A Special 10k Post, Tuesday Edition of Case Of The Mondays: Who is DoM hating now?

[VCplusD12 91]

The OP made me chuckle but it would be even funnier if it was about Hedo

[bhnole 153]

Good points on this DOM.

 

I think the problem the Magic faced is Otis screwed the pooch so bad on last year trades that getting a chucker from a very bad team is the best they can do.....without blowing it up and trading Dwight.

 

I am still pissed that Otis pulled the trigger early last year before Utah decided to trade Deron. Not saying we could have pulled it off but a young Center like Gortat should have brought us more than two old overpaid wing players.

 

Just another knee jerk move by Otis who knows that he is the next one out the door if we lose Dwight.

[Passenger57 65]

DOM fumes with an aura of rage and derision that is almost palatable. That said, he's pretty much spot on if not somewhat redundant.

 

Now I wonder if he can turn his pen penchant for statistical insult into finding us a diamond in the rough to help us win that 'ship.

[Voodoo Man 99]

Any long time poster on this board will know a few simple but significant truths:

 

1. When it comes to basketball knowledge, I'm near the top of this board.
2. I got tired of pretending I wasn't around early 2009.
3. When it comes to finding an example of a player who scored a lot, but did it so inefficiently that they didn't help their team win, my go-to example is the 00-01 season, when Jerry Stackhouse scored a ton of points on ghastly percentages and his team badly missed the playoffs.

Just look at this *******.

 

Stackhouse made an all-star game that year, and that makes a lot of sense: PER didn't exist yet in 2001, and people still today don't really appreciate how much PER overvalues volume shooters, and NBA fans are, on the whole, stupid creatures who see a name near the top of the NBA's scoring list and immediately shout BEST PLAYER EVER like some kind of Pavlovian response.

 

But lets actually look at what Jerry Stackhouse did that year:

 

29.8 points, 3.9 rebounds, 5.1 assists, 1.2 steals, 0.7 blocks and 4.1 turnovers per game.

Strip those numbers of all context, and those are awesome numbers. Yeah, it's a lot of turnovers, but who cares right? He's giving you almost 30 points and over 5 assists! You can stand a few extra turnovers for that!

 

Ok. Here's some more of what Stackhouse did that year:

24.1 FGAs per game, .402/.351/.822 for an eFG% of .445 and a TS% of .521. And I'm going to go ahead and repeat that .351 number, because he was shooting almost 6 threes a game.

 

 

That is terrible. Adjusting his scoring to account for the whole "taking a shot more than once every 2 minutes of game play" thing, and you're left with a guy scoring just 1.24 points per shot attempt. That's not god-awful, but it's certainly below average.

 

For comparisons sake, here are the NBA's current top 10 scorers' points per shot attempt:

1. Kobe Bryant - 1.21

2. Kevin Durant - 1.42

3. Lebron James - 1.51

4. Kevin Love - 1.37

5. Russel Westbrook - 1.25

6. Derrick Rose - 1.26

7. Deron Williams - 1.25

8. Monta Ellis - 1.15

9. LaMarcus Aldrdige - 1.26

10. Blake Griffin - 1.32

 

That mostly fits with what we know about those players this season. Kobe shoots too much, Westbrook doesn't get to the line enough and shoots too many 3s, Rose shoots way too many 3s, Aldridge shoots too many long 2s, Deron Williams has been horrible for most of the year but better lately, every scorer's efficiency is down this year due to the lockout, and Lebron is having one of the most efficient years imaginable.

 

And then there's Monta Ellis.

 

Ellis, shown here counting the number of shots he's missed this quarter.

 

Saying that Monta Ellis is an inefficient volume shooter is fair.

 

Saying that Monta Ellis is an idiotic chucker who has repeatedly benefited from playing in a wide open offense where he was free to hog the ball, shoot as often as he wanted, never play defense, and inflate his stat totals by playing gargantuan numbers of minutes is cruel.

But also fair.

 

1.15 points per shot attempt is Nick Young-ian, and I don't say that just because I'm a person who has to watch Wizards games and daydreams about roasting marshmallows over Young's burning corpse every time he checks into the game.

 

Nick Young is currently averaging 1.12 points per shot attempt. His career average is 1.16, and that's Nick Young: the worst chucking chucker in the NBA.

Even Nick Young can't believe that a person exists who scores less efficiently than him.

Monta Ellis is a player who has made a name for himself based entirely on his ability to take a whole lot of shots and play a whole lot of minutes. But he's never won anything, and an even cursory examination of his advanced stats explains why.

 

For instance, in 2009-2010, Monta Ellis finished 6th in the NBA in scoring, averaging 25.5 points per game. And that's really good, right up until you look at his advanced stats, which suck out loud.

 

PER, as stated, greatly overvalues volume shooting. So you should keep that in mind when I tell you that his PER that year was 16.7. That's only slightly better than what JJ Redick is putting up this year. Ryan Anderson is putting up 22.3

 

Even more amazing is the number of win shares Ellis put up that season: 1.3, all of them defensive. Actually process that for a second: Monta Ellis didn't finish with a single fraction of an offensive win share in a year he finished 6th in the NBA in scoring. How is that even possible? In the year Orlando lost 18 in a row, Tracy McGrady finished the year with 8 offensive win shares, and that team only won 22 games.

 

I tried to find a picture that was as scary as that Magic team. This will do.

 

This year, yeah, Ellis is a little better. PER of 19 and even a few win shares. Of course, his team is still 3 points better per 100 possessions when he's parked on the goddamned bench. Oh, and even based on PER, he's been the third best player on his team, and 82 games has his Simple Rating at 1.7, good for 7th on his team.

 

He's a volume chucker. He's ALWAYS been a volume chucker. I thought we all knew this. I thought we all knew this.

And yet there I was last night, reading page after page of people waxing idyllic about Monta Ellis, as though they've never seen the guy play before:

" Ellis immediately becomes our second best player, a player that can be considered a cornerstone of the franchise along with Dwight"

 

It makes me wonder if I'm the only one who's watched the NBA before. Ellis isn't the second best player on a team that will most likely miss the playoffs, but he's going to get traded and suddenly become the second best player on a contender and a franchise cornerstone? Is this a prank? Am I on Punk'd right now?

 

Monta Ellis is a volume chucker who plays too many minutes, can't play within any offensive structure at all, and who is due to win a new set of steak knives the next time he actually guards someone, which will be his 10th time ever.

 

And this guy is gonna save our franchise? THIS is a guy you think is better option than planning for a better future with or without Dwight, who we should note can still leave anyway?

 

But that's how it always goes on this board. You dopey assholes work yourselves into a tizzy about how some insider says X, Y and Z are like, totes about to happen, you get excited for no goddamned reason(Monta Ellis? MONTA ELLIS?), then act like you've been let down. Here's an experiment for you: go on any message board about upcoming movies, and see how long it takes for someone claiming to have insider access to Hollywood film executives to show up with some huge movie scoop. You should be waiting, at most, 90 seconds.

 

This is what google thinks Hollywood insiders look like. I believe them.

 

 

Anyone on this board would call bull**** on that garbage immediately, but here? Here you lap it up like Corgi puppies.

 

On the plus side, being so stupid and looking so ridiculous IS kind of adorable.

 

And when it proves to be false, you'll run someone else off the board for telling you the rumors they heard or made up. Remember TheRevTy? He posted on this board for YEARS. Then one day, he posted a rumor he heard about Chris Paul, it proved wrong, and he was run out on a goddamned rail. And you'll do it again.

 

Because if there's one thing I've learned in the 5 and a half years I've posted on this board, it's that people here don't ever get smarter; they just find new and exciting ways to be complete idiots.

 

 

Monta Ellis?!?

Really only one question. Why do you have to watch Wizards games? Are you being punished?

[Secretly Space Jesus 670]

The OP made me chuckle but it would be even funnier if it was about Hedo

 

Writing a 10,000th post about Hedo would have had a nice symmetry, I suppose, since the first Case of the Mondays I ever wrote, back before it had a name and before I had any kind of a lock on what the DoM character was going to be like, was the post about Hedo that got me called a racist for 2.5 years. That thread can be seen here. It's noteworthy, if only because it's a lot less "hate-y" and a lot more "I'm 22, and I have an English degree!"

 

But I've written SO much in the last 5.5 years about the player that Hedo is versus who people like to think that he is, I'm not sure I could have found any real other approach to the topic that I haven't already done before, and I spend enough time on this board having to repeat myself already.

[Captain Hi-Top 791]

Really only one question. Why do you have to watch Wizards games? Are you being punished?

 

Really only one question. Why do you re-post the original message in it's entirety to ask such a simple question? Are you trying to punish us?

[God Hates Otis Smith 153]

-Ellis is GSW's best player and has been in that role for a few years

-You have no idea how he'd play as a teams 2nd option, with an elite big

[VCplusD12 91]

Really only one question. Why do you re-post the original message in it's entirety to ask such a simple question? Are you trying to punish us?

I also hate people that quote the whole OP

[Arielle 138]

Nice write-up, DOM. The more I've thought about this potential trade, the more worried I become. I could hardly sleep last night thinking about it. I'm beginning to think that this could backfire really bad. Dwight is an NBA player, but ownership is treating him like he's now the GM. Doesn't make sense to gut the guys who have been playing with genuine heart and hustle for this team in JJ (my favorite of all) and most improved player Ryno. Ryno's ceiling may not even be tapped yet. There were mumblings that it was Dwight who wanted Gortat out and Hedo back in. We could all be blaming Otis, but the truth could be: what if Howard calling all the shots is the cause of our team's continued deterioration? Not even fair. Mixed feelings now about what I want to happen.

 

Oh, and you're not SVG are you?

[Secretly Space Jesus 670]

-Ellis is GSW's best player and has been in that role for a few years

 

This is an issue of perception vs. reality.

 

Ellis is believed to be the best player for the Warriors, but he isn't. Curry and Lee are both more productive players than Ellis, and every single advanced metric backs that up. Again: the Warriors are 3 points better per 100 possessions this season when Curry isn't in the game.

 

-You have no idea how he'd play as a teams 2nd option, with an elite big

 

Neither do you, making this statement unnecessary.

[Berto 338]

Yeah, pretty much. Monta Ellis is the very definition of a inefficient volume shooter. He's basically Gilbert Arenas if Gilbert Arenas could still run, jump and tie his shoelaces.

 

But remember, if you advocate letting Dwight walk to properly rebuild and cut the process in half, you're naive and have never run a business.

[Secretly Space Jesus 670]

Yeah, pretty much. Monta Ellis is the very definition of a inefficient volume shooter. He's basically Gilbert Arenas if Gilbert Arenas could still run, jump and tie his shoelaces.

 

But remember, if you advocate letting Dwight walk to properly rebuild and cut the process in half, you're naive and have never run a business.

 

Arenas in his prime could at least get to the line at an elite rate of over 9.5 FTAs per game, which helped mitigate a lot of his volume chuckery.

 

Ellis isn't horrible at drawing fouls, but he's certainly not good enough at it to in any way make up for his terrible shooting efficiency.