Who goes? Roy or McMillan (hypo)

I don’t really like the outsized Scottie Pippin comparisons and such, but I definitely think Nic has the potential to be a dynamic all-around player. I’m seeing a Tayshaun Prince-on-a-good-day upside in him.

But either way, it helps to have a coach bring that out. I’m not so worried about it yet though, because Batum is really young still, and I think it is generally just fine for a guys long-term prospects if he’s brought along slowly, especially if team winning is a priority in the meantime. In many cases I think slow is actually better for the player (look at Greg and Webster for examples of players that regressed maybe from too much responsibility too fast). And that’s what Nate has done with Nic so far. His game is noticeably being built, piece by piece. If it ever stops I’ll be worried, but if it continues to progress slowly that should be just fine.

A guy has to practice a move or executing an offensive set 100 times and demonstrate proficiency before he gets to do it in game. Maybe in a different league guys might get the leeway to learn on the fly, or if a proven vet comes in he gets to play his way through any problems, but a young guy in the NBA doesn’t get that leeway and definitely not on a playoff team. I feel like when people just say “Batum has great potential, let’s run more plays for him” they are discounting the long process that has to take place. He’s just barely showing the proficiency to do stuff with the ball in international play … that doesn’t make him ready to run an NBA offense today.

I’m not sure what else you could have meant by the previous comment. Maybe Greg and Nic could produce efficiently if given the ball more … but I don’t think the high %s they shoot on garbage points and open jumpers should be taken as an indication of that at all.

Because they are young and developing, I’d expect their marginal efficiency to improve, and justify them getting some extra touches and minutes. But I can tell you it won’t be much, on a per minute basis at least. Contrary to popular belief (yeah, I say that a lot…), the Blazers aren’t a Roy-centric team, because they aren’t an anybody-centric team. Look at the usage numbers. Roy, Miller, Aldridge, Bayless, even Oden … they’re all in the top 20 at their positions in usage. The team already spreads the ball. That means there isn’t one guy getting too many touches that we can easily take away from to give more to Oden and Batum. Instead, we’ve got a bunch of guys who can work with the ball in their hands, and any new touches for those youngins comes at the expense of another highly capable player.

If we could take all dunks, we would. But in real life that’s not an option. Do you see any team that does nothing but dunk? Definitely not, because if they tried, the other teams will adjust. Like you said, you have to have some jumpers to open the lanes. You can think of basketball offense as a bunch of different set options, and the team tries to use the right mix of them to get the most points. For any given option, if you use it rarely it tends to be very efficient, and used more often the efficiency diminishes.

With that in mind, we realize we can’t just look at Batum’s great %‘s and conclude he’s going to “get to the hole best” if we give him the ball more. It just doesn’t work that way. Maybe he would be good at running the offense or would be efficient with more touches, but that’s not something we can know just by looking at the %’s he shoots already.

I was just thinking of it in a common sense sort of way, but it’s good to see that the true stats people have gone over this one as well. I’d definitely concede there are a million potential complications to the question of usage diminishing returns, but some things I think should be obvious. Basically, just because a guy is an efficient role player, doesn’t mean he can efficiently do more with the ball. Or, IOW, you don’t want Fred Hoiburg to run your offense.

Hmm, I had a previous reply to this comment that disappeared …

but anyway, it’s interesting to see the real stats guys looking at that question. I just thought of it as something kind of common sense about the nature of diminishing returns. I’d concede there are a million different possible complications in that notion, but still I think some things should be obvious. That includes the notion that just because a guy is an efficient role player, doesn’t mean he can efficiently do more things. Stated another way: you don’t want Fred Hoiburg running your offense.