I will in many cases do a little commentary at the bottom of the UGB:Ps, but most of the game and team commentary will be in the separate "Game and Team Reports." Game and Team articles are, with any luck, going to be produced for 26 Nuggets and for 26 Raptors games this season. Ultimate Game Breakdowns: Players, such as the one here, will be done for the 26 key games, and for other games as well, but not necessarily for all 82 games. I don't really know how all this new editing is going to play out time wise yet!
The games that get the full treatment have been very carefully chosen to be the most important games, which are generally the games against the best teams. Full treatment including the kitchen sink report games have been chosen from among only games where neither team is at a disadvantage due to playing on back to back nights. Other internet basketball "experts" are really wasting their time to some extent when they report on a game where one team was playing on back to back nights and the other team was not, because the great majority of those games are almost automatically won by the team that has more rest. I used to do those stupid games, but I'm not doing them anymore, because I keep trying to get better and better at understanding and teaching basketball, so I make changes such as this.
With an Ultimate Game Breakdown-Players report, you can see very rapidly who was most responsible for the winning or the losing of the game. Then someone like me can easily write a separate game report which explains how things might have worked out better for a team, or why things worked out just about as well as possible, as the case may be.
The Real Player Ratings formula has been very carefully and accurately tweaked again and is currently as follows:
POSITIVE FACTORS
Points 1.00 (at par)
Number of 3-Pt FGs Made 1.00
Number of 2-Pt FGs Made 0.60
Number of FTs Made 0.00
Assists 1.75
Offensive Rebounds 1.15
Defensive Rebounds 1.25
Blocks 1.60
Steals 2.10
NEGATIVE FACTORS
3-Pt FGs Missed -1.00
2-Pt FGs Missed -0.85
FTs Missed -0.85
Turnovers -2.00
Personal Fouls -0.80
ACTUAL COMBINED AWARD OR PENALTY BY TYPE OF SHOT
3-Pointer Made 4.00
2-Pointer Made 2.60
Free Throw Made 1.00
3-Pointer Missed -1.00
2-Pointer Missed -0.85
Free Throw Missed -0.85
ZERO POINTS: PERCENTAGES BELOW WHICH THERE IS A NEGATIVE NET RESULT
3-Pointer 0 score % 0.200
2-Pointer 0 score % 0.246
1-Pointer 0 score % 0.459
ASSISTS VERSUS TURNOVERS ZERO POINT
Assist/Turnover Ratio That Yields 0 Net Points: 1.143
NOTES ON HOW TO USE ULTIMATE GAME BREAKDOWN RPR/RPP REPORTS
RPR game reports show for each player the RPR (Real Player Rating) which tells you how good a player did (the good things minus the bad things) out on the court per unit of time. The RPP (Real Player Production) report tells you how much in total (the sum of the of the good things minus the sum of the bad things) a player did out on the court.
Many and maybe most sports watchers and an unknown but probably disturbingly large number of sports managers make the mistakes of exaggerating the importance of quantity and overlooking to some extent quality. These reports allow you to expand your horizons. These reports put quantity and quality side by side, which is extremely valuable, because both are roughly equally important in explaining accurately why and how the game turned out the way it did.
Players who over many games consistently have higher RPR (quality) but lower RPP (quantity) results are in many cases not getting enough playing time. Players that over many games consistently have lower RPR (quality) but higher RPP (quantity) results are in many cases getting too much playing time.
The exceptional cases are very often going to be players who are either truly outstanding defenders or truly bad defenders. This is because the one and only thing that is not counted, because it is impossible to calculate it, is the number of shots that a player prevents from being scores. Investigation has to date revealed that, apparently, no one has even attempted, for the NBA, rough estimates of the actual value of each player's defending, in terms of number or percentage of scores prevented, or in terms of number or percentage of possessions made worthless.
Over the coming year, I am going to be working to see if it is possible to use some combination of advanced statistics that are tracked on certain internet sites as an accurate proxy for the number of shots and/or for the number of possessions ruined by a defender.
Another exception. where it is really alright when it looks like a player is playing too much, will be if a team has a point guard who has many more turnovers than the average point guard has. Because the point guard is so important, a good coach has to play his best guard who can make plays at the position for a full set of minutes every game, pretty much regardless of how many turnovers that player makes. If you take out your designated point guard due to "too many turnovers," it's most often going to be sort of like cutting your foot off because you have a bad case of athletes foot!
REAL PLAYER RATINGS
PHOENIX QUALITY
Robert Hite, SG 1.233
Raja Bell, SG 0.846
Matt Barnes, SF 0.820
Goran Dragic, PG 0.813
Sean Singletary, PG 0.724
Leandro Barbosa, PG 0.581
Louis Amundson, PF 0.482
Grant Hill, SF 0.370
Boris Diaw, PF 0.290
Robin Lopez, C 0.190
Shaquille O'Neal, C -0.021
DENVER QUALITY
J.R. Smith, SG 1.331
Carmelo Anthony, SF 1.123
Ruben Patterson, SF 1.100
Juwan Howard, PF 0.768
Linas Kleiza, SF 0.593
Chris Andersen, PF 0.577
Nene Hilario, PF 0.456
Dahntay Jones, SG 0.274
Anthony Carter, PG 0.273
Mateen Cleaves, PG 0.045
Allen Iverson, SG -0.069
SCALE FOR RPR (QUALITY) RATINGS FOR A SINGLE GAME
Historic Superstar for this game 1.300 and more
Superstar 1.000 to 1.299
Star 0.800 0.999 to
Outstanding 0.625 to 0.799
Major Role Player 0.525 to 0.624
Role Player 0.450 to 0.524
Minor Role Player 0.400 to 0.449
Very Minor Role Player or Very Important Defender 0.350 to 0.399
Poor Game or Extremely Importand Defender 0.275 to 0.349
Very Poor Game Regardless of Defending 0.200 to 0.274
Disaster Game Regardless of Defending minus infinity to 0.199
****************************************************
REAL PLAYER PRODUCTION
PHOENIX QUANTITY
Goran Dragic, PG 25.20
Matt Barnes, SF 20.50
Raja Bell, SG 19.45
Sean Singletary, PG 12.30
Robert Hite, SG 11.10
Boris Diaw, PF 10.45
Leandro Barbosa, PG 9.30
Grant Hill, SF 8.50
Louis Amundson, PF 8.20
Robin Lopez, C 5.90
Shaquille O'Neal, C -0.25
DENVER QUANTITY
J.R. Smith, SG 31.95
Carmelo Anthony, SF 26.95
Chris Andersen, PF 17.90
Juwan Howard, PF 14.60
Linas Kleiza, SF 12.45
Ruben Patterson, SF 11.00
Nene Hilario, PF 10.95
Anthony Carter, PG 8.75
Dahntay Jones, SG 5.20
Mateen Cleaves, PG 0.45
Allen Iverson, SG -1.85
SCALE FOR RPP (QUANTITY) RATINGS FOR A SINGLE GAME
FOR STARTING PLAYERS
Happens only a few times a year in the NBA 40.0 and more
Massive and Memorable Game 36.0 to 39.9
Huge Game 32.0 to 35.9
Very Big Game 28.0 to 31.9
Big Game 24.0 to 27.9
Typical Average Game 20.0 to 23.9
Somewhat Below Average Game 16.0 to 19.9
Way Below Average Game 12.0 to 15.9
Bad Game 9.0 to 11.9
Really Bad Game 5.0 to 8.9
Total Disaster minus infinity to 4.9
SCALE FOR RPP (QUANTITY) RATINGS FOR A SINGLE GAME
FOR NON-STARTING PLAYERS
Massive and Memorable Game 30.0 and more
Huge Game 26.0 to 29.9
Very Big Game 22.0 to 25.9
Big Game 18.0 to 21.9
Typical Non-Starter Game 12.0 to 17.9
Below Average Even For a Non-Starter 9.0 to 11.9
Way Below Average Even For a Non-Starter or Limited Minutes 6.0 to 8.9
Bad Game Even for a Non-Starter or Very Limited Minutes 3.0 to 5.9
Disaster: Nothing Much to Report minus infinity to 1.9
THE HIGH QUALITY PLAYERS IN THIS GAME
OUTSTANDING QUALITY GAMES FOR THE SUNS
Superstar During Minutes on the Court: Robert Hite
Star During Minutes on the Court: Raja Bell
Star During Minutes on the Court: Matt Barnes
Star During Minutes on the Court: Goran Dragic
OUTSTANDING QUALITY GAMES FOR THE NUGGETS
Historic Superstar During Minutes on the Court: J.R. Smith
Superstar During Minutes on the Court: Carmelo Anthony
Superstar During Minutes on the Court: Ruben Patterson
Star During Minutes on the Court: Juwan Howard
POWER PERFORMERS OF THIS GAME
SUNS STARTERS POWER PERFORMERS
Big Game: Goran Dragic
SUNS NON-STARTERS POWER PERFORMERS
NONE, partly because this was a preseason game and minutes were limited.
NUGGETS STARTERS POWER PERFORMERS
Big Game: Carmelo Anthony
NUGGETS NON-STARTERS POWER PERFORMERS
Massive and Memorable Game: JR Smith
Big Game: Chris Andersen
Note: For the rundown of the best players and the power performers, I bump up or bump down, by one category, certain players, due to adjustments for defending, wherever such adjustments are obvious.
COMMENTS
This was a back to the good old days game: the days when Carmelo Anthony and JR Smith were the leading tandem in the NBA, which was in the fall and early winter of 2006-07 to be exact. Unfortunately, JR Smith is not going to start for the Nuggets until Karl is gone, so this will not be reestablished this year unless both Iverson and Atkins don't play much. (And when has Iverson not played much?)
Even more unfortunately, JR Smith has so much gone to slashing to the rim that he has gone from one extreme to another, and is not attempting enough threes anymore. And since he and Linas Kleiza are about the only dedicated 3-point shooters on the Nuggets, this is a disaster if it's not corrected. The Nuggets seem to be enthusiastic about becoming the worst 3-point shooting team in the NBA, which if true, would not only guarantee that they will not make the playoffs, but also will guarantee that they will lose a whole bunch of games where they actually outplay the other team, except for being buried by threes.
