Well, I wanted to make this post a while ago, but I've been fighting sickness for the last two weeks, so it's slightly belated. Anyway, I'm gonna give you my All-Star Teams, and explain to you why some of the guys you might expect to be there aren't.
First of all, note that this is not a lifetime achievement award. I do not care what you did last year, nor do I care what you might be expected to do for the rest of the year. Performance is what matters.
Second, while I do consider your team's record, it's not a huge factor to me. I'm not going to penalize you for having crappy teammates.
Finally, I'm going to list some relevant statistics for each player. These are not going to be PPG or RPG statistics, cause frankly those are usually poor measures of performance and you can find them anywhere. Because I'm going to be listing some statistics that some of you might not recognize, I'll give you a quick synopsis of some of them.
eFG (effective field goal percentage) - This is simply field goal percentage, except it gives extra credit for three-pointers.
ORtg (Offensive Rating) - A measure of how efficient an offensive player is. It's a ridiculously complicated formula, but basically it estimates how many points a player creates per every 100 possessions they use.
USG% (Usage %)- The estimated percentage of the team's possessions that a player uses while they're on the floor. As a general rule, as USG% goes up, ORtg goes down (harder to be efficient the more you're asked to do). Point Guards often have lower USG% (around 20%), whereas high-volume scorers (DWade, LeBron, Kobe, etc.) usually have a USG% of 30% or more.
AST% - An estimate of the percentage of teammates' field goals that you assist on while you're on the floor.
TO% - estimate of turnovers per 100 possessions. Anything below 10 is outstanding, over 20% is usually pretty bad.
REB% - An estimate of the percentage of available rebounds that a player grabbed while he was on the floor.
(most statistics courtesy of basketballreference.com)
That said, on to the teams.
xphoenix87's Eastern Conference All-Stars
Starting Lineup
Guard-Chauncey Billups (53.4% eFG, 90.4% FT, 22.5 USG%, 128 ORtg, 34.6 AST%, 12.7 TO%) One of the steadiest players in the league, and one of the most ruthlessly efficient offensive players out there. He's a nightmare to match up against for most teams because he's so good at backing down opposing point guards and abusing them with short turnaround jumpers or headfaking them into fouling him. Billups was an easy pick.
Guard-Jose Calderon (58.7% eFG, 91.7% FT, 130 ORtg, 44.8 AST%, 13.8 TO%, 5.58 A/T) I know, he didn't even make the All-Star team, I must be out of my mind to have him as a starter, right? Well, lets look at him versus the actual All-Star starters, Jason Kidd and Dwayne Wade. There's been a lot of hype about Kidd and his near-triple double pace this season, but how about the fact that his 23.8 TO% is the worst of any starting PG in the NBA. He's a fantastic assist man, but a lot more of his passes are finding opponents' hands this year, and his extremely poor shooting really hurts him. The only real advantage he has over Calderon is his rebounding, which is exceptional for a guard. However, his offensive deficiencies are crippling, he just isn't a threat to score off the dribble at all. How about Wade? Well, obviously Wade is a fantastic player, but he isn't having a fantastic year. His team is absolutely terrible, to the point of embarrassment. He's missed 9 games with injury, and he really is having a very poor offensive year for him. His FG% is down, he isn't getting to the line as well, his turnovers are up, his assists are down, and his offensive rating is down 9 points to a pedestrian 103. He's still good, he still carries a huge load, but Calderon has just been too good. He leads the league in ORtg, he shoots the ball extremely well and he doesn't make mistakes. Not only does his 5.58 A/T ratio lead the league, but it does so by a wide margin. To put it in perspective, among players with more than 300 assists, Calderon's A/T ratio doesn't just lead the league, but it it's better than anyone over the last 8 seasons.
Forward-LeBron (33.6 USG%, 116 ORtg, 51.3% eFG, 37.8 AST%, 11 TO%, 11.8 REB%) Any argument that LeBron should be the starter here? Didn't think so, moving on.
Forward-KG (24.2 USG%, 120 ORtg, 55.1% eFG, 17.2 REB%, 20.5 AST%) More than any statistic, the impact of Garnett is most pronounced in these numbers.
106.9 24
98 38
The first two numbers are Boston's defensive rating and win total from last year. The second two are those same numbers from this year. Defensive impact has been notoriously tricky to quantify, but the effect of Garnett on Boston has been palpable.
Center-Dwight Howard (24.4 USG%, 115 ORtg, 21.6 REB%, 60.2% eFG) Again, anyone want to argue this? Howard is easily the most dominant center in the conference, if not the entire league.
Bench
Guard-Dwyane Wade (33 USG%, 103 ORtg, 35.8 AST%, 9 FTA/36, 75.6% FT, 46.8% eFG) Is he having a down year? Yeah, sure, but he's still Dwyane Wade. He still gets to the line as well as anyone in the league, and he's still a dynamic scorer and playmaker who can find his teammates. Plus, the guard corps in the East are crappy, so there isn't really anyone else here.
Guard-Rip Hamilton (24.7 USG%, 114 ORtg, 53.1% eFG, 23 AST%, 10.4 TO%, 81.5% FT) Honestly, I searched really hard to find someone who deserved this spot, maybe someone that everyone else had missed. No dice. As I mentioned above, the guards in the East are so bad that I'm really kind of reaching here (as opposed to the West, which is overflowing with candidates). In the end, nobody I looked at was having a better year than Hamilton. A lot of people like Ray Allen here because of how well Boston has played, but I'm not buying that, and Rip is having a better year. Hamilton is an extremely efficient scorer, and might be the league's best at using off the ball screens (It's between he and Kevin Martin IMO). In addition, he's also a very solid defensive player (as with most Pistons players).
Forward-Caron Butler (24.4 USG%, 115 ORtg, 50.8% eFG, 91.3% FT, 20.5 AST%) Butler supposedly made "The Jump" last year when he made it into his first All-Star game. Well, if he was jumping last year, he's flying this year. His turnovers are down, his assists are way up, his shooting percentages are way up, and he's carrying the Wizards in Gilbert Arenas' absence. His mid-range game has always been among the best in the league, but this year he has really increased his range, shooting 36.5% from long-range.
Forward-Paul Pierce (25.7 USG%, 110 ORtg, 49.6% eFG, 22.8 AST%, 8.8 REB%) I was trying to decide between Pierce and Richard Jefferson here, and really the difference between the two is minimal. Their stat profiles are so similar that it's almost impossible to chose between them. Jefferson is putting up better pure scoring numbers, but Pierce is the better distributor and rebounder. In the end, it comes down to Pierce being the superior defensive player and more proven star.
Center-Chris Bosh (28.6 USG%, 117 ORtg, 14.9 REB%, 10.2 TO%, 48.9% eFG, 85.6% FT) Even if Bosh didn't actually deserve this, he's really the only choice. At any rate, Bosh is having the best season of his career. He's often the forgotten 4th member of that LeBron, Wade, Melo draft class, but he has absolutel y kept himself at that level. He hasn't yet become a dominant defensive force, but he's definitely improving as a disruptive force who can defend without fouling. Offensively, he rivals Garnett and Duncan as the best face-up post men in the league. He's got a great jab step, and he's so quick and so long that he's almost impossible to guard without help. That quickness means he gets to the line a TON, and his FT% has shot up to 85% this season. He's also got great hands, makes quick decisions, and picks his spots well, leading to very low turnover numbers for a guy his size who has such a high usage rate.
Wild Card #1-Richard Jefferson (27.5 ORtg, 111 ORtg, 48.5% eFG, 80.4% FT) If I struggled with Jefferson vs. Pierce above, it didn't take a lot of thought to put him here. A bit overlooked in the Nets' collapse, Jefferson is completing his transformation from a role player who finished Jason Kidd alley-oops into the team's star-quality first option. It isn't the most efficient year of Jefferson's career, but he's taking on a much bigger role in the offense, and he's thriving.
Wild Card #2-Josh Smith (26.5 USG%, 100 ORtg, 13 REB%, 45.3% eFG, 20 AST%, 3.4 BPG, 2 SPG) There were three people I considered here: Smith, Antwan Jamison, and Tayshaun Prince. Jamison is having a solid year, and he's rebounding than he ever has in his career. He doesn't make many mistakes (4th lowest TO% in the league), but the fact that he shoots 30% from the field really hurts him. He also doesn't play defense, and he just isn't a good enough offensive player to make up for that and get on the team for me. Prince is a fantastic player who often gets overlooked in Detroit, but he's a matchup nightmare with his length and versatility, and he's one of the premier perimeter defenders in the league. However, if I'm going to go with a defensive force, it's got to be Smith. He might not have much polish as an offensive player yet, but Smith is the rare player who can be a dominating defensive force against multiple positions. Like Andrei Kirilenko, he can match up with wing defenders, but he's also a force defending the rim and drifting into passing lanes. The Hawks are 9th in the league in defense, and the biggest reason is Smith's game-altering presence.
Some guys of note on the outside looking in
Kidd - People get wrapped up in the whole triple-double thing, but the fact is that Kidd has really fallen off as an offensive player. He can't finish around the rim at all anymore, and he's turning the ball over at a prodigious rate. People need to start getting used to the idea that the 34-year old Kidd may not be an elite point guard any more.
Jamison - I went over this above. Very good offensive player, very bad defensive player.
Michael Redd - What I said about Jamison, only more pronounced. To say that he plays matador defense is an understatement.
Hedo Turkoglu - Hedo is a fantastic story this year as he has really improved his play and become a key part of Orlando's success. He's had some truly great moments at the ends of games too. However, I think he's much more a top-tier role player than he is an all-star. He isn't a good defender, and his offensive numbers are good, but not great.
Joe Johnson - He's only noteworthy because he's on the actual all-star team. In reality he's having his worst season as a Hawk, and doesn't deserve to be on the team.
Since I don't really understand your new stat evaluations I can't say you're wrong. I don't really know that much about Calderon but I do think you're a bit inconsistent when you say you won't penalize a player for having a bad team around him then you do exactly that.
You say Wade's shooting % is down. Having bad players around will cause that % to go down. And didn't you say you wasn't counting shooting %?
Wade came back early and even now is not 100%. All the things you say negative about Wade are all related to having virtually nothing in the way of support.
This is a very well written and thought out blog seems like and Calderon may be deserving but I just don't think you can detract from Wade as much as you've done when you said you wouldn't. Clearly it's easier to just put up points if you're Lebron on his rookie Cavs team than it is for a rookie on a good team. Just as clearly it's harder to have some sort of new ratings if the other team is just laying for you knowing every portion of your game and you're not getting any help.
Double x,
Great scribble, while the team is a glowing toxic waste dump I think the Sixers have a future All Star in F Thaddeus Young whose showing a nose for the ball in his 1st season...and he's 19-ish...
Rat - When did I say that I wasn't going to count shooting %? I just said that I would primarily be using eFG% instead of regular FG%.
I don't particularly care if Wade isn't 100%. I'm determining who the best performers of the season have been so far. Wade may well be feeling the effects of injury still, but that shouldn't matter for the All-Star game. I'm not concerned with who the best players are necessarily, I'm concerned with who has performed best.
Yes, Wade has crappy teammates. However, are they really that much crappier than they were last year? Jason Williams and Shaq are a year older and they lost Jason Kapono and James Posey. However, Dorell Wright is playing by far the best ball of his career, and even though Ricky Davis and Mark Blount aren't great, they're both better than how atrociously bad Antoine Walker was last year. They're a terrible team, but are they 30 games worse than last year? At some point, you have fault the star when the team has been this embarrassingly bad. I could excuse Wade some if he was shouldering an even greater load this year, but his usage rate is actually down two points from last year. His shooting percentage is way down, his assists are down, his blocks and steals are down, and his turnovers are up. He's shooting 5% lower from the FT line, and his teammates have nothing to do with that. You might expect a slight decline from Wade because of his teammates, but even then he's a young player entering his prime, he should be improving. Instead, Wade has had a precipitous drop off this year.
I think one of his big issues is that in 5 pro seasons, Wade still hasn't developed a perimeter shot. When he shot 38% on threes in the playoffs during their title run, we thought he had taken that step, but he's only 22% from behind the arc this season. When you can't shoot, it makes it very easy for opposing teams to swarm on you and neutralize you, and that's what has happened to Wade this season.
ed - I watched Young a lot last year at Georgia Tech, and he's a stud in the making. A lot of people forget, but a lot of scouts considered him the top SF prospect out of high school, not Kevin Durant. He has a lot of Al Harrington to his game, but he's a better athlete.
I understand that in todays world we are enamored with statistical information. With the age of the internet, I feel we have been brain washed into putting all our faith into a mathematical equation that gives us comfort in determining what is best. I am not of the school that says all these different rankings and new stats are the be all, end all, when it comes to evaluating players. Everytime I turn around there is a new way of confirming a mans greatness through some x+y, times 3.5 , - his fouls + his farts, divided by the lbs of chicken he ate in the month of March following a snowstorm formula. This isn't a computer program. We are not robots. The game is a simple game that has had the same philosophy for over 100 years. Adjusted FG% and rebounds per minute etc etc etc don't mean anything about a player. These formula's can't possibly allow for the intangibles of the game or human will. I am not attacking you XPHX.....if this works for you great. I am old school. That works for me. I know a real player when I see one and don't have any faith in some M.I.T students new mid term paper, telling me how good a guy is, based on his formula
Balla- Opinions vary from person to person, numbers always stay the same. A guy's FG % is still his FG % whether you love him or hate him. The % of possessions he uses for the team are the number of possessions he uses for the team regardless of your opinion of him.
Obviously stats can be very decieving in particular situations, but I'd much rather argue with someone using stats than someone who just mindlessly babbles thinking he's right when in reality he's wrong. (Dusty)
I'm with Alaskanballa on this one. While I like stats and find the geeky ones interesting (I'm a Bill James guy when it comes to baseball), stats do not measure intangibles.
I watched the Spurs-Celtics game today. If you saw it, you noticed that Big Baby in many ways outplayed Tim Duncan by giving him hell when it counted, and by grabbing a crucial offensive board down the stretch. But at the end of the day, if you look at the stat sheet, Duncan had like 22 points on 50% shooting, 12 rebounds, etc. And Big Baby had like 8 points and 8 boards. Someone who didn't watch the game will say Duncan killed him. But the truth was Big Baby gave Duncan so much trouble. Duncan may not have been credited with the turnovers, but Big Baby caused Duncan to throw bad passes that led to turnovers.
So, stats do not tell the whole story. Calderon is having a fine season, but (A) no opponent has in their game plan "stop Calderon," the way teams have "stop Billups" or "contain Kidd." (B) Calderon has sharp shooters on the wings, and a legit big man star in Bosh. (C) His style is conservative -- he rarely forces the issue... he rarely HAS TO (unlike Wade).
So there are so many other factors that come into play.
I watch Kidd play every night. Any Nets fan will tell you Kidd CAN shoot. But of course, when you look at the numbers and see 40% FG, you automatically say the guy can't shoot. But every open spot-up shot he has, he hits. And when he has to hit a key basket in crunch time, he does. So... nobody cares that he shoots 40%.
You get my point.
I agree with all of your choices except for Calderon and Jefferson.
TJ Ford was doing what Calderon is doing... you know? I think you put any pass-first point guard in that offense, and he thrives. And personally, I think Ford is better than Calderon. I think a healthy Ford is a superstar. I really do.
Jefferson is a bum.
Hedo is deserving. He has been HUGE for the Magic (unlike Rashard Lewis).
Jamison is undeserving.
Redd is deserving.
Caron Butler this year, to me, is a top-ten player in the NBA hands-down. Really, after Chris Paul, I don't know if anyone else has played better than Butler.
alaskan - To each his own. I think the balance is somewhere in the middle. Stats can tell you things that you otherwise wouldn't notice. You can't possibly watch every single game for every single player, stats let us fill in the game. Lastly, often our eyes lie to us, affected by our preconceived perceptions. Very often, we see what we want to see, or we are distracted by the flashy and overlook the plain when the end result of each is the same. However, you're right that there are things that stats can't tell us. Defense especially is very hard to measure right now. As much as possible, I try to balance stats with what I've seen when evaluating players.
Train - Lets be honest here, nobody's gameplan is "contain Kidd" right now. He shoots 37% from the field. 37! And he doesn't even take a lot of shots. So he isn't at all a threat to score on his own and he turns the ball over more than any other starting point guard. Rebounding is the ONLY thing he has done better than Calderon this year, and he's significantly worse at everything else.
Ford actually wasn't doing near what Calderon was doing. He's a much more dynamic player, but he's not half as efficient as Calderon is, and Calderon has actually gotten better since becoming a starter.
Contradict yourself much? Hedo deserves to be on the team, but he doesn't make it on your team? Caron Butler is playing better than anyone but Paul, yet he isn't a starter? What is it man? :P
Rat - I'm not mad, I'm just thorough in my explanations.
ut the fact that his 23.8 TO% is the worst of any starting PG in the NBA. He's a fantastic assist man, but a lot more of his passes are finding opponents' hands this year, and his extremely poor shooting really hurts him. The only real advantage he has over Calderon is his rebounding, which is exceptional for a guard. However, his offensive deficiencies are crippling, he just isn't a threat to score off the dribble at all. How about Wade? Well, obviously Wade is a fantastic player, but he isn't having a fantastic year. His team is absolutely terrible, to the point of embarrassment. He's missed 9 games with injury, and he really is having a very poor offensive year for him. His FG% is down, he isn't getting to the line as well, his turnovers are up, his assists are down, and his offensive rating is down 9 points to a pedestrian 103. He's still good, he still carries a huge load, but Calderon has just been too good. He leads the league in ORtg, he shoots the ball extremely well and he doesn't make mistakes. Not only does his 5.58 A/T ratio lead the league, but it does so by a wide margin. To put it in perspective, among players with more than 300 assists, Calderon's A/T ratio doesn't just lead the league, but it it's better than anyone over the last 8 seasons.
gue, and he's still a dynamic scorer and playmaker who can find his teammates. Plus, the guard corps in the East are crappy, so there isn't really anyone else here.
