Will JJ+Josh+Horford make it to the all star game

[Plainview1981]

JJ is in.

Josh should be in unless he plays badly rest of this month.

Josh+Al have great opportunities to beef up their stat in this 5 game homestand.

Josh's main competitor Wallace is falling further behind, but Wallace still has superior numbers. Huge rebounding advantage for Wallace.

Al has to beat out Bogut/Lee/Noah/Bargnani. I hope the coaches look at total contribution rather than stats.

Starters: Howard/Garnett/LeBron/Iverson/Wade. Iverson has too big a lead to lose out to Carter. No Arenas.

Bench: Bosh/Pierce/JJ

Bubble: Rondo/Rose/MWilliams - Deng/Josh/Wallace - Lee/Bogut/Horford/Noah.

I think Garnett & Iverson will sit out. This is a weak East squad.

For Horford - next year might be a much harder year to make it to the All Star game chiefly because, Lopez will play next to a superstar and he will also get all the Chinese votes (Yi). Bynum might get traded for Bosh. The center positions in the East will become much more loaded.

Yi will also gobble up one of the forward spots next year.

Hopefully this year isn't the largest window for Josh & Al. They really need to go all out in the next 3 weeks.

I think Josh Smith's production has fallen too much. He shouldn't get in now.

[Sothron]

I agree they are not a be-all, end-all stat but remember that Yi Jianlin has a +7.9 on/off court differential for NJ.

More to the point:

How do you reject the fact that opposing centers put up a 15.5 PER against Horford and a 21.8 PER against Lopez?

That is a pretty huge difference. Per 48 minutes against centers, Brook Lopez gives up 21.1 points and 13.9 rebounds. Per 48 minutes against centers, Horford gives up 16 points and 12.8 rebounds.

There is a strong case to be made that Horford is having the better season on his individual merits - especially defensively.

You do realize who Horford has for weak side assistance versus who Lopez has. This is why those stats don't mean anything. Josh Smith and his presence alone greatly helps Horford's defense while Lopez not only has to defend his man he has to bail out the horrible defenders around him especially one of the worst defensive players I've ever seen in Yi.

I have watched both guys when in strict one on ones they have to defend a center. Lopez does a better job. The only time I see Horford doing better is when he was to switch out on a 4. His greater quickness is an advantage over Lopez. But in one on ones on who they should be guarding, Lopez is simply better.

[AHF]

That doesn't automatically mean that Horford is that much better against centers than Lopez is and without being able to swap the players and see them on the other team it's difficult to really judge them because of other factors, such as Horford having a mistake eraser like Josh Smith next to him, as well as the switching defense that we play which makes it a little more difficult to assess but if you only look at those numbers without considering anything else then Horford certainly looks like the better player, and he may very well be, but in their head to head match up's Lopez has been slightly better at scoring and they're roughly equal in rebounding.

11/14/08

Lopez 25/9 in 34 minutes

Horford 6/11 in 35 minutes

11/15/08

Lopez 5/7 in 28 minutes

Horford 12/6 in 39 minutes

1/02/09

Lopez 7/11 in 37 minutes

Horford 10/8 in 32 minutes

1/30/09

Horford Didn't play

12/13/09

Lopez 19/12 in 38 minutes

Horford 16/9 in 27 minutes

01/06/10

Lopez 12/8 in 34 minutes

Horford 8/10 in 27 minutes

----

Totals

Lopez 68/47 in 171 minutes

Horford 52/44 in 160 minutes

Per48

Lopez 19/13

Horford 16/13

I am not a big believer in head to head as a good metric for All-Star selections given the small sample size (instead the All-Star selection should be based on the season's performance) but if you are going to do that you only look at the numbers for this season for this year's All-Star selection. How could you possibly use last year's numbers to select this year's All-Stars?

That leaves you with per 40's of:

Lopez 20.7 pp48, 13.3 rp48

Horford 21.3 pp48, 16.9 rp48

Which shows that in the head to head matchups this season that Horford has actually been the more productive guy in their minutes in both points and rebounding.

* * * * *

The numbers you ran show two players with very similar numbers except that one plays with guys who get more rebounds, score more points, and win more games than the other guy. That inflates one's stats (more misses and less rebounding means more rebounds for the Nets, fewer offensive options means more shots for Lopez, more minutes for Lopez means more time to accumulate raw stats, etc.) and the other's win total (since obviously Horford would not have NJ winning 50% of their games...although I'll speculate he couldn't do worse than having them with 3 wins in mid-January).

Bottomline for me is that you can make a statistical case either way - raw #s slightly favor Lopez, per 40 are roughly equal, WS and impact metrics strongly favor Horford, etc. So there is no clear separation between their numbers.

With that said, how in the world do you go with the guy who can't get his team to win over a guy who may be sacrificing touches and stats for one of the top teams in his conference?

[Sothron]

I just have to say it is refreshing to see a disagreement be argued with facts or observations and not the personal attacks this placed used to have. This place is so much better when I left. Just good job all, good job. :thumbsupsmileyanim:

[Admin]

I am not a big believer in head to head as a good metric for All-Star selections given the small sample size (instead the All-Star selection should be based on the season's performance) but if you are going to do that you only look at the numbers for this season for this year's All-Star selection. How could you possibly use last year's numbers to select this year's All-Stars?

That leaves you with per 40's of:

Lopez 20.7 pp48, 13.3 rp48

Horford 21.3 pp48, 16.9 rp48

Which shows that in the head to head matchups this season that Horford has actually been the more productive guy in their minutes in both points and rebounding.

* * * * *

The numbers you ran show two players with very similar numbers except that one plays with guys who get more rebounds, score more points, and win more games than the other guy. That inflates one's stats (more misses and less rebounding means more rebounds for the Nets, fewer offensive options means more shots for Lopez, more minutes for Lopez means more time to accumulate raw stats, etc.) and the other's win total (since obviously Horford would not have NJ winning 50% of their games...although I'll speculate he couldn't do worse than having them with 3 wins in mid-January).

Bottomline for me is that you can make a statistical case either way - raw #s slightly favor Lopez, per 40 are roughly equal, WS and impact metrics strongly favor Horford, etc. So there is no clear separation between their numbers.

With that said, how in the world do you go with the guy who can't get his team to win over a guy who may be sacrificing touches and stats for one of the top teams in his conference?

I wasn't using their head to head matchups to determine who should make the All-Star game as that would be absolutely foolish and you're correct it should be based on the season's work. What I was trying to do was show how they've matched up thus far in their careers and that they are pretty even, although Lopez has the slight scoring advantage. This season Horford does have the advantage and I hope that is a trend that continues! It's not as if I want Lopez to be the better player or anything here either, I just want to see the player who is more deserving to be an All-Star get in and if I had a vote and wasn't a Hawks fan I would vote for Lopez as I think he is the better player.

[Admin]

I just have to say it is refreshing to see a disagreement be argued with facts or observations and not the personal attacks this placed used to have. This place is so much better when I left. Just good job all, good job. :thumbsupsmileyanim:

It's always better when hotheads like me don't post in these argument threads but I just couldn't help myself today since it's quite annoying to have someone assume you've said something to try and make their argument.

We're glad that you're back though Sothron!

[DJlaysitup]

I just have to say it is refreshing to see a disagreement be argued with facts or observations and not the personal attacks this placed used to have. This place is so much better when I left. Just good job all, good job.

Welcome back Soth!

As far as your basketball opinions go though...your Grandma wears Army Boots!

(sarc/)

[AHF]

I wasn't using their head to head matchups to determine who should make the All-Star game as that would be absolutely foolish and you're correct it should be based on the season's work. What I was trying to do was show how they've matched up thus far in their careers and that they are pretty even, although Lopez has the slight scoring advantage. This season Horford does have the advantage and I hope that is a trend that continues! It's not as if I want Lopez to be the better player or anything here either, I just want to see the player who is more deserving to be an All-Star get in and if I had a vote and wasn't a Hawks fan I would vote for Lopez as I think he is the better player.

That is fair. Head to head matchups don't really move the needle when they amount to Lopez being a little better last season and Horford being a little better this season. Given the sample size and their similarity, I am not sure they bring any value to the discussion.

I think reasonable minds can disagree on which player is better but I don't see anything convincing me in the stats that Lopez is the better player. The raw per minute numbers are very similar, the raw totals favor Lopez, the sabermetric numbers favor Horford, and the opportunity for putting up numbers favors Horford (i.e., Lopez gets more opportunities for rebounds, more shots, more total minutes, and more garbage time when it is easy to put up stats). On balance it seems to me that either player has a legit case (I still buy off on Horford). Given the HUGE disparity in team success and the fact that team success is usually the single biggest factor in selection of the final players on the All-Star team, I don't see any compelling reason for Lopez to be an All-Star this season. If you are on a 3 win team, you had better be significantly better than your competition and he just isn't.

Edited January 14, 2010 by AHF

[Admin]

That is fair. Head to head matchups don't really move the needle when they amount to Lopez being a little better last season and Horford being a little better this season. Given the sample size and their similarity, I am not sure they bring any value to the discussion.

I think reasonable minds can disagree on which player is better but I don't see anything convincing me in the stats that Lopez is the better player. The raw per minute numbers are very similar, the raw totals favor Lopez, the sabermetric numbers favor Horford, and the opportunity for putting up numbers favors Horford (i.e., Lopez gets more opportunities for rebounds, more shots, more total minutes, and more garbage time when it is easy to put up stats). On balance it seems to me that either player has a legit case (I still buy off on Horford). Given the HUGE disparity in team success and the fact that team success is usually the single biggest factor in selection of the final players on the All-Star team, I don't see any compelling reason for Lopez to be an All-Star this season. If you are on a 3 win team, you had better be significantly better than your competition and he just isn't.

You're correct the sample size probably isn't enough to make much of a difference and honestly before I went through and looked at each game I thought the gap would have been larger and I think that's due to the game that I can't get out of my head from last year when Lopez abused us for 25 points and should have had a lot more but since then we've done a much better job of keeping him in check.

I can sign off on the thought that if the players are similar in stats that the player from the significantly better team should get the nod.