Can Jae Play the 4?

[Diggles]

Was wondering if people think if Jae Crowder can play the 4? 


If so I would keep the pick and draft Jaylen Brown.  He could be the next coming of PP.   Jimmy Butler said he likes his game.   


The more I see this guy play and talk I like him.   That would be a nice young core moving forward. 

Targets:

Howard
Hoford


IT
Bradley
Brown ( Insert the rookie and have him play D) 
Jae

[saltlover]

Crowder plays the 4 a ton.  About 25% of his minutes are at that position.  He's very capable at it.

[Lucky17]

He played the four quite often last season.

http://www.hoopsstats.com/basketball/fantasy/nba/boston-celtics/players/jae-crowder/stats/16/2/17

[The Oracle]

Statistically the C's were a significant net negative with Crowder at PF.  Small ball in general was not the great success for the Celtics that many believe it was.

[mmmmm]

Statistically the C's were a significant net negative with Crowder at PF.  Small ball in general was not the great success for the Celtics that many believe it was.

QFT
and
TP

[Vermont Green]

Can he play PF?  Sure but he would be playing out of position.  I love that he has the versatility to play multiple positions but I don't think we should plan that PF is his primary position.

[Jon]

I think it depends on the circumstances. I think if we land Butler or Durant and don't land a premier PF, you start Crowder alongside Butler/Durant, positions be [dang]ed.

But I wouldn't aim to do that, nor would I draft with the intention of doing it either.

[Lucky17]

Statistically the C's were a significant net negative with Crowder at PF.  Small ball in general was not the great success for the Celtics that many believe it was.

This suggests otherwise.

http://www.basketball-reference.com/players/c/crowdja01/lineups/2016/

[DefenseWinsChamps]

Statistically the C's were a significant net negative with Crowder at PF.  Small ball in general was not the great success for the Celtics that many believe it was.

That is true, but small ball general works when you can take advantage by making shots (especially 3s) and getting uptempo. We are really bad at making 3s. I'm hoping to see an improvement in that, which should make our small ball lineups better.

[The Oracle]

Statistically the C's were a significant net negative with Crowder at PF.  Small ball in general was not the great success for the Celtics that many believe it was.

This suggests otherwise.

http://www.basketball-reference.com/players/c/crowdja01/lineups/2016/

Some of the most used lineups with Crowder at PF did show positive results.  When looked at deeper though you will see that the only successful lineups shot a million free throws and were used extensively in end game scenarios where I.T. and others were being fouled a lot.  Digging through the data after the season was over showed very negatively overall.

Not going to dig through all of the data but here is something I have handy.

David Lee last played for the Celtics on Jan. 10th and this is when small ball started to be a regular thing.  Some small ball was played prior to this but was sparsely used.  So from Jan. 11th through the end of the season.

Lineups with Crowder at the PF-  398 minutes, +/- -43, that results in a scoring margin of -5.19 points per 48 minutes.

In total Crowder played 1115 minutes and had a +/- of +77 from Jan. 11th through the end of the season.  That means when not playing PF he played 717 minutes and had a +/- of +120 for a scoring margin of +7.41 points per 48.

The Celtics were far and away better with Crowder at SF. 

[Chris22]

We need players who are the right size for their position.
Right now, we are too small.

[mmmmm]

Statistically the C's were a significant net negative with Crowder at PF.  Small ball in general was not the great success for the Celtics that many believe it was.

This suggests otherwise.

http://www.basketball-reference.com/players/c/crowdja01/lineups/2016/

Some of the most used lineups with Crowder at PF did show positive results.  When looked at deeper though you will see that the only successful lineups shot a million free throws and were used extensively in end game scenarios where I.T. and others were being fouled a lot.  Digging through the data after the season was over showed very negatively overall.

Not going to dig through all of the data but here is something I have handy.

David Lee last played for the Celtics on Jan. 10th and this is when small ball started to be a regular thing.  Some small ball was played prior to this but was sparsely used.  So from Jan. 11th through the end of the season.

Lineups with Crowder at the PF-  398 minutes, +/- -43, that results in a scoring margin of -5.19 points per 48 minutes.

In total Crowder played 1115 minutes and had a +/- of +77 from Jan. 11th through the end of the season.  That means when not playing PF he played 717 minutes and had a +/- of +120 for a scoring margin of +7.41 points per 48.

The Celtics were far and away better with Crowder at SF.

I concur (as I indicated above already), with the idea that we really were not a very good 'small ball' team, but I think the problem was not probably so much due to having Jae at PF, but rather with the nature of our rather poor-shooting smalls.  Marcus in particular.

If you look at the link to Jae's 5-man data, some interesting dichotomy is revealed.  If you sort the 5-man by net points per 100, yes, the 'best' lineup is the 67 minute "small ball" lineup with IT+AB+ET+JC+JS.   But the 'worst' lineup is the 44 minute "small ball" lineup with IT+MS+ET+JC+JS.   In other words, the swapping out in of Marcus for Avery showed a huge effect on that lineup.

The net 3P% & eFG% swing between those two lineups is pretty dramatic, indicating just how difficult it is to play small ball with limited 'space' because of lack of outside shooting.

I've gone through the exercise on NBAWowy where I set it to have Jae on the floor with just one big at a time (i.e., WITH Sully but WITHOUT Amir, Kelly, Tyler, Jonas or Lee and so on.) to look at the 'small ball' numbers with different bigs at the 5.   What I found was that, while varying the big in the middle did have an effect, by far, the biggest effect was from toggling Marcus on/off.   Our small ball lineups with Marcus on the floor were pretty consistently awful, regardless of big in the middle.  And  pretty consistently very good, with most of the bigs.  The effect is large, that it dominates over the effect of changing the bigs.

[Lucky17]

Statistically the C's were a significant net negative with Crowder at PF.  Small ball in general was not the great success for the Celtics that many believe it was.

This suggests otherwise.

http://www.basketball-reference.com/players/c/crowdja01/lineups/2016/

Some of the most used lineups with Crowder at PF did show positive results.  When looked at deeper though you will see that the only successful lineups shot a million free throws and were used extensively in end game scenarios where I.T. and others were being fouled a lot.  Digging through the data after the season was over showed very negatively overall.

Not going to dig through all of the data but here is something I have handy.

David Lee last played for the Celtics on Jan. 10th and this is when small ball started to be a regular thing.  Some small ball was played prior to this but was sparsely used.  So from Jan. 11th through the end of the season.

Lineups with Crowder at the PF-  398 minutes, +/- -43, that results in a scoring margin of -5.19 points per 48 minutes.

In total Crowder played 1115 minutes and had a +/- of +77 from Jan. 11th through the end of the season.  That means when not playing PF he played 717 minutes and had a +/- of +120 for a scoring margin of +7.41 points per 48.

The Celtics were far and away better with Crowder at SF.

I concur (as I indicated above already), with the idea that we really were not a very good 'small ball' team, but I think the problem was not probably so much due to having Jae at PF, but rather with the nature of our rather poor-shooting smalls.  Marcus in particular.

If you look at the link to Jae's 5-man data, some interesting dichotomy is revealed.  If you sort the 5-man by net points per 100, yes, the 'best' lineup is the 67 minute "small ball" lineup with IT+AB+ET+JC+JS.   But the 'worst' lineup is the 44 minute "small ball" lineup with IT+MS+ET+JC+JS.   In other words, the swapping out in of Marcus for Avery showed a huge effect on that lineup.

The net 3P% & eFG% swing between those two lineups is pretty dramatic, indicating just how difficult it is to play small ball with limited 'space' because of lack of outside shooting.

I've gone through the exercise on NBAWowy where I set it to have Jae on the floor with just one big at a time (i.e., WITH Sully but WITHOUT Amir, Kelly, Tyler, Jonas or Lee and so on.) to look at the 'small ball' numbers with different bigs at the 5.   What I found was that, while varying the big in the middle did have an effect, by far, the biggest effect was from toggling Marcus on/off.   Our small ball lineups with Marcus on the floor were pretty consistently awful, regardless of big in the middle.  And  pretty consistently very good, with most of the bigs.  The effect is large, that it dominates over the effect of changing the bigs.

This is interesting. Do you have links to share at all?

It stands to reason that one rarely plays small for defensive purposes -- it's more to employ a four-out offense that uses shooters to spread the floor. It would be interesting to see the stats on the Celtics' "defensive" smallball lineup.

[mmmmm]

Statistically the C's were a significant net negative with Crowder at PF.  Small ball in general was not the great success for the Celtics that many believe it was.

This suggests otherwise.

http://www.basketball-reference.com/players/c/crowdja01/lineups/2016/

Some of the most used lineups with Crowder at PF did show positive results.  When looked at deeper though you will see that the only successful lineups shot a million free throws and were used extensively in end game scenarios where I.T. and others were being fouled a lot.  Digging through the data after the season was over showed very negatively overall.

Not going to dig through all of the data but here is something I have handy.

David Lee last played for the Celtics on Jan. 10th and this is when small ball started to be a regular thing.  Some small ball was played prior to this but was sparsely used.  So from Jan. 11th through the end of the season.

Lineups with Crowder at the PF-  398 minutes, +/- -43, that results in a scoring margin of -5.19 points per 48 minutes.

In total Crowder played 1115 minutes and had a +/- of +77 from Jan. 11th through the end of the season.  That means when not playing PF he played 717 minutes and had a +/- of +120 for a scoring margin of +7.41 points per 48.

The Celtics were far and away better with Crowder at SF.

I concur (as I indicated above already), with the idea that we really were not a very good 'small ball' team, but I think the problem was not probably so much due to having Jae at PF, but rather with the nature of our rather poor-shooting smalls.  Marcus in particular.

If you look at the link to Jae's 5-man data, some interesting dichotomy is revealed.  If you sort the 5-man by net points per 100, yes, the 'best' lineup is the 67 minute "small ball" lineup with IT+AB+ET+JC+JS.   But the 'worst' lineup is the 44 minute "small ball" lineup with IT+MS+ET+JC+JS.   In other words, the swapping out in of Marcus for Avery showed a huge effect on that lineup.

The net 3P% & eFG% swing between those two lineups is pretty dramatic, indicating just how difficult it is to play small ball with limited 'space' because of lack of outside shooting.

I've gone through the exercise on NBAWowy where I set it to have Jae on the floor with just one big at a time (i.e., WITH Sully but WITHOUT Amir, Kelly, Tyler, Jonas or Lee and so on.) to look at the 'small ball' numbers with different bigs at the 5.   What I found was that, while varying the big in the middle did have an effect, by far, the biggest effect was from toggling Marcus on/off.   Our small ball lineups with Marcus on the floor were pretty consistently awful, regardless of big in the middle.  And  pretty consistently very good, with most of the bigs.  The effect is large, that it dominates over the effect of changing the bigs.

This is interesting. Do you have links to share at all?

It stands to reason that one rarely plays small for defensive purposes -- it's more to employ a four-out offense that uses shooters to spread the floor. It would be interesting to see the stats on the Celtics' "defensive" smallball lineup.

I did the searches on http://nbawowy.com

I tend to worry more about the 'net' rating of the configurations more than just the ORtg or the DRtg.   When you parse down to particular lineups or classes of lineups, the samples are usually too small to put too much stock in those numbers.  The Net is more relevant.  That said, if you are wondering if these lineups suffered only on offense with Marcus and then suffered more on defense without him, that wasn't necessarily the case.  Largely, because the swap being made was typically with Avery, who was providing more offensive value without any real drop in defense.

[The Oracle]

Statistically the C's were a significant net negative with Crowder at PF.  Small ball in general was not the great success for the Celtics that many believe it was.

This suggests otherwise.

http://www.basketball-reference.com/players/c/crowdja01/lineups/2016/

Some of the most used lineups with Crowder at PF did show positive results.  When looked at deeper though you will see that the only successful lineups shot a million free throws and were used extensively in end game scenarios where I.T. and others were being fouled a lot.  Digging through the data after the season was over showed very negatively overall.

Not going to dig through all of the data but here is something I have handy.

David Lee last played for the Celtics on Jan. 10th and this is when small ball started to be a regular thing.  Some small ball was played prior to this but was sparsely used.  So from Jan. 11th through the end of the season.

Lineups with Crowder at the PF-  398 minutes, +/- -43, that results in a scoring margin of -5.19 points per 48 minutes.

In total Crowder played 1115 minutes and had a +/- of +77 from Jan. 11th through the end of the season.  That means when not playing PF he played 717 minutes and had a +/- of +120 for a scoring margin of +7.41 points per 48.

The Celtics were far and away better with Crowder at SF.

I concur (as I indicated above already), with the idea that we really were not a very good 'small ball' team, but I think the problem was not probably so much due to having Jae at PF, but rather with the nature of our rather poor-shooting smalls.  Marcus in particular.

If you look at the link to Jae's 5-man data, some interesting dichotomy is revealed.  If you sort the 5-man by net points per 100, yes, the 'best' lineup is the 67 minute "small ball" lineup with IT+AB+ET+JC+JS.   But the 'worst' lineup is the 44 minute "small ball" lineup with IT+MS+ET+JC+JS.   In other words, the swapping out in of Marcus for Avery showed a huge effect on that lineup.

The net 3P% & eFG% swing between those two lineups is pretty dramatic, indicating just how difficult it is to play small ball with limited 'space' because of lack of outside shooting.

I've gone through the exercise on NBAWowy where I set it to have Jae on the floor with just one big at a time (i.e., WITH Sully but WITHOUT Amir, Kelly, Tyler, Jonas or Lee and so on.) to look at the 'small ball' numbers with different bigs at the 5.   What I found was that, while varying the big in the middle did have an effect, by far, the biggest effect was from toggling Marcus on/off.   Our small ball lineups with Marcus on the floor were pretty consistently awful, regardless of big in the middle.  And  pretty consistently very good, with most of the bigs.  The effect is large, that it dominates over the effect of changing the bigs.

This is interesting. Do you have links to share at all?

It stands to reason that one rarely plays small for defensive purposes -- it's more to employ a four-out offense that uses shooters to spread the floor. It would be interesting to see the stats on the Celtics' "defensive" smallball lineup.

I did the searches on http://nbawowy.com

I tend to worry more about the 'net' rating of the configurations more than just the ORtg or the DRtg.   When you parse down to particular lineups or classes of lineups, the samples are usually too small to put too much stock in those numbers.  The Net is more relevant.  That said, if you are wondering if these lineups suffered only on offense with Marcus and then suffered more on defense without him, that wasn't necessarily the case.  Largely, because the swap being made was typically with Avery, who was providing more offensive value without any real drop in defense.

Off the top of my head I wouldn't put the blame on Marcus, most of the stuff I have looked at would not suggest he is to blame, at least not directly.  If dug into deeper I have a feeling that the double substitution of Turner and Smart was the biggest problem.  That always seemed to result in bad outcomes.  Poor spacing and shooting small ball is not a good idea and always wondered why Brad kept with that double substitution.