Wednesday, November 3, 2010

Week 1 WP Numbers

For you new readers out there, make sure you know about the basics before you leave a cowardly, anonymous comment that insults my intelligence, while offering no argument in support of that position.

Here are the automated WP numbers from the Raptors first three games (or view as a spreadsheet here):



My thoughts for the first week of the season:
  • Wow. Reggie Evans is actually getting playing time! What we saw in preseason wasn't just experimentation
  • Evans is killing it on the boards - 25 reb/48 - and it's boosting up his WP48. He's 9th in the league in total wins right now!
  • And yet...his scoring is total garbage. Good thing he isn't shooting at all
  • Bargnani hasn't been terrible so far; bad, but not terrible
  • Sure, he's scored 33 1/3 points per 48 on 1.08 PPS...but your starting centre is grabbing only 4.3 Reb per 48 (eeeewww)
  • Overall, Calderon hasn't played well yet either
  • After being a very players during the preseason, both Kleiza and Jack haven't played as well. Blame Jack's performance on injuries, Kleiza's on...poor rebounding and bad TO numbers
  • DeRozan has played well - good rebounding numbers so far
  • Andersen continues to be the rich man's Bargnani, and continues to shoot better and rebound better than the Italian
  • Amir Johnson played three games without missing a FG!
  • But he hasn't played very much - partly fouls, partly coaching. With Evans playing so well, what's the rotation going to be like when Davis gets back?
  • Weems and Barbosa have to shoot better if they aren't going to produce in other areas
  • After the promising victory over the Varejao-less Cavs, what a bad finish to the Sacramento game

Also, I'd like to address something: Bargnani is not a SF. He plays centre defensively most of the time, and if you squint really hard, you can pretend that he's a 3 on offense. But if you average those two aspects of the game, you get (at best) someone who is strictly a PF. The good thing is that Evans and Bargnani complement each other well; Evans can't (and doesn't) shoot, and Bargnani can't (and doesn't) rebound.  If you add the two together, you get two frontcourt players with the following per 48min averages:



It's important to remember two things, however: Evans should get all the credit for gaining the extra possessions (rebounds), and Evans will fall back to earth in a couple of games, making this average far less appealing in the near future. I'll be keeping track of the Bargnavans factor throughout the season if this keeps up.

 - Devin

4 comments:

  1. Do you honestly think that Bargnani has nothing to do with Evans having so may rebounds? Really?

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  2. I do give him some credit - just no more than I credit Rashard Lewis for the rebounding totals of Dwight Howard. And, if Bargnani wasn't so terrible at rebounding, Evans wouldn't have as many.

    But that's about it.

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  3. So basically, the raptors have overall, an average starting Centre and average starting PF, when paired together.

    So then why is the team currently viewed as a below average team? SG, SF, or PG?

    ReplyDelete
  4. Actually, the Raptors have an above-average C and an above average PF if you average Evans and Bargnani. Of course, nearly all of the production is coming from Evans.

    All of the Raptors guards and SFs - except for DeRozan - haven't played very well so far.

    The numbers don't indicate that the Raptors are a below average team right now - check out Arturo's post:

    http://arturogalletti.wordpress.com/2010/11/01/short-post-with-some-links-and-updated-rankings/

    But the sample size is very small - three games. Things will likely be very different after the next three games, and the players who have powered the Raptors so far are likely to regress back towards the level they usually play at.

    ReplyDelete