One Of These Is Marcus

[celticsclay]

We've had a couple days of overdue Smart-bashing.   I do think he can get it together, though.  If Marcus Smart was putting up stats like this on a team like Toronto, I'd be creating threads like, "Hey... do you think it might be worth it if we offered up the #16 pick for Marcus Smart... Smart sucks, but surely he has more potential that whatever trash we're going to get with the #16 pick... he's only 21 years old and according to Toronto homers on the Raptors forums, Smart has been a far better defender than his stats suggest and is a hungry and motivated kid and has high intangibles"   ... The fans here who had heard of Marcus Smart would probably bury me for the the idea, but I'd stand by it until the bitter end.

[celticsclay]

If you want to say your disappointed with smart, just say your disappointed with smart. No need to come up with some bizarre stat range based on a tiny sample to do so..

The sample is 80 games.

The stat range is, really simply, Smarts points, assists, rebounds, and field goal percentage.

I don't know what's so bizarre or misleading about that.

Once I actually look at the sample (again, please, take a look at the link posted previously), I try to look at other factors.  Like minutes per game, games played, Win Shares, and so on.  That's how I singled out the names I've mentioned earlier in the post.


Sure, you can mention Gary Payton if you want to believe Smart is like him, just by looking at their True Shooting.  But their shot selection as young players was completely different, so that makes very little sense.

Smart, so far in his career, has been a combo guard with a low usage rate who has taken nearly half his shots from deep and rarely gotten to the free throw line.  So I think if you want to make a reasonable comparison you have to look for other players who fit that description.

how many games and minutes for the other guys in their two years?

We have one year of Bremer playing 60 games of 23 minutes on a bad Celtics team and 35 games of him playing as a benchwarmer across two teams. That doesn't strike you as a bad comparison on the eye test off the bat?

[littleteapot]

I obviously think that there is basically no chance Smart becomes as good as Gary Payton.

However, writing off the comp because of their overall FG% early in their careers is lazy.

Again, the big difference for me is that Payton basically didn't take three pointers.  Smart takes half his shots from deep.

So the fact that Gary shot 45% overall while Smart has shot far lower than that is pretty significant.

By looking at the overall number you are punishing Smart. If you want to take 3s out of it just look at the 2PT% where Payton is better than Smart but not 50% better.

[PhoSita]

Did you realize JR Bremer's second year included 36 total games and was in about 10 minutes per game? He had one season of 63 games on a pretty ugly celtics team that included 41 shots. The fact that you included him in this implies you were just going for shock value.

Again, I'm really interested to hear alternative examples.

People have, rather unsurprisingly, mentioned Gary Payton and Chauncey Billups.  But if you actually look closely, there are some pretty major differences there.


There are no perfect comparisons, of course, and that's sort of the point.  I've gone looking for examples of guys who started out like Marcus has and then went on to become really good offensive players.  None of the examples I could find are really satisfactory comparisons.

So maybe Smart goes on to become a really nice two way player.  It's just really hard to find good precedent for it.

[alldaboston]

This is hilarious.

Watch. Marcus will have a good scoring game (since all you haters seem to care about is scoring), and suddenly we will see "Marcus Smart will be a top 5 PG" threads popping up. And once he has a rough night again, this thread will be revisited, and we might even see LarBrd talk about how we should have taken Randle instead.

[PhoSita]

By looking at the overall number you are punishing Smart. If you want to take 3s out of it just look at the 2PT% where Payton is better than Smart but not 50% better.

If Smart never took three pointers and only attempted two pointers, then looking at 2P% would make sense.

The point is, he's a very different offensive player from Payton.  A huge percentage of his shots come from deep.

If you trying to make an accurate player comparison, I feel you should look for guys with a similar shot distribution.


Anyway, if you look at true shooting percentage instead of field goal percentage, the type of sample you get doesn't change a whole lot.

Link

[walker834]

I think Marcus as far as his skillset compares favorably to a guy like Draymond Green or a better version of pj tucker.  He is a big defensive guard with a knack for making winning plays.  He has more of an it factor than a guy like Tucker who is a pretty bland big defensive minded guard in comparison.  Smart is more talented. He's shorter than Draymond and more in the body of a guy like Mark jackson.

Marcus is his own player. That's what makes him special imo. He can be compared to other big defensive guards like Tony Allen but overall he's more talented than that I feel.

Tony Allen is a guy who is capped offensively. He may shoot a better percentage but his ability is basically that on dunks and fairly one dimensional.  Marcus has the ability to be a much more well rounded player.

Marcus is still hitting a 3 a game and assisting at a good clip compared to these guys. That shows he has upside there.  He is not a one dimensional player. His percentages are just down.

He's still coming as an offensive player. His percentages increase suddenly he is a beast all over the place.

[PhoSita]

We have one year of Bremer playing 60 games of 23 minutes on a bad Celtics team and 35 games of him playing as a benchwarmer across two teams. That doesn't strike you as a bad comparison on the eye test off the bat?

You're right that the fact that Bremer played significantly fewer minutes in his second year than in the first year makes that one a poor comparison. 

If you adjust the filters so you're looking at Per-36 numbers instead, though, Bremer's name still comes up.

Even if you throw out Bremer's second season, their rookie seasons were pretty similar.

Now, I don't know anything about how effective Bremer was as a defender.  But my interest here is mainly in trying to find guys who are similar offensively to Smart, because I'm interested to see if there are any examples that might give us hope for Smart turning into a quality contributor on that end.

[littleteapot]

By looking at the overall number you are punishing Smart. If you want to take 3s out of it just look at the 2PT% where Payton is better than Smart but not 50% better.

If Smart never took three pointers and only attempted two pointers, then looking at 2P% would make sense.

The point is, he's a very different offensive player from Payton.  A huge percentage of his shots come from deep.

If you trying to make an accurate player comparison, I feel you should look for guys with a similar shot distribution.

He is a very different offensive player but nothing so far says he's a worse offensive player in the middle of his second year than Payton was.

Personally I don't like any of these comparisons. All of these players play on different teams in different eras and start at very different points. Smarts issues with scoring at the basket from a statistical POV could match him up with a variety of players who lack skill, size, athleticism and plenty of guys have potential but don't reach it.

[The Oracle]

  Here are some players who are shooting worse this year than Marcus Smart did last year from 3.  Parameters used under 33.5% from the 3 pt. line on 3 or more attempts per game.  D'Angelo Russell, Chandler Parsons, Danny Green, Carmelo Anthony, Dennis Schroder, Isaiah Thomas, Jamaal Crawford, James Harden, Jimmy Butler, Monta Ellis, Rodney Hood, Rudy Gay, Russell Westbrook, Victor Oladipo, Zach LaVine, Kobe Bryant, Paul Pierce and Lebron James among many others.

 

[walker834]

People who think Marcus isn't athletic are missing something there imo.  Marcus is a very good athlete.  He's a different kind of athlete but still very athletic. That's what sets him apart from guys like jr bremer etc. Anyone with any eye whatsoever can look at marcus and look at a guy like jr bremer and see the difference.

[PhoSita]

  Here are some players who are shooting worse this year than Marcus Smart did last year from 3.  Parameters used under 33.5% from the 3 pt. line on 3 or more attempts per game.  D'Angelo Russell, Chandler Parsons, Danny Green, Carmelo Anthony, Dennis Schroder, Isaiah Thomas, Jamaal Crawford, James Harden, Jimmy Butler, Monta Ellis, Rodney Hood, Rudy Gay, Russell Westbrook, Victor Oladipo, Zach LaVine, Kobe Bryant, Paul Pierce and Lebron James among many others.

 

OK, so a lot of players take three point shots without being able to hit a very high percentage of them.

Typically the guys who take more than a few shots here and there are good at scoring from somewhere on the court, though.

[walker834]

I feel like we are talking about nothing really. Marcus was picked at 6 because he is a blue chip athlete based on potential and a strong defensive player and leader. What were people expecting?  His offense was going to take time.  Marcus is going to be a very good player. I don't think it's even a discussion really.  All of this was to be expected if people actually watched him and scouted him.

[littleteapot]

I feel like we are talking about nothing really. Marcus was picked at 6 because he is a blue chip athlete based on potential and a strong defensive player and leader. What were people expecting?  His offense was going to take time.  Marcus is going to be a very good player. I don't think it's even a discussion really.  All of this was to be expected.

I'm not giving up on Smart but I thought he would be able to bully guards more than he does so far, and that he would finish through contact at the rim.

[PhoSita]

He is a very different offensive player but nothing so far says he's a worse offensive player in the middle of his second year than Payton was.

A selection of Gary Payton's performances in January of his second year in the league. (all games between 1/13 - 1/25)


15 points, 8 assists, 3 rebounds, 6-10 FG 3-4 FT

12 points, 6 assists, 3 rebounds, 2 steals, 6-15 FG

19 points, 3 assists, 5 rebounds, 2 steals, 9-16 FG 1-1 FT

20 points, 6 assists, 5 rebounds, 2 steals, 7-18 FG 6-6 FT

14 points, 10 assists, 1 rebounds, 1 steal, 6-12 FG 2-2 FT

17 points, 7 assists, 8 rebounds, 3 steals, 8-12 FG, 1-2 FT

19 points, 8 assists, 4 rebounds, 2 steals, 9-13 FG, 1-1 FT


All I did there was turn to the game log for Payton's sophomore season and look at a stretch of games from the same point in the calendar.

Payton wasn't very consistent at that point in his career, of course.  If you look at a stretch of games right before that, he was putting up lines more like 8 points, 4 rebounds, 4 assists, that sort of thing.  But the point is, he was showing that star potential for weeks at a time.

Do you think Smart is capable of putting up a stretch of games like that right now?  I don't.  So I disagree, there's a large difference between where they were offensively at a similar point in their careers.