players, but in terms of ability to consistently impact the game, Larry was at a much higher and more consistent level.)

The thread should have ended after this.

TP Hobbs.

Seconded

[Fan from VT]

I think Green's consistency (or lack there of) is overblown, irrelevant, and essentially a distracting straw man to take away from a player who simply is not very good.


Players will have variance in their game. Numerous numbers of NBA players have a few games here and there of high scoring and follow those games up with strings of bad games. It's not that the high scoring games show that Green is a great player who just needs to do that consistently, it's just that the hallmark of mediocre players is that sometimes they contribute, sometimes they don't, but over the long term, they average, well, average totals, just like Green has for all 6 seasons of his career.

[indeedproceed]

I think Green's consistency (or lack there of) is overblown, irrelevant, and essentially a distracting straw man to take away from a player who simply is not very good.


Players will have variance in their game. Numerous numbers of NBA players have a few games here and there of high scoring and follow those games up with strings of bad games. It's not that the high scoring games show that Green is a great player who just needs to do that consistently, it's just that the hallmark of mediocre players is that sometimes they contribute, sometimes they don't, but over the long term, they average, well, average totals, just like Green has for all 6 seasons of his career.

I think that's a dismissal of an argument that pending further analysis (most notably a larger sample size) could illustrate a very valid point.

IE that Jeff Green's variance in scoring helps support a claim that he is in fact inconsistent. If he is also mediocre, his mediocrity would in theory be directly related to his consistency. 

[PhoSita]

  Be honest, it's not like the blog's chock full of more compelling topics.

Yeah . . . that's true.

[mmmmm]

I think Green's consistency (or lack there of) is overblown, irrelevant, and essentially a distracting straw man to take away from a player who simply is not very good.


Players will have variance in their game. Numerous numbers of NBA players have a few games here and there of high scoring and follow those games up with strings of bad games. It's not that the high scoring games show that Green is a great player who just needs to do that consistently, it's just that the hallmark of mediocre players is that sometimes they contribute, sometimes they don't, but over the long term, they average, well, average totals, just like Green has for all 6 seasons of his career.

I think that's a dismissal of an argument that pending further analysis (most notably a larger sample size) could illustrate a very valid point.

IE that Jeff Green's variance in scoring helps support a claim that he is in fact inconsistent. If he is also mediocre, his mediocrity would in theory be directly related to his consistency.

In a sidereal way, this is my point.

Green is, and always has been, used as if a 3rd option player.  His USG numbers have rarely exceeded 24% for any extended time and for much of his career have been well below that.

I believe that Green's supposed 'inconsistency' is actually no different than the typical player with that sort of utilization.   As I've illustrated, even Paul Pierce, when his USG dropped down to 23.8% in 2010, had essentially the same share of really low output games as Green has had (with a similar USG of about 23.5%) this season.   In seasons where Pierce' USG was much higher, his share of low-output outlier games has been much smaller.  So were his share of top-end outliers.

When Joe Johnson was at Phoenix, his USG was similarly just over 20% and he was similarly 'inconsistent'.  Then, he went to ATL where his USG was typically much higher, 26-27%.  His share of 'poor' games was much smaller then.  Now, in Brooklyn, his USG has dropped back to the low 20s and he's already had far more games of under 10 points than Green has had.

The correlation seems pretty strong:  Low USG players tend to have a much higher share of outliers, both low and high.

Green is used as a 3rd option player (a 'mediocre' player if that's what you prefer) and both his production and consistency are consistent with that role.

I don't understand why discussing this leads so many folks to get all emotionally charged.  It's almost as if they have some sort of personal stake in their assertions that a player is 'bad' or 'good' or whatever.  Any attempt to try to analyze what is actually going on gets labeled 'excuse making', or 'homerism' by the resident bullies on this blog.  It gets old.

[pokeKingCurtis]

Not disagreeing with mmmmm, but...

"Jeff Green is the only player with over a dozen 25+ point games and over a dozen single digit scoring games"

Maybe this is just another bad possible situation for Jeff Green (again...). OKC he never gets the ball, then his heart, then for a while he plays really well as a 3rd option behind KG and Pierce. Now he's playing with barely anybody, defenses are shutting down his driving lanes, and he's playing bad again.

[LilRip]

Not disagreeing with mmmmm, but...

"Jeff Green is the only player with over a dozen 25+ point games and over a dozen single digit scoring games"

Maybe this is just another bad possible situation for Jeff Green (again...). OKC he never gets the ball, then his heart, then for a while he plays really well as a 3rd option behind KG and Pierce. Now he's playing with barely anybody, defenses are shutting down his driving lanes, and he's playing bad again.

so it sounds like Green's ideal situation would then be that he's the focal point of the offense but defenses don't focus on him? 

[mmmmm]

Not disagreeing with mmmmm, but...

"Jeff Green is the only player with over a dozen 25+ point games and over a dozen single digit scoring games"

Maybe this is just another bad possible situation for Jeff Green (again...). OKC he never gets the ball, then his heart, then for a while he plays really well as a 3rd option behind KG and Pierce. Now he's playing with barely anybody, defenses are shutting down his driving lanes, and he's playing bad again.

so it sounds like Green's ideal situation would then be that he's the focal point of the offense but defenses don't focus on him? 

See the text in bold.

[LilRip]

Not disagreeing with mmmmm, but...

"Jeff Green is the only player with over a dozen 25+ point games and over a dozen single digit scoring games"

Maybe this is just another bad possible situation for Jeff Green (again...). OKC he never gets the ball, then his heart, then for a while he plays really well as a 3rd option behind KG and Pierce. Now he's playing with barely anybody, defenses are shutting down his driving lanes, and he's playing bad again.

so it sounds like Green's ideal situation would then be that he's the focal point of the offense but defenses don't focus on him? 

See the text in bold.

then what's with all the shoulder injury shenanigans? were you pointing out that he's actually consistent but his shoulder injury hampered him; or that he's actually inconsistent because he's, at best, a 3rd scoring option, regardless of an injury to a shoulder or not?

anyway, IMO, i agree he could be the 3rd scoring option (which doesn't translate to 3rd best player). I classify him as a solid role player who is starter quality. He can be the "X factor" of a team, given that he's clutch and he could win you games on his own. Very useful once the playoffs roll around.

but to expect anything more from him other than a consistent 10-15ppg would be asking too much.

[Galeto]

Not disagreeing with mmmmm, but...

"Jeff Green is the only player with over a dozen 25+ point games and over a dozen single digit scoring games"
Maybe this is just another bad possible situation for Jeff Green (again...). OKC he never gets the ball, then his heart, then for a while he plays really well as a 3rd option behind KG and Pierce. Now he's playing with barely anybody, defenses are shutting down his driving lanes, and he's playing bad again.

so it sounds like Green's ideal situation would then be that he's the focal point of the offense but defenses don't focus on him? 

See the text in bold.

then what's with all the shoulder injury shenanigans? were you pointing out that he's actually consistent but his shoulder injury hampered him; or that he's actually inconsistent because he's, at best, a 3rd scoring option, regardless of an injury to a shoulder or not?

anyway, IMO, i agree he could be the 3rd scoring option (which doesn't translate to 3rd best player). I classify him as a solid role player who is starter quality. He can be the "X factor" of a team, given that he's clutch and he could win you games on his own. Very useful once the playoffs roll around.

but to expect anything more from him other than a consistent 10-15ppg would be asking too much.

You're giving him too much credit.  As far as I can tell, he believes he's made a compelling argument that Green's decline in eFG% times too coincidentally with a shoulder injury suffered against Houston about which nothing has been spoken of since.  Nevermind that after a poor game against Dallas, Green didn't mind bringing up stomach issues to explain his troubles, demonstrating that he's not exactly a no excuses guy.  Nevermind that eFG% is a stat complicated by shot selection and is a bizarre choice to support a possible injury over simple FG%.  No, with nothing to go on, no brace, no signs of grimacing, nothing he believes that Green is playing through a shoulder injury that strangely flares up only about every other game or two. 

[indeedproceed]

I believe that Green's supposed 'inconsistency' is actually no different than the typical player with that sort of utilization.   As I've illustrated, even Paul Pierce, when his USG dropped down to 23.8% in 2010, had essentially the same share of really low output games as Green has had (with a similar USG of about 23.5%) this season.   In seasons where Pierce' USG was much higher, his share of low-output outlier games has been much smaller.  So were his share of top-end outliers.

...

The correlation seems pretty strong:  Low USG players tend to have a much higher share of outliers, both low and high.

My biggest issue with this, albeit not in a topic that plays to my strengths intellectually, is that there is not really a meaningful correlation at all there.

In order for a strong correlation, you need a strong pool from which to sample. Your pool is 3 players big, so really it's a fairly insignificant correlation, statistically speaking. Not to say it wouldn't be proven significant with a larger sample, just that at this point, the correlation is weak.

We'd need all players, with similar USG rates , then a sampling of the standard deviation in PPG, or a number of low-scoring games, or whatever. Ideally further , we'd rank players who played a similar position, with similar minutes, to help cut down on the noise.

[cltc5]

he's a bum, stop making excuses for him.

[mmmmm]

I believe that Green's supposed 'inconsistency' is actually no different than the typical player with that sort of utilization.   As I've illustrated, even Paul Pierce, when his USG dropped down to 23.8% in 2010, had essentially the same share of really low output games as Green has had (with a similar USG of about 23.5%) this season.   In seasons where Pierce' USG was much higher, his share of low-output outlier games has been much smaller.  So were his share of top-end outliers.

...

The correlation seems pretty strong:  Low USG players tend to have a much higher share of outliers, both low and high.

My biggest issue with this, albeit not in a topic that plays to my strengths intellectually, is that there is not really a meaningful correlation at all there.

In order for a strong correlation, you need a strong pool from which to sample. Your pool is 3 players big, so really it's a fairly insignificant correlation, statistically speaking. Not to say it wouldn't be proven significant with a larger sample, just that at this point, the correlation is weak.

We'd need all players, with similar USG rates , then a sampling of the standard deviation in PPG, or a number of low-scoring games, or whatever. Ideally further , we'd rank players who played a similar position, with similar minutes, to help cut down on the noise.

Well, certainly, to say something more strongly definitive we need more data.  That's why i used word like "I believe" and "seems" instead of "I know" and "is definitely".

I think your standard of needing data on "all players" might be a bit overly rigorous.   A fellow only has so much time in a day.

Here are all players this season with a scoring average of 12 ppt or greater, at least 25 mpg, qualified for scoring title, with a USG% between 19-25%.   The 'over' percentage is the share of their games that were over 140% of their average scoring output and their 'under' percentage is the share of their games that were under 60% of their average scoring output.  Sorted by largest percentage of games under 60% of their scoring average:


Evan Turner,      69 games, 23.6% USG, 15.4 ppg, 29.9% over, 29.0% under
Rodney Stuckey,   61 games, 23.9% USG, 13.4 ppg, 27.9% over, 27.9% under
Jared Sullinger,  65 games, 24.2% USG, 12.8 ppg, 23.1% over, 26.2% under
Kenneth Faried,   68 games, 19.9% USG, 12.6 ppg, 20.6% over, 25.0% under
Gerald Green,     70 games, 23.2% USG, 15.6 ppg, 24.3% over, 24.3% under
Joe Johnson,      66 games, 21.9% USG, 15.5 ppg, 18.2% over, 24.2% under
J.R. Smith,       62 games, 20.9% USG, 13.2 ppg, 14.5% over, 24.2% under
Brandon Jennings, 67 games, 23.6% USG, 16.0 ppg, 20.9% over, 23.9% under
Alec Burke,       69 games, 24.3% USG, 13.8 ppg, 17.4% over, 21.8% under
Markieff Morris,  69 games, 23.5% USG, 13.8 ppg, 23.2% over, 21.7% under
Gordon Hayward,   65 games, 22.9% USG, 15.7 ppg, 12.3% over, 21.5% under
Chris Bosh,       67 games, 22.5% USG, 16.6 ppg, 17.9% over, 20.9% under
Spencer Hawes,    69 games, 19.4% USG, 13.3 ppg, 20.3% over, 20.3% under
Enes Kanter,      69 games, 23.4% USG, 12.1 ppg, 24.6% over, 20.3% under
Paul Pierce,      63 games, 22.5% USG, 13.4 ppg, 15.4% over, 20.0% under
David West,       70 games, 22.0% USG, 13.9 ppg, 17.1% over, 20.0% under
Jeff Green,       70 games, 23.5% USG, 17.0 ppg, 20.0% over, 20.0% under
Wesley Mathews,   70 games, 19.4% USG, 16.6 ppg, 15.7% over, 18.6% under
Jameer Nelson,    61 games, 19.8% USG, 12.2 ppg, 13.1% over, 18.0% under
Chandler Parsons, 63 games, 19.0% USG, 16.1 ppg, 11.1% over, 17.5% under
Reggie Jackson,   69 games, 23.4% USG, 13.3 ppg, 14.4% over, 17.4% under
Victor Oladipo,   69 games, 24.1% USG, 14.0 ppg, 15.9% over, 17.4% under
Josh Smith,       69 games, 24.4% USG, 16.5 ppg, 18.8% over, 17.4% under
Eric Gordon,      64 games, 23.1% USG, 15.4 ppg, 14.1% over, 17.2% under
Taj Gibson,       70 games, 23.2% USG, 13.2 ppg, 22.9% over, 17.1% under
Dwight Howard,    66 games, 24.4% USG, 18.6 ppg, 12.1% over, 16.7% under
Thaddeus Young,   67 games, 24.0% USG, 18.1 ppg, 17.9% over, 16.4% under
Serge Ibaka,      68 games, 19.8% USG, 15.2 ppg, 10.3% over, 16.2% under
Tim Duncan,       63 games, 25.0% USG, 15.0 ppg, 14.3% over, 15.9% under
Greg Monroe,      69 games, 20.6% USG, 14.9 ppg, 14.5% over, 15.9% under
Bradley Beal,     61 games, 24.7% USG, 17.2 ppg,  9.8% over, 14.8% under
Derrick Favors,   61 games, 20.5% USG, 12.9 ppg, 14.8% over, 14.8% under
Klay Thompson,    70 games, 22.3% USG, 18.2 ppg, 17.1% over, 14.3% under
Jodie Meeks,      64 games, 19.0% USG, 15.3 ppg, 12.5% over, 14.0% under
David Lee,        66 games, 24.4% USG, 18.5 ppg,  9.1% over, 13.6% under
Lance Stephenson, 68 games, 19.4% USG, 14.3 ppg, 17.6% over, 13.2% under
Arron Afflalo,    62 games, 23.4% USG, 19.2 ppg,  9.7% over, 12.9% under
Gerald Henderson, 65 games, 22.7% USG, 14.6 ppg, 12.3% over, 12.3% under
Goran Dragic,     66 games, 24.6% USG, 20.3 ppg, 13.6% over, 10.6% under
Kyle Lowrie,      69 games, 22.0% USG, 17.5 ppg, 10.1% over, 10.1% under


So, what this says is that Kyle Lowrie is very dependably consistent, scoring within 40% of his average 80% of the time, only has a bad game about 1 in 10 games, but only scores a bunch about 1 in 10 as well.  On the other end, Evan Turner has boom or bust games over half the time.

Green is close to the middle of this pack, having a 'disappointing' game about 1 in 5 times, but also having a great game about 1 in 5.

Most of these players are a bit asymmetric, having a bigger share of 'under' games than 'over' games.

[indeedproceed]

Well, TP to you sir, that's a lot of legwork. I don't have any real bones to pick with your methology either. Two TPs!

[nickagneta]

Regarding those stats mmmmm gave, Jeff Green is not middle of the pack. His numbers come equidistant from the extremes of the data, but of the 40+ players listed only 10 had more divergent numbers given the percentage sum of deviation from the amount of games above and below average. That puts Green in the 25th percentile or so for most inconsistent.