Category Archives: Personalities and Intangibles

An Attempt To Quantify the Meaning Of Marcus Smart Shoving a Fan

10 Monday Feb 2014

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In the waning seconds of Saturday night’s Texas Tech-Oklahoma State game, a Texas Tech fan said something to arouse the ire of Marcus Smart, and Smart confronted and shoved him.  Smart’s side of the story is that the Texas Tech super fan dropped a racial slur on him.  It was costly for Smart’s team, as they had an outside shot of winning the game down 2 with 6 seconds left and Texas Tech heading to the line for two free throws.  And the brunt of the incident will be the 3 game suspension he received with his team’s tourney hopes suddenly looking uncertain.  Various people will have various takes on what this says about Smart’s character, and none of them will be particularly illuminating.  He erred, a price will be paid, people will get over it as time passes, and discussing it any further is both uninteresting and uncomfortable.  After all, my goal is to perceive his value as a future NBA player rather than judge his morality as a human being.  So the question of the day is: should we adjust the consensus opinion that Smart has elite intangibles and downgrade his draft stock in light of this incident?

First, let’s look at the NBA incident that most closely parallels this: the Malice at the Palace.  While a quick shove pales in comparison to Ron Artest and Stephen Jackson going into the stands to fight fans, and Jermaine O’Neal punching a fan in the jaw after a running start, it’s what we have to work with for the line between players and fans being crossed.   So let’s take a look at each player’s draft slot, their career win shares, and where they rank all time for win shares at their draft slot:

Pick Win Shares Slot Rank
Ron Artest 16 61.3 3
Jermaine O’Neal 17 64 4
Stephen Jackson 42 36.1 1

There have been 60 selections at 16th or 17th overall and 59 at 42nd in NBA history.  In spite of being crazy enough to physically fight fans and draw enormous suspensions, these 3 players were among the all-time best values for their slot.  There is some selection bias at work, as this analysis isn’t completely fair to the draft busts who couldn’t stay on an NBA roster long enough to have the opportunity to storm into the stands and beat up Detroit area residents.  But the fact remains that being crazy enough to fight fans does not equate to being too crazy to develop into a better NBA player than expected.

There are not many similar incidents to draw from for a thorough analysis.  The next most similar incident that comes to mind is Dennis Rodman kicking the camera man, and he has the most career win shares for 27th overall draft picks.  So to assess a broader range of players, I resorted to the universal measure of NBA player volatility: technical fouls!  Rasheed Wallace is the poster boy for technicals, as he holds the record both single season (41) and career (317) technicals, and he proved to be good value at 4th overall with the 5th most career win shares for the slot all-time.  In any season the technical foul leaderboard it is littered with players who were good draft values.  But again there are selection bias issues, as players need to spend time on the floor to rack up technicals, which prevents bench players and flame-outs from standing out in this regard.

To give the busts and their outbursts fair consideration, I analyzed the correlation between technical frequency and various advanced statistics.  I used season long samples from 2002-2003, 2007-2008, and 2012-2013.  For each season, I calculated the correlation coefficient between technical fouls per minute and RAPM, PER, and Win Shares.  I split RAPM and Win Shares into offense and defense, and I also included Win Shares per 48 minutes.  Here are the correlations:

Statistic 2002-03 2007-08 2012-13
oRAPM 0.025 0.090 0.038
dRAPM 0.224 0.286 0.243
RAPM 0.180 0.276 0.212
PER 0.167 0.149 0.172
OWS 0.102 0.132 0.071
DWS 0.235 0.209 0.180
WS 0.167 0.176 0.123
WS/48 0.186 0.147 0.122

There is a positive correlation across the board between a density of technical fouls and on court production.  This intuitively makes sense, as it is often the most fiery competitors who pick up the most technicals.  The defensive correlation is much stronger than the offensive one, which again makes sense due to defensive value having a greater correlation with effort.  There have been plenty of successful players who don’t get an insane amount of technicals, so I’m not advocating to draft all hotheads and pass up the players who contain their emotions.  But the numbers clearly suggest that volatile players on average contribute more value than the complacent ones.

I do not mean to spin Smart’s outburst as a positive- his competitive spirit was already priced into his draft stock and it would have been preferable if he hadn’t crossed the boundary that he did.  But since we live in a society where following the rules is regarded as important, this may be incorrectly magnified into a notable red flag.  It parallels to Chris Paul’s elite intangibles being questioned when he punched Julius Hodge below the belt in ACC play, and this concern has proven to be misplaced as he became an excellent leader and star player in the NBA.

People are welcome to judge exactly how wrong Smart was to their heart’s content, but they are flat out wrong if they think this adversely affects his ability to contribute value to an NBA team.  By all accounts he is a great leader and teammate, and even if you want to now downgrade those assessments (I do not) he is not a bad teammate by any stretch.  If GMs picking in the middle of the lottery have an inclination to pass him up because of this, I would expect Smart to reward the first team with the good sense to look past the ESPN narrative and realize this is nothing more than a small price to pay for an elite competitor.

If Aaron Gordon Is So Smart, Why Does He Play Like Josh Smith?

07 Friday Feb 2014

Posted by in NCAA, Personalities and Intangibles

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As an advocate of prospect intelligence, I would like to clarify that the optimal measurement should not derive from a player’s ability to give an impressive interview or ace an IQ test.  It should stem from how well the player implements his intelligence on the basketball court.  There are plenty of intelligent people who allow their intelligence to be undermined by whatever wants they have as a human being, and consequently do dumb things.  Conversely, PJ Hairston’s intelligence could be questioned given his inability to stay out of trouble this summer.  But he is smart enough to grasp that when he has enough space to get off a 3 pointer, it is a good decision to pull the trigger.  Consequently he scores with a combination of volume and efficiency that is reserved for high IQ players, so his basketball IQ deserves credit for this aspect of his game.

Aaron Gordon often gets lauded for his intelligence, and I do agree that he conveys such in interviews when he speaks with poise and confidence.  But he also has a reputation as an intelligent basketball player, as his coach declared “Aaron’s greatest intelligence lies in his mind” and DraftExpress lists “Very intelligent and mature player, despite his age” as a strength.  I take exception to these assertions based on his shot selection:

Split Makes Attempts %
Rim 73 97 75.3%
Non-Rim 2’s 26 107 24.3%
3’s 7 26 26.9%
FT 46 109 42.2%

He is averaging 5.8 shots per game away from the rim with an eFG of 27.4%, as well as a historically bad FT% of 42.2%.  Consequently, he has a putrid TS% of 47.0% in spite of his scintillating rim finishing ability.  For reference the next lowest TS% among projected 1st rounders is James Young @ 53.5%.  He idolized Magic Johnson as a kid, and he values versatility as he does not want to get pigeonholed to one spot.  Unfortunately for him, there is only one spot on the floor from which he scores effectively, so perhaps he should warm up to the possibility of self-pigeonholing.

It could be argued that he’s young and he is trying to develop his shooting ability to become a more complete player, such that he is an effective shooter in his prime.  I would counter that he should abandon all hope of ever becoming a useful long range shooter in the NBA, because his shot is irreparably broken.  I cannot find any past prospect who shot < 50% at the free throw line as a college freshman and went on to become a successful NBA shooter.  40something FT%’s are reserved for the most woefully inept shooters of all time.  Even Josh Smith shot 68.8% from the line as an NBA rookie.  Dwight Howard shot 67.1% and Shaq shot 55.6% as a college freshman.  Ben Wallace is the worst NBA free throw shooter of all time (min 500 attempts) and he barely had a lower freshman FT% than Gordon at 40.7%.  The 2nd through 5th worst shooters: DeAndre Jordan (43.7%), Chris Dudley (46.7%), Eric Montross (61.2%), and Steven Hunter (70.7%) all sported better FT%’s than Gordon.

Given how historically inept Gordon’s shooting ability is, consider how insane it is that he attempts nearly 6 jump shots per game.  If any of the aforementioned bricklayers ever attempted a jump shot they likely would have been benched, yet Gordon includes it as a regular part of his game.

Blake Griffin is often cited as his upside comparison, but Gordon’s propensity to launch bricks away from the hoop leaves his production miles below that of Griffin as a freshman.  Note that SOS is kenpom.com’s average defensive rating of opponents:

Player Usage O-Rtg eFG% FT% AST% TOV% SOS
Blake 28.6 109.5 56.7 58.9% 16.6 17.4 98.6
Gordon 22.6 102.5 47.6 42.2% 10.4 12.3 101.8

Not only did Griffin convert a higher % of his shots, he got off a higher volume of quality looks.  Gordon is light years behind freshman Blake, and that’s before Blake made a huge leap as a sophomore and went on to be selected #1 overall.  And even though Blake is not regarded as much of an NBA defensive player, he did get more blocks (3.3% vs 3.0%) and steals (2.1% vs 1.2%) than Gordon.

To offer a more realistic comparison, Gordon’s freshman stats are eerily similar to those of Josh Smith as an NBA rookie.  Note that usage and turnover calculations vary at different sources.  Earlier I compared Gordon to Griffin based on statsheet.com stats, now I will compare him to Smith based on sports-reference.com stats for the sake of maintaining like comparisons.

USG% TOV% TS% ORB% DRB% AST% STL% BLK%
Gordon 22.8 10.2 47.0 11.4 19.0 10.4 1.2 3.0
Smith 18.4 16.0 50.6 7.9 18.6 10.2 1.5 5.4

This comparison should absolutely frighten GM’s interested in Gordon.  While being just 9 months older, Smith posted a better TS% on not much worse usage + turnovers considering the competition rift.   While Gordon is lauded for his passing ability, it is also the strength of Smith’s perimeter game.  This does not bode well, seeing that Smith was playing vastly superior competition and still is a major drag offensively today.  In my recent podcast with Robert Eckstut and Seth Partnow, I mentioned Smith as a Gordon comparison and Robert astutely noted that does not sound good.  Smith is only a useful player because of his elite defensive playmaking ability, without a significantly positive impact on that end he would be worthless.

Gordon has contributed toward Arizona having the best defense in the country (as per kenpom.com), and he has the physical tools to be a positive defensive player in the pros.  But in spite of the credit Gordon deserves for his role in Arizona’s awesome defensive scheme of funneling opponent shot attempts to the midrange, this is not enough to project him as a Josh Smith level difference maker, as both his steal and block rates are inferior to that which Smith posted as an NBA rookie.  If Gordon becomes a neutral or slight positive defensively in the NBA, that will not nearly make his offense worth stomaching at any draft slot, let alone a top 10 one.

Gordon’s prospective value lies in the possibility that his NBA coach convinces him to abandon his appalling shot and operate strictly in the post.  He needs to let go of his desire to be Magic Johnson, accept his role as an elite rim finisher, and start adding muscle and working on his post moves.  It is difficult to assess the likelihood of such an outcome, as it has been a common perception that Josh Smith would be great if he fell out of love with his shot for his entire career.  Yet here we are in his 10th NBA season, and Kirk Goldsberry is making Smith shot charts that are as hilarious as ever.

Teams interested in Gordon will need to explore his coachability and flexibility via interview and feedback from his coach.  But without an expressed willingness to abandon his perimeter pursuits, I simply wouldn’t draft him.  For now it’s worth wondering what he brings that other toolsy dunkers lacking range such as Montrezl Harrell and Jerami Grant do not.  Their lack of range may be problematic for their NBA value, but at least they don’t exacerbate it by insisting on being perimeter players.  The world already has one Josh Smith, and I don’t see the particular need to add another.

Richard Sherman Is Awesome And We Can Learn From Him

02 Sunday Feb 2014

Posted by in Personalities and Intangibles

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Recently Richard Sherman has garnered much attention, as he frightened Erin Andrews when he angrily declared himsef the best corner in the game and called Michael Crabtree a “sorry receiver” after Sherman’s Seahawks defeated Crabtree’s 49ers in the NFC championship game.

As a casual NFL fan, this was my first exposure to Sherman.  While people had varying reactions to his postgame mini-rant, I had an inkling that he was one of the more awesome human beings on this planet and did some digging.  Last year he went on ESPN’s First Take and told Skip Bayless “I’m better at life than you,” which is painfully true.  He also demonstrated commendable word choice when he called Bayless an “ignorant, pompous, egotistical cretin.”

But Richard Sherman is more than just an elite troll.  After his 2nd NFL season, he was voted by the AP to the NFL All-Pro 1st team.  Now in his 3rd NFL season, he is widely considered a top 2 NFL cornerback.  He’s on the fast track to become an all-time great, yet in the 2011 NFL Draft he was chosen in the 5th round, 154th overall.  His draft stock was deflated because he started off his college career as a wide receiver, and only had two years experience as a cornerback entering the draft.  He was considered raw, which was something that Sherman himself acknowledged.  But he has good tools and is insanely smart and driven to succeed, so it shouldn’t be surprising that he achieved the heights that he did.  Check out how cerebral his approach to the game is:

And much like Paul George, he had his sights set on extreme goals.  Per an SB Nation interview:

“Doesn’t matter where I play I just want to be a great player.  I don’t want to be a guy that’s in the league a few years, makes a ton of money and has nothing else.  I want to go down as one of the best.I want to prove other NFL Draft websites wrong that say I am the 52nd ranked CB prospect in their eyes.”

The fact that there was a player with the tools to be great and had such an intelligent and dedicated approach to the game yet was passing up multiple times by every team is amazing to me.  Richard Sherman is the archetype of player that both NFL and NBA GM’s should be pursuing, and the fact that he slipped to the 154th overall shows the inefficiencies of the NFL Draft that I believe remain present in the NBA Draft as well.

The NBA player who stands out as the most Richard Sherman like personality is Chris Paul.  He went 4th overall, as he was a polished NCAA superstar, but he neverthless made the GM’s who drafted Andrew Bogut, Marvin Williams, and Deron Williams ahead of him look foolish.  He thrives off of his otherworldly basketball IQ, and there was concern that he was too competitive as he punched Julius Hodge in the crotch during an ACC game.  I feel that he was one of the all-time underrated draft prospects in spite of going at a high slot, as his lack of an extra inch of height got too much attention and his intelligence received far too little.

Players like Richard Sherman and Chris Paul are one of a kind, and most draft classes will not have anybody who compares.  But these personality types are so underrated, part of the prospect evaluation process should be to identify players who show similar characteristics.  It is built from thin slices from afar, but here’s my early list of players to monitor who have shown signs of possible elite drive, confidence, and intelligence.

6) Joel Embiid-  His personality is slippery to assess, as he is still learning the English language and the game of basketball which makes it difficult to fully convey his intelligence.  On the other hand it also makes it difficult to grasp for his mental limitations since there’s an excuse for most of his mistakes. But his massive overperformance when he wasn’t expected to make an impact, and also his demonstration of a basic ability to learn are positive signs early.   Also noteworthy with Embiid is that he seems to have a fiery passion to his game as he already has 3 technical fouls on the season. Some may view this as a negative, but prefer it to his teammate Andrew Wiggins’s passive approach by a comfortable margin.

5) Tyler Ennis- He has an insanely low turnover rate for a freshman PG, and he has been at his best against good competition as some of his worst games have come against the dregs of Syracuse’s schedule.  Further, his stats in the final 5 minutes of games are better than sooner.

4) Dante Exum- he’s outwardly quiet but reputed to be confident and an extremely hard worker.  Derrick Rose is his role model and they seem to have similar deameanors.  He won me over a little bit with an incredibly sharp assessment regarding the pressure of being a high draft pick:

“Being told that you’re going to be a franchise player doesn’t mean anything, honestly they can say what they’d like and it’s just an opinion and it doesn’t mean it’s going to come true…Dealing with I guess that pressure, it doesn’t really matter to me because I know I’m just going to do what I can to get to that.”

That’s an impressive perception for an 18 year old kid, and it should inch NBA teams toward taking the mystery box over the boat.

3) Spencer Dinwiddie- He may not declare for the draft after his ACL tear, but he is an obviously intelligent person in interviews.  In a DX interivew, he cited that he wanted to improve his efficiency last offseason, and demonstrated a solid vocabulary when touched on his capacity to be an “auxiliary scorer.”  He also expressed an inclination to be a franchise point guard but accepted the possibility of a supporting role.  To me, he reminisces of Shane Battier with PG skills.

2) Marcus Smart- he occasionally makes a bad decision on the floor as he is prone to force bad shots, which may be a sign that he does not have elite intelligence.  But overall he demonstrates good feel for the game, especially defensively.  And from watching interviews he seems to back up his name with above average intelligence.  Moreover he demonstrates uniquely good intangibles and leadership skills as I noted in my Embiid breakdown.  He recently had a mini-meltdown where he outwardly demonstrated frustration during a poor game, and had a good apology afterward where he expressed desire to avoid similar behavior in the future. Willingness to accept feedback and learn from mistakes is how people grow, so it’s encouraging to see the reaction from him even though the meltdown wasn’t particularly bad.

1) Nik Stauskas- He strikes me as the complete package in terms of intangibles.  He is a highly intelligent player, and his work ethic must be incredible given the offseason work he put in on both his body and his skills.  He has a confident demeanor as he does things like blow kisses to the Michigan State crowd after a crucial road win.  His coach also acknowledged that Stauskas showed leadership by holding him back from the refs after a missed call.  His physical limitations place a ceiling on his upside, but that ceiling might be higher than common wisdom would suggest.

Note that the list is not comprehensive, and I hope to identify other attractive personalities as the season progresses.  My analysis of on court performance and statistics certainly carries more weight, but personalities can’t be excluded from prospect assessment altogether so this is a subject I will touch on sporadically.  Consider the assessment of the personality underlying each player to be a skill that I am developing as a side project.  In the interim, I will be rooting for Richard Sherman and the Seattle Seahawks to win that football game that is apparently happening tonight.