Numeric Analysis of Greg's Preseason

good analysis

but I figured he just wanted attention that being the only reason he would saysuch a moronic thing. I am too lazy to write a post about this but 11 ppg is awesome 52% is awesome especially for a rookie, especially for an athlete out for a whole year , especially for a kid who had micro fract surgery on his knee.

Greg is meeting my expectations and some.

Thanks and great post.

Sophia

again, these are preseason numbers against weak “centers” (i mean, hawes is the best he’s played against isn’t he?) but still…good stuff

This is how I think Oden should be judged. Blks, FTs, Rebs, FG%, Foul Rate, and Minutes.

• If Oden is not averaging close to 30 minutes a game, there is a big issue with his foul rate, conditioning, or performance. Or the combination of the three.
• Dominant offensive centers will draw fouls and FTs, if Oden is not averaging close to 5 FTs a game, his offensive game is a disappointment or Nate’s system is not utilizing Oden’s abilities to his fullest.
• Blks numbers are important no matter how people try to twist it and say judge how many shots are altered. A good defensive center will alter and intimidate shots, but also block a fair number of them. A range around 1.7 Blks per game should be a baseline.
• Oden should be averaging close to 10 Rebs/36 mins. Anything less will be underwhelming.
• A FG% above 50 is a must. I think Oden will easily best that number.

I expect Oden to steadily improve his production as the season wears on. I think an expectation of 29 MIN, 13 PPG, 9.5 Reb, 1.8 Blks, 5 FTS, 53 FG% is fair.

on one aspect

11pts 6.3reb in 20 min

22pts, 12.6reb in 40min

So if needed, we could leave Greg in for close to the entire game and expect that production.

Some would say that the initial #s are against inferior players but how many people do yo think Greg is going to foul out if he plays 40 mins?

Vs. ut

okur= 4fouls/17min
fesenko= 4fouls/21min
Milsap=4fouls/32min

Vs. Atl

Horford= 3fouls/25min

Vs. Sac

Hawes=4fouls/29min
Williams=4fouls/20min
Thomas=3fouls/9min
Thompson=6fouls/19min

So that means that by the 4th Q the opposing C will have 4-5 fouls and will have to play Greg very cautiously or the backup C will be in the game. There are few starting Cs that will be able to handle Greg let alone backup Cs.

This is of course assuming that Greg will not get into foul trouble as well. However he did only average 3.8f/40min and only fouled out of one game in college. The only hindrance will be is that he will not be as aggressive on the defensive side, so his blocks will go down.

I have a prediction:

Greg is slated to play 30mins or so tonight correct? I predict that Roy/LMA/Joel will get in his ear and tell him to breathe. He has already faced the Kings before and this will be just the antidote, now that he knows what he can do against the Sac defenders.

With our full compliment of players, playing 20+mins, Oden should not have as much pressure on him and will dominate tonight. He and Blake have been working all summer together and Blake knows what will keep him on this team=keeping Greg HAPPY!! He knows where Greg likes it and will get it to him in exactly the right spot for Greg to score.

Dont worry guys (and gals.)

Great analysis but I wonder if we can really expect these two to split minutes.. I mean.. Greg is the future of this organization and the destined future super franchised center of this era.. this isn’t theo ratlif here..

I think the minutes will be slightly in Odens favor.. i think Nate will favor playing Greg closer to 30 and that it would take foul trouble or (knock on wood) an injury for Joel to be taking a full half of Greg’s minutes by the end of the season..

It seems like most fans expected that Greg would be at a superstar level from day one. I’m not expecting him to get to that level for at least 2 years. I do feel for the guy. He feels so much pressure from all that has happened and everyone’s expectation of him to be not only an All Star, but a superstar.

The thing is, you really can’t compare Greg to those other guys, bc Greg may not be the focal point of our team like those guys are to theirs. He may not get the ball as much, as many offensive plays ran for him, or even as many minutes. KP formed a team that is built to win, not provide godly stats to one player. Even if Greg doesn’t stack up to those other guys, I can care less as long as we get far as a team.

Very well said. You echo many of my same opinions on Oden.

you shouldn’t compare career numbers with the first 4 games of the first year in pre-season. Compare pre-season numbers to pre-season numbers.

He’s out there playing with Shavlick and Luke walton for goodness’ sake.

that’s a pretty good amount of number crunching though, and kudos for that.

This is exactly what I appreciate people doing: having a subjective opinion and then looking for data to verify/refute it. Leave the subjective-only stuff to talk-radio.

One of the things that I think will be interesting to watch is consistency. If we are truly worried about fouls and turnovers—and I think these are legitimate concerns—what we’ll end up seeing is wide swings in production from GO. In fact, I believe LMA suffered a bit from this last year.

One thing that will bear watching is some of the more advanced statistical work being done by 82games and see how GO is holding up over time.

For as much as the +/- thing gets a bad rap, that’ll be another thing to watch as it accumulates and sharpens over the course of the season.

I trust JQ and other insiders for being able to observe the intangibles. Let’s assume for the sake of argument, that JQ is right and that GO HAS been underwhelming. Let’s further assume that this underwhelmation will continue through the season (or at least long enough for us to examine). What should we see in the data?

1) Chronic foul trouble, which will disrupt the rotations that Nate has in mind. Joel and maybe Hill have to come in early.
2) Turnovers—not the ones that come from charging into some one—but ones born of confusion such as 3 seconds in the key and errant passes out of the post.
3) Being the last guy down the court… I wonder if this is something that Bedge can monitor? It would be a rather interesting statistic for the “Hustle Board.”
4) Surrendering offensive rebounds… not the long clanky ones but the guys that brush the rim and fall in traffic where the person GO is boxing out slips around him.

I don’t know off-hand if this is stuff that we can track (and it would be very hard to measure GO’s trajectory) against others.

I recall that Yao Ming had a HORRIBLE first half of a rookie season. That he got down on himself and might’ve even claimed basketball wasn’t fun. He got out of the funk. I hope GO never gets into it.

Kareem was 22. Robinson, what was he, late 20s? I feel very confident that GO is the man once he lets the game come to him.

This year, eventual greatness. Next year … and BEYOND!

This season I plan on keeping a spreadsheet of Greg’s stats on a game by game basis. This will let me chart his production over time and should show us what kind of growth he goes through this year. As for tracking the fouls drawn, I don’t know if that is an officially tracked stat so i don’t know how to go about recording it. On the opponent’s % i don’t have the slightest clue how to differentiate that from when Greg isn’t on the floor just by looking at the numbers. I suppose someone could go through the play-by-play to count the misses vs. shots while hes in the game but that would be a royal pain (shuddering in fear). Maybe ill leave that to 82games.com

As for Russell’s ridiculous rebounding numbers, maybe if we give Greg a ridiculous goal like that he’ll go for it. After all he has met and talked with Bill.

First, I want to defend Quick’s right, no, his obligation as a conscientious sport’s writer to try to honestly assess the performance of the athletes he covers. Shortcomings along with achievements. That doesn’t mean I have to agree with that assessment, but I definitely do not want my sports writers turned into toadies. NBA players are paid public performers. In this way they are like actors, film directors, musicians, opera singers and dancers. Can you imagine anyone saying to a film, theater or other critic: “It is not your place to criticize the performance you viewed. Only their director/coach/instructor gets to do that.”? No. We are dealing with adults.

And we should be grateful for our critics. They are like good mothers who will tell us the truth while the rest of the world gives false flattery, lazy praise or who doubt we have the fortitude to withstand being told that we are not perfect and can improve. On this very website we love, as we should, to hold each other accountable, to point out weaknesses in each others arguments.

Postup, there is an irony here. Jason Quick is also a public performer and he has an editor who is suppose to give him feedback and yet you publicly criticized him and thought it was your place to do so. Where we part ways is that I think it is your place to point out Quick’s errors where you find them, but I also think that it’s Quick’s place to do the same with our Blazers.

Thank you for the stats. They do tell a lot. But they don’t tell everything. GO’s had a fine preseason and it yet it still seems a little underwhelming to a number of us for at least two reasons:
1) He got so much hype beforehand that many fans were bound to expect the second coming of Bill Russell upon their first sighting of Greg Oden.
2) GO has looked tight on the floor. I won’t repeat Quick’s description of Oden in the first four preseason games, but having attended the three at home, I thought his description was accurate. And in reading his article, I find his explanation reasonable.
This second reason is not contradicted by the numbers you produced and, if valid, is reason to cheer. It means that as Greg gains comfort on the court, the numbers you can produce will improve.

I know this reply is far too long, but there’s one other issue that concerns me. I worry that there may be the sentiment among some Bedgers that to point out any perceived shortcoming in a Blazer player is tantamount to treason, that our proper role is to single-mindedly praise the Blazers or keep our comments to ourselves. It does remind me just a little of the role that the Bush Administration attempted to reduce democratic citizens to during the “War on Terror,” when you were either for US or against us.

And that’s the truth.

Small sample size = skewed reality.

Garbage In => Garbage Out. What Greg did statistically in the first 4 preseason games has no useful relationship to what other players did in their regular seasons. Even ignoring the fact that Greg was coming back after a year of rehabbing from injury, preseason (especially early preseason) is not played the same way as the regular season. Many veterans don’t compete with the same intensity or for regular season minutes, coaches haven’t installed their complete offenses or defenses, substitution patterns are atypical, and on and on. In fact, the games are usually officiated differently than the regular season. So even comparing Greg’s statistics in his first preseason games to his first regular season games isn’t really a valid measure of his progress. Wait for the regular season and your statistics will be more informative.

The season is a lot harder than the preseason. In the preseason thus far, Greg has not faced off with the best centers like Howard or KG. He is still a rookie and people cannot be expecting the know how of a second year from Greg. Hopefully this season turns out to be a break out season for Greg as he shows the league just how good he is. I hope this will happen, but the only way it will is for Greg to be able to keep up with every game. He will have to have better endurance for the games to come.

 Player…..GP……GS…..Min…..FG…..FT….OFFR….DEFR….REB…..APG….SPG….BPG….TO…..PF….PPG
 Bynum … 6 … 4 ……. 22.8 … (.553) ..(.696) ..( .50)….5.70 … 6.20 …1.7…( .67)….1.33…2.50 …2.50… 11.3

Oden ….. 6 …..6…….23.7…..( .581) …( .655).. 3.80 … 4.00 … 7.80 .. 1.3 ..( .50) … (.83) 2.50 … 3.00 … 11.5

Oden is statistically better in almost every category (down a bit in blocks and free throw percentage). But notice: Bynum averages only .5 offensive rebounds per game so far this preseason, Oden is averaging 3.8.