OKC ousted in 7; Russell Westbrook to Celts; swap lottery pick for Love

[BballTim]

I think winning percentage can be a pretty interesting stat, especially if you're looking at a player who's purported to be the best player on the team. It says a lot, to me, if your best player can't lead your team to a .500 record. Especially if that's the case for more than one season.

  I'd like to hear exactly what you think it says about a player, since it pertains to players like Ray, PP and KG. They're all in the "more than one season" category, so explain that group in particular.


 

I don't know if it says one thing about all players across the board -- that was the Kyrie/Love example: Irving gets more leeway from me because it's still only his third year in the league. I pay the most attention to it when it becomes a trend: Love is a good example of that because he's only had losing seasons since he's been in the league. But there are different factors at play there -- Kevin Love's Timberwolves being perpetually bad may not be for the same reasons as Irving's Cavs.

You need to add Deron Williams, Ray Allen, Dwayne Wade, Kobe Bryant, Paul Pierce, Carmelo Anthony, LaMarcus Aldridge, and Kevin Garnett to your list of players who have had seasons in their primes where they have led their teams to sub .500 records. 

I'm sure there are some other notables who I've missed.

There's a difference between being the best player on a team that's had one or two losing seasons and being the best player on a perpetual losing team That's the nuance your list is missing. So KG was on losing teams for the first two years of his NBA career -- and then his last two years in Minnesota, with eight seasons of high level play in between (Not to mention an MVP award).

So what does that say about Garnett? That he's a guy who needed quality teammates, but could still be the alpha dog on a 55 win team. Aldridge's career so far has been similar.

  So, pretty much the same thing it says about Rondo. He can be the best player on a good team that wins a lot of games and, just for fun, teams with Rondo as the best player have had significantly more postseason success than many of those guys saw.

And so on and so on. You can't just lump them all into a pot and say "losing seasons."

  There it is, the great backtrack. We go from "It says a lot, to me, if your best player can't lead your team to a .500 record" to "it doesn't say anything at all" when you apply it more generally. That characteristic is a hallmark of many of the anti-Rondo arguments on celticsblog.

[D.o.s.]

And so on and so on. You can't just lump them all into a pot and say "losing seasons."

  There it is, the great backtrack. We go from "It says a lot, to me, if your best player can't lead your team to a .500 record" to "it doesn't say anything at all" when you apply it more generally. That characteristic is a hallmark of many of the anti-Rondo arguments on celticsblog.

You're (possibly intentionally) missing a few salient points when you categorize my position as "the great backtrack." Let me help you out by putting in some of the parts you missed.

. It says a lot, to me, if your best player can't lead your team to a .500 record. Especially if that's the case for more than one season.

And.

There's a difference between being the best player on a team that's had one or two losing seasons and being the best player on a perpetual losing team.

Not that I was talking about Rondo at all in either of my posts -- I merely said I thought winning percentage was an interesting statistic -- but my thoughts on him are as follows: He wasn't the best player on any of the Pierce/KG teams until the last year, when he went down with a torn ACL. So we've seen not even a full season of Rondo being the best player on the team, so it would be unfair to judge him on the team's record this year. Similar to the way I wouldn't judge Kyrie Irving on his early struggles -- only if it continues to be a thing.

[Celtics18]

And so on and so on. You can't just lump them all into a pot and say "losing seasons."

  There it is, the great backtrack. We go from "It says a lot, to me, if your best player can't lead your team to a .500 record" to "it doesn't say anything at all" when you apply it more generally. That characteristic is a hallmark of many of the anti-Rondo arguments on celticsblog.

You're (possibly intentionally) missing a few salient points when you categorize my position as "the great backtrack." Let me help you out by putting in some of the parts you missed.

. It says a lot, to me, if your best player can't lead your team to a .500 record. Especially if that's the case for more than one season.

And.

There's a difference between being the best player on a team that's had one or two losing seasons and being the best player on a perpetual losing team.

Not that I was talking about Rondo at all in either of my posts -- I merely said I thought winning percentage was an interesting statistic -- but my thoughts on him are as follows: He wasn't the best player on any of the Pierce/KG teams until the last year, when he went down with a torn ACL. So we've seen not even a full season of Rondo being the best player on the team, so it would be unfair to judge him on the team's record this year. Similar to the way I wouldn't judge Kyrie Irving on his early struggles -- only if it continues to be a thing.

Yeah, let's hope losing doesn't continue to be a problem for this team.  It's time for Danny to start rebuilding a winner.   

[BballTim]

And so on and so on. You can't just lump them all into a pot and say "losing seasons."

  There it is, the great backtrack. We go from "It says a lot, to me, if your best player can't lead your team to a .500 record" to "it doesn't say anything at all" when you apply it more generally. That characteristic is a hallmark of many of the anti-Rondo arguments on celticsblog.

You're (possibly intentionally) missing a few salient points when you categorize my position as "the great backtrack." Let me help you out by putting in some of the parts you missed.

. It says a lot, to me, if your best player can't lead your team to a .500 record. Especially if that's the case for more than one season.

  I didn't miss that. All the players I mentioned (KG, PP, RA) played close to full seasons on multiple sub-.500 teams in their primes. There are probably more examples as well, but that was enough to make my point.

[PhoSita]

Yeah, let's hope losing doesn't continue to be a problem for this team.  It's time for Danny to start rebuilding a winner.   

I don't think one year of losing is likely to create a toxic atmosphere of losing or anything like that.  So I don't believe there's urgency to create a winner just to avoid that.

However, if the plan is to try and keep Rondo, I agree that now is the time for Danny to put some winning pieces in place.  Otherwise, I think it's reasonable to expect that rebuilding will mean spending another season or two below .500 while the team collects and develops assets.

I don't think a franchise gets into dangerous territory until you hit 4 or more losing seasons in a row, or maybe 2-3 truly abysmal (e.g. bottom 3 record) season in a row.

[D.o.s.]

And so on and so on. You can't just lump them all into a pot and say "losing seasons."

  There it is, the great backtrack. We go from "It says a lot, to me, if your best player can't lead your team to a .500 record" to "it doesn't say anything at all" when you apply it more generally. That characteristic is a hallmark of many of the anti-Rondo arguments on celticsblog.

You're (possibly intentionally) missing a few salient points when you categorize my position as "the great backtrack." Let me help you out by putting in some of the parts you missed.

. It says a lot, to me, if your best player can't lead your team to a .500 record. Especially if that's the case for more than one season.

  I didn't miss that. All the players I mentioned (KG, PP, RA) played close to full seasons on multiple sub-.500 teams in their primes. There are probably more examples as well, but that was enough to make my point.

Sure -- except that you're proving a point that wasn't being debated. At least, not by me.

The only reason I chimed in about winning percentages is because I was asked to. Celtics18 asked me what I thought about winning percentages, and you somehow took that to mean I was somehow denigrating Rondo's play. That's an annoying bit of tunnel vision, especially when I didn't say anything about Rondo at all.

Also worth noting: I gave my thoughts on KG's play in the bit you cut out of my response.  It's a totally difference set of circumstances than Rondo's presence on a sub-par team.

As for the position that you seem to be taking: that any problems that Rondo has on the Celtics aren't worth talking about if they're not applicable to other stars in similar positions... that's just bizarre.

Yeah, let's hope losing doesn't continue to be a problem for this team.  It's time for Danny to start rebuilding a winner.   

Agreed -- I think we're all in agreement on that, the difference comes down to method preference.

[Eddie20]

I think winning percentage can be a pretty interesting stat, especially if you're looking at a player who's purported to be the best player on the team. It says a lot, to me, if your best player can't lead your team to a .500 record. Especially if that's the case for more than one season.

  I'd like to hear exactly what you think it says about a player, since it pertains to players like Ray, PP and KG. They're all in the "more than one season" category, so explain that group in particular.


 

I don't know if it says one thing about all players across the board -- that was the Kyrie/Love example: Irving gets more leeway from me because it's still only his third year in the league. I pay the most attention to it when it becomes a trend: Love is a good example of that because he's only had losing seasons since he's been in the league. But there are different factors at play there -- Kevin Love's Timberwolves being perpetually bad may not be for the same reasons as Irving's Cavs.

You need to add Deron Williams, Ray Allen, Dwayne Wade, Kobe Bryant, Paul Pierce, Carmelo Anthony, LaMarcus Aldridge, and Kevin Garnett to your list of players who have had seasons in their primes where they have led their teams to sub .500 records. 

I'm sure there are some other notables who I've missed.

There's a difference between being the best player on a team that's had one or two losing seasons and being the best player on a perpetual losing team That's the nuance your list is missing. So KG was on losing teams for the first two years of his NBA career -- and then his last two years in Minnesota, with eight seasons of high level play in between (Not to mention an MVP award).

So what does that say about Garnett? That he's a guy who needed quality teammates, but could still be the alpha dog on a 55 win team. Aldridge's career so far has been similar.

  So, pretty much the same thing it says about Rondo. He can be the best player on a good team that wins a lot of games and, just for fun, teams with Rondo as the best player have had significantly more postseason success than many of those guys saw.

And so on and so on. You can't just lump them all into a pot and say "losing seasons."

  There it is, the great backtrack. We go from "It says a lot, to me, if your best player can't lead your team to a .500 record" to "it doesn't say anything at all" when you apply it more generally. That characteristic is a hallmark of many of the anti-Rondo arguments on celticsblog.

Tim, but over the last 2 seasons it's not just that Rondo hasn't led his team to a 500 record, but more importantly is that during that time the team has clearly played better without him.

Last year-
w/out Rondo 21-17
with Rondo 20-23

This year-
w/out Rondo 19-33
with Rondo 6-24

So over the last 2 seasons the team has a combined record of 40-50 without him, while being 26-47 with him.

[Celtics18]

Yeah, let's hope losing doesn't continue to be a problem for this team.  It's time for Danny to start rebuilding a winner.   

I don't think one year of losing is likely to create a toxic atmosphere of losing or anything like that.  So I don't believe there's urgency to create a winner just to avoid that.

However, if the plan is to try and keep Rondo, I agree that now is the time for Danny to put some winning pieces in place.  Otherwise, I think it's reasonable to expect that rebuilding will mean spending another season or two below .500 while the team collects and develops assets.

I don't think a franchise gets into dangerous territory until you hit 4 or more losing seasons in a row, or maybe 2-3 truly abysmal (e.g. bottom 3 record) season in a row.

Agreed.  The bolded part is what I'd really like to see.

[PhoSita]

Just my two cents --

The NBA is a star league.  We all know that.  It's indisputable.  That's how a 5 on 5 sport works, and that's how the game is officiated.

Still, I think that often, too much is made about what the success or failure of a team means about that team's best player.  I don't often hear a really in-depth basketball-reasons explanation for what it means for a player to play "winning basketball" or what makes one guy a "winner" and another guy a "loser."

I'm much more interested in what the most successful teams in the league do to acquire talented players, build a supporting cast for those players, and implement a winning system.



Just sayin -- you can put Kevin Love on my team any day.  Yeah he doesn't bring much to the table on the defensive end, except for rebounding.  But I'll make it work.  26 pts, 12 reb, and all kinds of floor spacing (plus a history of hitting clutch shots) is a good problem to have.

[pokeKingCurtis]

I think winning percentage can be a pretty interesting stat, especially if you're looking at a player who's purported to be the best player on the team. It says a lot, to me, if your best player can't lead your team to a .500 record. Especially if that's the case for more than one season.

  I'd like to hear exactly what you think it says about a player, since it pertains to players like Ray, PP and KG. They're all in the "more than one season" category, so explain that group in particular.


 

I don't know if it says one thing about all players across the board -- that was the Kyrie/Love example: Irving gets more leeway from me because it's still only his third year in the league. I pay the most attention to it when it becomes a trend: Love is a good example of that because he's only had losing seasons since he's been in the league. But there are different factors at play there -- Kevin Love's Timberwolves being perpetually bad may not be for the same reasons as Irving's Cavs.

You need to add Deron Williams, Ray Allen, Dwayne Wade, Kobe Bryant, Paul Pierce, Carmelo Anthony, LaMarcus Aldridge, and Kevin Garnett to your list of players who have had seasons in their primes where they have led their teams to sub .500 records. 

I'm sure there are some other notables who I've missed.

There's a difference between being the best player on a team that's had one or two losing seasons and being the best player on a perpetual losing team That's the nuance your list is missing. So KG was on losing teams for the first two years of his NBA career -- and then his last two years in Minnesota, with eight seasons of high level play in between (Not to mention an MVP award).

So what does that say about Garnett? That he's a guy who needed quality teammates, but could still be the alpha dog on a 55 win team. Aldridge's career so far has been similar.

  So, pretty much the same thing it says about Rondo. He can be the best player on a good team that wins a lot of games and, just for fun, teams with Rondo as the best player have had significantly more postseason success than many of those guys saw.

And so on and so on. You can't just lump them all into a pot and say "losing seasons."

  There it is, the great backtrack. We go from "It says a lot, to me, if your best player can't lead your team to a .500 record" to "it doesn't say anything at all" when you apply it more generally. That characteristic is a hallmark of many of the anti-Rondo arguments on celticsblog.

Tim, but over the last 2 seasons it's not just that Rondo hasn't led his team to a 500 record, but more importantly is that during that time the team has clearly played better without him.

Last year-
w/out Rondo 21-17
with Rondo 20-23

This year-
w/out Rondo 19-33
with Rondo 6-24

So over the last 2 seasons the team has a combined record of 40-50 without him, while being 26-47 with him.

D.o.s. uses Rondo's season records as a point against Rondo.

BballTim points out other players, good players, have had bad seasons.

D.o.s. just gave a list of extenuating circumstances to excuse certain players from his criterion (that Wade was injured, that it wasn't Melo's fault that his team sucked and it was an anomaly that he had a losing season).

BballTim points out the fallacy. That Rondo's judged by one supposedly infallible rule, which, upon general application, becomes a rule with exceptions or even no rule at all.

Eddie20 uses Rondo's season records as a point against Rondo.



We've come full circle.

[Eddie20]

I think winning percentage can be a pretty interesting stat, especially if you're looking at a player who's purported to be the best player on the team. It says a lot, to me, if your best player can't lead your team to a .500 record. Especially if that's the case for more than one season.

  I'd like to hear exactly what you think it says about a player, since it pertains to players like Ray, PP and KG. They're all in the "more than one season" category, so explain that group in particular.


 

I don't know if it says one thing about all players across the board -- that was the Kyrie/Love example: Irving gets more leeway from me because it's still only his third year in the league. I pay the most attention to it when it becomes a trend: Love is a good example of that because he's only had losing seasons since he's been in the league. But there are different factors at play there -- Kevin Love's Timberwolves being perpetually bad may not be for the same reasons as Irving's Cavs.

You need to add Deron Williams, Ray Allen, Dwayne Wade, Kobe Bryant, Paul Pierce, Carmelo Anthony, LaMarcus Aldridge, and Kevin Garnett to your list of players who have had seasons in their primes where they have led their teams to sub .500 records. 

I'm sure there are some other notables who I've missed.

There's a difference between being the best player on a team that's had one or two losing seasons and being the best player on a perpetual losing team That's the nuance your list is missing. So KG was on losing teams for the first two years of his NBA career -- and then his last two years in Minnesota, with eight seasons of high level play in between (Not to mention an MVP award).

So what does that say about Garnett? That he's a guy who needed quality teammates, but could still be the alpha dog on a 55 win team. Aldridge's career so far has been similar.

  So, pretty much the same thing it says about Rondo. He can be the best player on a good team that wins a lot of games and, just for fun, teams with Rondo as the best player have had significantly more postseason success than many of those guys saw.

And so on and so on. You can't just lump them all into a pot and say "losing seasons."

  There it is, the great backtrack. We go from "It says a lot, to me, if your best player can't lead your team to a .500 record" to "it doesn't say anything at all" when you apply it more generally. That characteristic is a hallmark of many of the anti-Rondo arguments on celticsblog.

Tim, but over the last 2 seasons it's not just that Rondo hasn't led his team to a 500 record, but more importantly is that during that time the team has clearly played better without him.

Last year-
w/out Rondo 21-17
with Rondo 20-23

This year-
w/out Rondo 19-33
with Rondo 6-24

So over the last 2 seasons the team has a combined record of 40-50 without him, while being 26-47 with him.

D.o.s. uses Rondo's season records as a point against Rondo.

BballTim points out other players, good players, have had bad seasons.

D.o.s. just gave a list of extenuating circumstances to excuse certain players from his criterion (that Wade was injured, that it wasn't Melo's fault that his team sucked and it was an anomaly that he had a losing season).

BballTim points out the fallacy. That Rondo's judged by one supposedly infallible rule, which, upon general application, becomes a rule with exceptions or even no rule at all.

Eddie20 uses Rondo's season records as a point against Rondo.

We've come full circle.

The part in bold should be used by Webster as a textbook example of "verbose".

[pokeKingCurtis]

I think winning percentage can be a pretty interesting stat, especially if you're looking at a player who's purported to be the best player on the team. It says a lot, to me, if your best player can't lead your team to a .500 record. Especially if that's the case for more than one season.

  I'd like to hear exactly what you think it says about a player, since it pertains to players like Ray, PP and KG. They're all in the "more than one season" category, so explain that group in particular.


 

I don't know if it says one thing about all players across the board -- that was the Kyrie/Love example: Irving gets more leeway from me because it's still only his third year in the league. I pay the most attention to it when it becomes a trend: Love is a good example of that because he's only had losing seasons since he's been in the league. But there are different factors at play there -- Kevin Love's Timberwolves being perpetually bad may not be for the same reasons as Irving's Cavs.

You need to add Deron Williams, Ray Allen, Dwayne Wade, Kobe Bryant, Paul Pierce, Carmelo Anthony, LaMarcus Aldridge, and Kevin Garnett to your list of players who have had seasons in their primes where they have led their teams to sub .500 records. 

I'm sure there are some other notables who I've missed.

There's a difference between being the best player on a team that's had one or two losing seasons and being the best player on a perpetual losing team That's the nuance your list is missing. So KG was on losing teams for the first two years of his NBA career -- and then his last two years in Minnesota, with eight seasons of high level play in between (Not to mention an MVP award).

So what does that say about Garnett? That he's a guy who needed quality teammates, but could still be the alpha dog on a 55 win team. Aldridge's career so far has been similar.

  So, pretty much the same thing it says about Rondo. He can be the best player on a good team that wins a lot of games and, just for fun, teams with Rondo as the best player have had significantly more postseason success than many of those guys saw.

And so on and so on. You can't just lump them all into a pot and say "losing seasons."

  There it is, the great backtrack. We go from "It says a lot, to me, if your best player can't lead your team to a .500 record" to "it doesn't say anything at all" when you apply it more generally. That characteristic is a hallmark of many of the anti-Rondo arguments on celticsblog.

Tim, but over the last 2 seasons it's not just that Rondo hasn't led his team to a 500 record, but more importantly is that during that time the team has clearly played better without him.

Last year-
w/out Rondo 21-17
with Rondo 20-23

This year-
w/out Rondo 19-33
with Rondo 6-24

So over the last 2 seasons the team has a combined record of 40-50 without him, while being 26-47 with him.

D.o.s. uses Rondo's season records as a point against Rondo.

BballTim points out other players, good players, have had bad seasons.

D.o.s. just gave a list of extenuating circumstances to excuse certain players from his criterion (that Wade was injured, that it wasn't Melo's fault that his team sucked and it was an anomaly that he had a losing season).

BballTim points out the fallacy. That Rondo's judged by one supposedly infallible rule, which, upon general application, becomes a rule with exceptions or even no rule at all.

Eddie20 uses Rondo's season records as a point against Rondo.

We've come full circle.

The part in bold should be used by Webster as a textbook example of "verbose".

I'm glad my clumsy English broke the cycle.

[D.o.s.]

I think winning percentage can be a pretty interesting stat, especially if you're looking at a player who's purported to be the best player on the team. It says a lot, to me, if your best player can't lead your team to a .500 record. Especially if that's the case for more than one season.

  I'd like to hear exactly what you think it says about a player, since it pertains to players like Ray, PP and KG. They're all in the "more than one season" category, so explain that group in particular.


 

I don't know if it says one thing about all players across the board -- that was the Kyrie/Love example: Irving gets more leeway from me because it's still only his third year in the league. I pay the most attention to it when it becomes a trend: Love is a good example of that because he's only had losing seasons since he's been in the league. But there are different factors at play there -- Kevin Love's Timberwolves being perpetually bad may not be for the same reasons as Irving's Cavs.

You need to add Deron Williams, Ray Allen, Dwayne Wade, Kobe Bryant, Paul Pierce, Carmelo Anthony, LaMarcus Aldridge, and Kevin Garnett to your list of players who have had seasons in their primes where they have led their teams to sub .500 records. 

I'm sure there are some other notables who I've missed.

There's a difference between being the best player on a team that's had one or two losing seasons and being the best player on a perpetual losing team That's the nuance your list is missing. So KG was on losing teams for the first two years of his NBA career -- and then his last two years in Minnesota, with eight seasons of high level play in between (Not to mention an MVP award).

So what does that say about Garnett? That he's a guy who needed quality teammates, but could still be the alpha dog on a 55 win team. Aldridge's career so far has been similar.

  So, pretty much the same thing it says about Rondo. He can be the best player on a good team that wins a lot of games and, just for fun, teams with Rondo as the best player have had significantly more postseason success than many of those guys saw.

And so on and so on. You can't just lump them all into a pot and say "losing seasons."

  There it is, the great backtrack. We go from "It says a lot, to me, if your best player can't lead your team to a .500 record" to "it doesn't say anything at all" when you apply it more generally. That characteristic is a hallmark of many of the anti-Rondo arguments on celticsblog.

Tim, but over the last 2 seasons it's not just that Rondo hasn't led his team to a 500 record, but more importantly is that during that time the team has clearly played better without him.

Last year-
w/out Rondo 21-17
with Rondo 20-23

This year-
w/out Rondo 19-33
with Rondo 6-24

So over the last 2 seasons the team has a combined record of 40-50 without him, while being 26-47 with him.

D.o.s. uses Rondo's season records as a point against Rondo.

BballTim points out other players, good players, have had bad seasons.

D.o.s. just gave a list of extenuating circumstances to excuse certain players from his criterion (that Wade was injured, that it wasn't Melo's fault that his team sucked and it was an anomaly that he had a losing season).

BballTim points out the fallacy. That Rondo's judged by one supposedly infallible rule, which, upon general application, becomes a rule with exceptions or even no rule at all.

Eddie20 uses Rondo's season records as a point against Rondo.



We've come full circle.

Only I never used Rondo's record to say anything. Reading comprehension, dude.

[pokeKingCurtis]

Only I never used Rondo's record to say anything. Reading comprehension, dude.

Whoops.

D.o.s. uses Rondo's season records as a point against Rondo season records as points against individual players.

BballTim points out other players, good players, have had bad seasons.

D.o.s. just gave a list of extenuating circumstances to excuse certain players from his criterion (that Wade was injured, that it wasn't Melo's fault that his team sucked and it was an anomaly that he had a losing season).

BballTim points out a fallacy that's common in most arguments against Rondo on Celticsblog. That Rondo's judged by one supposedly infallible rule or point, which, upon general application, is amended without a moment's hesitation to become a rule with exceptions or even no rule at all.

Eddie20 uses Rondo's season records as a point against Rondo.

FTFM.

[fairweatherfan]

Only I never used Rondo's record to say anything. Reading comprehension, dude.

Rondo is ALWAYS implied on Celticsblog.