Richardson trade revisited

[Andrew]

I like how no one argues my point, means I am right lol.

 

[Ninjafish]

The debate was do we miss Raja. You went in that direction to justify that the we miss him. Trying to factor in the other pieces without actually factoring in the other pieces like the impact of other Suns players since he left stepping it up...is what didn't work for you.

... Just because I say we missed Raja doesn't mean he's the only element of the trade that we missed. It doesn't mean that you should ignore Diaw while assessing the quality of the trade. It makes absolute no sense to talk about the quality of trade without talking about Diaw. This is mind boggling.

Sure...I pointed it out. Although most would argue Diaw passes every time he is around the basket. Again, what is your point? The team has not missed a beat offensively and is scoring more.

I responded to this in my last post, so I'll copy and paste.

"We're scoring more post trade, however we're attempting more shots and our FG percentage has dropped. Our opponents are scoring more and their FG percentage has increased. The sad thing is that post trade has been the easiest stretch of the season schedule-wise for us."

It's not the best we can do. Looking at the PER both offensive and defensive, head to heads and looking at things like efg% combined paint a much better picture then trying to do some Addition by subtraction while leaving out important factors.

Dear god, not the head to heads again. Head to heads doesn't paint any kind of a picture because it's 100% useless. I've already explained why multiple times.

"Because Raja didn't take as many shots, therefore he didn't score as much. Even when he did a great defensive job, his opponent normally scored more, so they went down as winning the head to head.

For example, according to hoopstats, Raja lost this head to head against Roy http://www.hoopsstats.com/basketball...08-11-01/09/24. Even though he held Roy to .389 shooting and Raja shot .50. But Roy shot 6 more times and scored 20 while Raja scored 13.

Head to Heads is one of the most useless stats in all of sports."

"I didn't say it only takes into account scoring, but come on seriously, most of JRich's efficiency rating is obviously going to come from his scoring. Since Bell had much less of a focus on the offense, he's going to score less and have less assists and be less likely to win head to heads because of it. Your stat doesn't take into account whether a player has a big role on offense or if he's just there to defend and shoot 3s. Which is why it's kind of useless. By your logic, Bruce Bowen must be one of the worst players to ever play the game of basketball and be someone that opposing players always dominate.

I also noticed that it doesn't take into account how many minutes a player plays or how many minutes a player plays against an opposing player. Nevermind, it's way beyond useless."

I've covered defensive PER countless times too and we're talking about that elsewhere so I'll leave that alone.

Comparing the offensive PER of two role players who don't take the same volume of shots to JRich doesn't make any kind of sense either. Combined they average the same amount of shots as JRich so it makes more sense to combine them rather than averaging their efficiency. Bell's job was defense and to shoot 3's, it's not his job to be a scorer like it is JRich's. Comparing their PERs don't work. Even Hollinger admits that PER is flawed when it comes to rating the Bruce Bowen types.

Maybe you forgot that Raja's woes started last year when we were still running. Also, are you saying if we started running that all of the sudden Raja would start playing defense? Come on. Talk about dishonest.

What are you talking about? Raja's woes? I thought we were talking about Diaw's production here.

You said "Second, the Suns are not missing Diaw's production, in case you noticed post trade this team is not struggling replacing any of Diaws stats. The Suns piroduction in almost every area has stayed the same or gotten better post trade. Look at scoring for instance..."

This is dishonest because you know we're faster and have more possessions and more shots. According to our lower FG%, we're less productive.

You can't be serious. I think your jumping to serious conclusions because most of the time a player is matched up with his counterpart. Ofcourse their are defensive switches but it's still a great indication of performance on the court...especially over the course of a season.

Even if a player is matched up with his counterpart for most of the game, it tells us nothing about if most of the scoring was done against the player. Case in point, OJ scoring 33 with near half of those points coming from the few minutes when Raja was out of the game. If you just looked at Defensive PER, we would think Raja did a horrible job. Thankfully, we have a play by play of the game so we know better.

No. I am saying when you factor in multiple regular season stats, with Per with head to heads with efg%, Hollingers stats, you get a very good indicator of performance. It's much better indicator then what you were trying to do. There is a reason so many sites use these indicators. I see nobody using your method. I guess you know beter then all the sites that also use the same methods of indicating performance.

I don't use any method to calculate someone's defense. Anyone who uses head to heads and PER to judge someone's defense doesn't have the slightest clue what they're talking about though. Again even Hollinger has said that PER is not a reliable gauge of someone's defensive abilities.

In terms of play by play...who said Raja covered him 100% of the time? Nobody does that. Oh and by the way...that goes for Mayo's performance against us earlier. He was matched up in that game against more then just JRich.

I assume you mean Roy. If so, EXACTLY. Finally, you're getting it. It would be incredibly dumb to put all the blame on JRich for Roy scoring 50, just as it would be to put all the blame on Raja for SGs scoring 30. I think I'm been careful in always saying that Roy dropped 50 on us from the SG spot and never dropped 50 on JRich. Judging defense strictly based on the counterpart at the position's scoring is silly.

Also, after reviewing the play by play...it doesn't factor in when Raja got burned and someone else had to rotate causing a foul. It doesn't also factor in multiple instances where Raja didn't rotate out or play good help defense allowing someone else to score.

Correct, it doesn't factor that in. It also doesn't factor in if someone else was guarding him when he scored. I have the game on my computer and I can tell you that on some of those FGs for those 20 points, Barbosa was defending him.

Also, only 20 points attirubted to Raja....that's good defense??? That means if you could make that leap...which you can't, he still accounted for 60% of the bad defense on Mayo. Your really not helping your case here.

The 20 points is a minimum. We don't know that they're all Raja's fault. Even if they were, 7 of 18 is still decent defense. That's 39%. It's not great, but it's certainly nothing to condemn him for.

Your going to use his career number as your defense of Raja? If that's the case I wonder when guys start giong down hill they just don't keep shooting their career averages. Funny how that works.

???? I'm using his career number as defense against your claim that he wasn't shooting well! The reality is he was shooting very well. The best he's shot in his career.

Raja couldn't play D here this year. Raja couldn't shoot while he was here this year.

Again you say he couldn't shoot when he was here this year even after I showed you that he was shooting 47% from 3.

You know, I think I'm done with this thread. This is getting frustrating. I feel like I'm having to repeat myself more and more. We're just going around in circles now.

 

[Covert Rain]

... Just because I say we missed Raja doesn't mean he's the only element of the trade that we missed. It doesn't mean that you should ignore Diaw while assessing the quality of the trade. It makes absolute no sense to talk about the quality of trade without talking about Diaw. This is mind boggling.

I never disagreed with that. And as stated before, no matter what you say..they were underperforming players that we traded for a starting 2 guard.

"We're scoring more post trade, however we're attempting more shots and our FG percentage has dropped. Our opponents are scoring more and their FG percentage has increased. The sad thing is that post trade has been the easiest stretch of the season schedule-wise for us."

You don't think we are going to put up more shots when a SG like JRich on your team? Sure we are going to shoot more but that doesn't mean you make more shots does it? Your assuming that if Raja was in the lineup the number would be the same. I am saying your crazy because Raja has been to eradic all season. Plus playing worse defense probably would have meant less time on the floor.

It's much easier for a defender to stay at home on Raja knowing he can't drive to the bucket. JRich can go around you or shoot over you. He can score more ways then Raja and he puts more points into your starting lineup. To suggest Raja if he had stayed could have infused the same offensive punch into your lineup is silly. There is a reason he is averaging 9 PPG. If Raja was still here, he wasn't going to magically start scoring 15 points per game for us.

Dear god, not the head to heads again. Head to heads doesn't paint any kind of a picture because it's 100% useless. I've already explained why multiple times.

And I have already explained that's why you can't just look at that stat. Which part of that is not getting through? It is one piece of an overall puzzle when you look at other stats.

Even if a player is matched up with his counterpart for most of the game, it tells us nothing about if most of the scoring was done against the player. Case in point, OJ scoring 33 with near half of those points coming from the few minutes when Raja was out of the game. If you just looked at Defensive PER, we would think Raja did a horrible job. Thankfully, we have a play by play of the game so we know better.

Again, already explained the short cummings of play by play. You equated 20 points being Raja's fault. It doesn't count the other missed assignments by Raja. It doesn't account for other players picking up fouls because he got burned. Besides, you and the majority of the board have admitted he struggled. So, I guess its wild coincidence that the defensive stats confirm what people have been saying about him???? Really????

I don't use any method to calculate someone's defense. Anyone who uses head to heads and PER to judge someone's defense doesn't have the slightest clue what they're talking about though. Again even Hollinger has said that PER is not a reliable gauge of someone's defensive abilities.

PER by itself is not. Nobody was suggesting using one stat. Using what you see + Defensive Per + plus other defensive stats + head to heads = equals pretty good damn indications.

???? I'm using his career number as defense against your claim that he wasn't shooting well! The reality is he was shooting very well. The best he's shot in his career.

Percentage wise on 2 pointers he was down. It's gotten worse since he went to Charlotte. From 3 point range is percentage was good but the problem with Raja was not his percentage....his problem on offense was that he started to dissappear in games.

5 Games prior to trade scoring: 6, 5, 0, 14, 4
Previous 5: 14, 6, 15, 6, 14
Previous 5: 0, 14, 5, 9, 6

You seeing a pattern here? It's Amare syndrom if you will. In 40% of the games leading up to the trade, Raja had one 3 pointer or less in a game. Now factor in his poor defense. In addition, JRich leading up to the trade failed to score in doublt digits TWICE all season. Only twice. How this is not a fantastic trade is beyond me.

Raja was not performing as bad offensively as he was defensively by any stretch but he was eradic leading up to the trade. The Suns had the ability to put a guy in the lineup who was scoring 18 a game a leading the league at the time in 3 point percentage.

The logic was simple. Trade a guy who was struggling defensively, playing eradic and bitching to the media and Diaw (who was an overpriced bench player who has never been consistent). Not a hard decision at all.

SG position defense = improved.
SG position offense = improved.

Really. Nuff said. I hope Raja turns it around and plays fantastic for the Bobcats because I always liked him. I loved his tenacity and drive. Having said that I am thrilled to have a SG of JRich's calibur on this team. He is on a different level then Raja Bell.

 

[mojorizen7]

Yeah i'm sorry but this was a solid trade for us.
I believe Nowagimp brought up some good points referring to the SUNS missing Diaw's contributions at playoff time....i happen to agree with him there. Diaw's versatility and size could be missed at some point if/when Shaq misses any crucial time ,as well as the very real scenario of Amare getting into a pissing contest with the zebras again and finding himself either on the bench in foul trouble or in the locker room with an ejection. Having said that, on most nights Diaw was just non existent as well as being expensive.
As for Raja....uh no, he's not a stopper anymore and his offensive game and other contributions simply do not justify him to be a starting SG anymore....and JRich is just a better basketball player.

 

[Mainstreet]

Yeah i'm sorry but this was a solid trade for us.
I believe Nowagimp brought up some good points referring to the SUNS missing Diaw's contributions at playoff time....i happen to agree with him there. Diaw's versatility and size could be missed at some point if/when Shaq misses any crucial time ,as well as the very real scenario of Amare getting into a pissing contest with the zebras again and finding himself either on the bench in foul trouble or in the locker room with an ejection. Having said that, on most nights Diaw was just non existent as well as being expensive.
As for Raja....uh no, he's not a stopper anymore and his offensive game and other contributions simply do not justify him to be a starting SG anymore....and JRich is just a better basketball player.

I liked the trade however the Suns were definitely missing another big man against Indiana. If Shaq misses significant time the Suns will not make the playoffs. He is about the only defense the Suns have.

 

[arwillan]

His defense has looked decent, plus he creates his own offense, it just seemed bell waited for the ball to come his way. I think Bell is a more streaky shooter than Richardson, from what I have seen from Richardson on th offensive end seems more than what Bell did most nights. Unknown to a lot of you, I did watch the Suns from time to time before Shaq got there and I know Diaw was much improved that season Amare was out, but no matter what, he would always be behind Amare, once he got back, it just seemed to me he didn't like that reduced roll. I have criticized Hill in the past, don't get that twisted. Plus, if it all comes down to Porter's system, it seems Richardson has meshed well and quicker than Bell or Diaw did.

he was the one defending mason when the spurs beat us, keep that in mind. his defense has never been good. it just isn't what he does. of course he's a more complete offensive player than raja bell. we all know that already. raja's role was to wait for the ball to come to him, and just shoot when he was open. i wouldn't say diaw was always behind amare. he can do things amare still can't. he can score with his back to the basket, and he proved against dallas that he can be clutch (something we haven't seem from amare). He doesn't foul nearly as much as amare, and doesn't have issues with offensive fouls. Don't get me wrong here, i know very well amare is the better player. but diaw came through when the suns needed him to, and we see what he can be when put into a good situation where he is depended on now in charlotte (averaging 15/7/5 since the trade). Richardson has meshed well because he fits into what Porter wants. he catches and shoots 3's, and occasionally creates something for himself or finishes on the break. It's a pretty simple role for a player of richardson's caliber. Diaw just wasn't suited for half-court ball. He excels in small lineups and when he can handle the ball and play in transition. Bell probably could have played well in this system if it was 2 years ago, but he is slumping badly on defense this year which just made it hard for him. offensively, he just liked to run with nash and hit 3's in transition or wide open ones from the corner. porter's system isn't about doing that, so neither player fit well with it.

 

[arwillan]

I like how no one argues my point, means I am right lol.

or just that nobody feels like arguing with you. keep on padding that post count.

 

[Andrew]

You love me.

 

[YouJustGotSUNSD]

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