Ron-Ron Likes the Wrong Big Man, But That's OK
by Ziller on Mar 30, 2008 11:04 AM PDT
in Commentary
7 comments
In a Bee story today, Ron Artest offers effusive praise for Mikki Moore.
"We need Mikki in the game to win," Artest said. "We're not beating nobody without him, and he knows that."
This is good; one of the best parts about Ron-Ron this season has been the unending praise he's had for his teammates -- John Salmons and Francisco Garcia earlier this season, Kevin Martin throughout, and Mikki now. All of Artest's cringe-worthy quotes have been directed at the coaching staff -- problematic, yes, but preferable to Shaq-like remarks at the expense of teammates.
But Ron's wrong.
Brad Miller is the frontcourt talisman here. He's a whopping +12 per 48 minutes in on-off figures this season, and +1.02 in plus-minus. (For comparison: Artest is a +9 per 48 in on-off and +1.42 in plus-minus; Kevin Martin is +2 in on-off and -1.6 in plus-minus.)
Moore? He's a +1.6 in on-off and -1.9 in plus-minus. Miller has shown to be vastly more valuable.
The way I use plus-minus and on-off is as an augmentation for production numbers. (For newbies around here: Plus-minus is team points scored minus team points against while a player is on the floor; on-off is a player's plus-minus when he's on the court minus the team's plus-minus when he's off the court.) Some players are valuable, but don't produce box-score numbers. Bruce Bowen is the historic example. Plus-minus and on-off help define these players' value.
It's not without pitfalls, and that's why you won't see it used (in raw form) as any sort of Holy Grail. To me, it indicates something requiring further attention. Why is the team so much better with Miller on the court? Why doesn't Martin make much of a dent in these figures? But at the end of the day, player production -- efficiency included -- tells us more things definitively.
So we know the team performs better with Miller on the floor than with Moore on the floor (including all the myriad minutes when both are out there). For our purposes in this particular discussion, let's consider Artest's production with each. (These numbers appear to be current through early March.)
Total 1652 +1.9 20.6 .528
w/ Moore 938 +1.4 19.1 .526
w/ Miller 1311 +3.9 20.8 .545
Ron-Ron clearly performs better on offense with Miller than with Moore, and the team is much, much better with Brad over Mikki. Miller is the straw here; in fact, the only player making near the teamwide impact is Artest himself.
(Martin and Beno Udrih also make their teammates "better", so to speak. Beno's impact could be greatly impacted by the Orien Greene era, as well Mike Bibby's sub-stellar stretch.)
But again: It's alright that Artest thinks Moore is so important. It's good he sees the value of Mikki. (And Mikki has tremendous value in terms of a guy who shoots infrequently -- freeing up possessions for Miller, Artest and Martin -- but efficiently. His rebounding, defense, and ball-handling leaves me wanting, but he's outperforming his expectations.)
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Wrong About What?
He's not saying Mikki is better than Brad, although you seem to think he is. Ron's just saying he thinks Mikki is valuable.
The only thing he mentions re: Brad vs. Mikki is in the shooting department:
"He's the only player on the Kings that can dunk on somebody, first (of all), and that sucks the life out of the other team most of the time," he said. "He can shoot very well. He can probably can shoot almost (as well), if not better, than (Kings center) Brad (Miller), but nobody (opponents) knows that. (But) we know that."
According to the same 82games.com stats you link to and cite, Mikki's eFG% is .562 compared to Brad's .481.
That's probably because 65% of Mikki's shots are inside, compared to just 32% for Brad. And 22% of Mikki's shots are dunks, compared to just 3% for Brad.
Brad does have a higher eFG% on jump shots, shooting .435 to .365 for Mikki.
by coolcatreportdotcom on Mar 30, 2008 6:10 PM PDT reply actions 0 recs
OK
You could have compared Mikki to Kevin Martin or Beno or anyone else who plays significant minutes.
My point was that Ron was just trying to give Mikki some props, but not at the expense of Brad or anyone else.
If you had quibbled about the accuracy of Ron's comment about "we don't win when Mikki's not on the court" and then proceeded to demonstrate that in fact "the Kings aren't much worse with Mikki off the floor," I'm sure you could have made that argument fairly convincingly. Instead, for some reason, it became a Mikki vs. Brad comment.
Your headline also seemed to imply that Ron likes Mikki, but doesn't like Brad. But I don't see anything in the article to suggest that's the case.
It's probably as obvious to Ron as to everyone else that Brad is valuable. So valuable, in fact, that he didn't feel the need to give him some backup, or at least none that were quoted in the story. Mikki, on the other hand, has come under fire as the weak link of the team, which is probably why Ron felt the need to come to his defense.
by coolcatreportdotcom on Mar 30, 2008 7:48 PM PDT reply actions 0 recs
Because...
- They play the same position, basically.
- Because they are a perfect example of the difference between a valuable player and a not-so-valuable player.
- Because Artest was pointing out a specific player who he thinks makes the team win, but there was another specific player who actually makes the team win.
by Ziller on Mar 31, 2008 7:24 AM PDT up reply actions 0 recs
I Did
Otis, by the way, congrats on your brackets performance.
by coolcatreportdotcom on Mar 30, 2008 8:27 PM PDT reply actions 0 recs
How Ironic
Brad gets tossed, and the Kings win.
by coolcatreportdotcom on Apr 2, 2008 12:01 AM PDT reply actions 0 recs
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