Suns @ Pistons game thread 11-29-17

[AsUpRoDiGy]

I didn't watch nearly as many games last year, so I have a question for you (and anyone else that did).

Did Chriss look like this last year regarding his attitude?

I watched every ounce of the summer league and I would have told him to go home based solely on his attitude. He's been better since Watson left... but not much.

Chriss hustled last year...he tried. This year...not so much. He's like a sloth out there. The weight he gained this year was lazy weight. You can tell he didn't put much time in the gym, and just ate pizza while sitting on the couch. He might be one of those got paid -- relax types.

 

[Phrazbit]

I've been holding out hope, but man, he looks worse every week. What happened to the promise he showed last season?

After the all-star break he played really well last year... but he has fallen off a cliff.

Hoping it's more physical (too much weight) than mental.

 

[SirStefan32]

Good Lord, the Suns are terrible.

 

[CardsSunsDbacks]

Were people actually expecting this to be competitive? This was the second of a back to back (3rd game in 4 nights), on the road against one of the best teams in the league this season. Seemed unlikely we were going to keep this game very close.

 

[Hoop Head]

I really hope the Suns target Avery Bradley in the offseason. He's a combo guard that can play PG or SG which means Booker will have to work on his playmaking some more this year to help the offense if we did acquire Bradley, he'd be a great addition regardless. He could be a great 6th man or start alongside Booker. If Jackson or Bender are able to step up their playmaking ability they'd compliment him as well. I heard a lot about Jackson's playmaking prior to the draft but haven't seen it and Bender's was talked up in the Summer League where he ran the offense a lot. Bradley is a big part of the Pistons turn around this year. He's someone I've liked for a while and hoped the Suns could make a play for him when Boston was clearing cap room to bring in Hayward in the offseason. It sucks that Detroit acquired him for Marcus Morris, who we gifted the Pistons in a salary dump.

 

[ColdPickleNachos]

Unfortunately, it's hard to imagine Bradley leaving a strong Pistons team for the Suns unless we severely overpaid him.

 

[Finito]

How good is Detriot? They handled the Celtics the other day and have been playing great. Maybe they got it figured out?

 

[JCSunsfan]

You can’t play this badly and realistically target free agents.

There are two things free agents are interested in. Money and winning.

 

[82CardsGrad]

I've been holding out hope, but man, he looks worse every week. What happened to the promise he showed last season?

Heard a replay of the McDonough interview from yesterday's Burns & Gambo interview... And McDonough admitted that Chriss came into camp this year overweight and out of shape, and he still trying to get the weight off and play himself into shape.
He's still young and hopefully he'll learn from this huge mistake... At 20 year old, he's got an opportunity to mature and right the ship. Time will tell...

 

[Hoop Head]

You can’t play this badly and realistically target free agents.

There are two things free agents are interested in. Money and winning.

Money and winning are important but I think role or playing time is very important to a lot of free agents. It's some mixture of money, role, and winning. The Suns can offer 2 of those 3 this offseason. It all depends on the free agent. The Suns can offer a lot of playing time to a young PG also, although I wouldn't be that opposed to signing a PG as a mentor stop gap if we drafted one. They need to make sure they offer it to the right one as they can't afford to screw up with another PG. Some are willing to turn down money and a large role to latch onto a team like Golden State or Cleveland. Two teams that were able to sign big name players his last offseason were the Nuggets and Kings, both bad teams with playoff droughts. The Suns shouldn't strike out completely so long as they select their targets well.


The Suns can't offer an increased role to Bradley but the Pistons might not be able to afford him, they're capped out but they have his bird rights. I guess it depends on how much they're willing to spend over the cap. We'll see what he's after in the offseason but I expect Detroit to retain him though, or try really hard to and I'm not sure the Suns should over spend for him. The Suns can offer a lot of playing time and money but he'd be in a better winning situation if he stayed in Detroit, we won't know what's most important to him until the offseason though. Money is typically #1 with some combination of playing time or role being and winning situation being 2 and 3.

 

[Superbone]

How good is Detriot? They handled the Celtics the other day and have been playing great. Maybe they got it figured out?

Don't forget they beat the Warriors too.

 

[Errntknght]

I don't recall the details but Drummond had a breakthrough in his FT shooting - he's shooting 60% this year while before he was at 38%. Now he doesn't have to sit out close 4th Qs or evade would be foulers. There's also been a sudden jump in his assists - from sub 1 a game to 3.4... His TO's increased at the same rate so it's not that much of an improvement. Reggie Jackson has made fairly small improvements in several areas which pushed his offensive efficiency from dead average to 12% above average and Ish's efficiency is 17% above average. Tobias Harris is doing well statistically - Avery is meh but he earns his pay defensively. Stanley Johnson, Luke Kennard and John Leuer are all dragging them down. Anthony Tolliver of all people is a positive force.

According to my stats Detroit should be playing about .500 ball whereas they are on track to win 55 games. Cleveland since LBJ returned shows that same kind of disparity which I attribute to Lebron being able to up his game just enough to grab a win but not make much difference in the stats. Boston and Houston are also winning much more than their stats suggest. Cleveland consistently shows that but typically teams predictive stats and results draw closer together as the season goes on. My guess is the Pistons will slide but not out of the playoffs; Boston cools off, too. Houston seems to be as good as their record says.

Traditionally with these stats, San Antonia is almost always modestly better than their stats while Minnesota for years was much worse than their stats - this year modestly better but little change in their stats. Most teams, including the Suns are pretty close to their stats without a consistent pattern.

Another interesting thing this year - the two WC teams that have fallen well below their typical level - Okc and Memphis - have pretty much the same stats but wins are way down. Clips have fallen the most severely but their stats are matching their record pretty well.

Generally, I attribute teams doing consistently better or worse than their stats to coaching (or having LeBron on their roster.) Good coaches make the right moves in close games and bad coaches guess wrong a lot.

There is a bit of good new for our draft pick - as of right now only two teams, Sac and Chi, have worse stats than the Suns. If results draw closer to the stats we could sink below Dallas and Atlanta. Possibly countering that, the Suns can be helped by the return of Sauce and Reed or the play of Peters, should Triano ever let him on the floor. Being such a young team also gives them more potential for improvement in the course of the year, even though we haven't seen it so far. Except, sporadically, from Len.

 

[Hoop Head]

There is a bit of good new for our draft pick - as of right now only two teams, Sac and Chi, have worse stats than the Suns. If results draw closer to the stats we could sink below Dallas and Atlanta. Possibly countering that, the Suns can be helped by the return of Sauce and Reed or the play of Peters, should Triano ever let him on the floor. Being such a young team also gives them more potential for improvement in the course of the year, even though we haven't seen it so far. Except, sporadically, from Len.

You say that only Sacramento and Chicago are worse but if you remove the Watson data does that put them ahead of anyone else? I'm curious how the team is using your stats if you remove Watson's 3 games from the equation. 2 of them were big blowouts so they may play a bigger factor than 2 normal losses so early in the season, it would also remove Bledsoe's empty numbers from things, which we won't be getting any longer. I know removing 3 games would probably put us behind other teams in cumulative stats but I think you keep an average, how much do those 3 games effect that right now, with a low total number of games being present currently. 3 games put us at 20 played rather than 23, which is around 13%, and 2 of those were blowouts like I said. Can you work that out easily and post the results or differences between the whole season vs just Triano's team?

 

[Errntknght]

You say that only Sacramento and Chicago are worse but if you remove the Watson data does that put them ahead of anyone else? I'm curious how the team is using your stats if you remove Watson's 3 games from the equation. 2 of them were big blowouts so they may play a bigger factor than 2 normal losses so early in the season, it would also remove Bledsoe's empty numbers from things, which we won't be getting any longer. I know removing 3 games would probably put us behind other teams in cumulative stats but I think you keep an average, how much do those 3 games effect that right now, with a low total number of games being present currently. 3 games put us at 20 played rather than 23, which is around 13%, and 2 of those were blowouts like I said. Can you work that out easily and post the results or differences between the whole season vs just Triano's team?

If I could remove the data from those first three games it wouldn't mess up things because I convert the raw data to a ratio like assist to TO - except I use a weighted sum of good things divided by a weighted sum of bad things. This kind of stat does not need to be pace adjusted or adjusted for the number of games. Defense is calculated by using opponents raw data in the same calculation and whats a good ratio for them is bad for you. I'd also remove the first three games from our opps data.
I can't remove those three games because the first time I stored any data this year was the cumulative data from the first seven games. In theory I could remove those seven games, except I've never given the program that capability - mainly because every time it could have answered a question I was interested in, I didn't have the data saved from the right day!

It is true that those first three games gave us a hit in the stats, they were also losses so the stats were exaggerated but in the correct direction. I would put the level change due to them at about 2 games, and the effect will diminish as more games are added. At the time of those stats, two games improvement would not have leap frogged us over any team.

 

[Hoop Head]

It is true that those first three games gave us a hit in the stats, they were also losses so the stats were exaggerated but in the correct direction. I would put the level change due to them at about 2 games, and the effect will diminish as more games are added. At the time of those stats, two games improvement would not have leap frogged us over any team.

That is mainly what I was interested in. I know we've just hit the point where teams have played enough games that most teams have accumulated enough stats that there won't be any ties, like there were most likely through the first 10 games of the year, I was more curious if those 3 games might have put us ahead of another team though. If we're not that close though, that answers the question for the most part. I appreciate it.