Game Day: Suns (6-16) @ Lakers (10-14), Fri 12/9/16

[Mori Chu]

I dislike Knight and do think he's harming our team. But +/- is mostly a broken and useless stat. That number for Knight sounds damning, but there are so many confounding factors that I don't put much stock in it. But he also fails the eye test, and I recognize and agree that he's hurting us out there.

[Cap]

We're looking at a pretty substantial sample, so any confounding factors would have to be systemic. If the rest of the team is so bad, how have they managed to outscore their opponents over 585 non-Knight minutes?

[Mori Chu]

I think ol' Dirk might have stayed one year too long. Not sure it will be much fun for him to play for the worst team in the West this year as his body struggles to stay on the court.

[Aztec Sunsfan]

I dislike Knight and do think he's harming our team. But +/- is mostly a broken and useless stat. That number for Knight sounds damning, but there are so many confounding factors that I don't put much stock in it. But he also fails the eye test, and I recognize and agree that he's hurting us out there.

THIS.

Nobody is going to deny the obvious, but I don't like when someone is used as a full time scapegoat. This series of posts around +/- , make it sound like we are a winning team without him, and we are not. Our "rising star" also has a negative "day stat" (nice touch by the way ), reflecting what has been in general a poor year from him, and we seem to be okay with that, jumping fast onto "the shoes" and whatever, neglecting that he is actually regressing, even his on court antics has changed, looking more often as a spoiled child. Some of the best +/- performers are getting his numbers in garbage time, so I refuse to deduce from this numbers, that we should be starting Barbosa and Williams ahead of Booker and Chriss and then, play TUCKER ahead of EVERYBODY. If we are going to put this stat in a Watchtower, then we should quit complaining about Tucker and play the guy 48 minutes.

The Booker and Tucker examples are enough to put some perspective on the subject. Sorry for spoiling the fun, criticism is great but bullying irritates me. We should be more critics on everybody, not only the obvious suspects, kicking a dead horse.

[Cap]

I agree that +/- doesn't mean everything. For example, in the Utah game, Knight was a +12. That doesn't capture the fact that in the final two minutes, he was almost single-handedly responsible for losing the game.

Who here wouldn't love to see Knight miss a few weeks with a bizarrely ambiguous minor injury? It would go a long way to answering whether those day stats are some kind of fluke. Hopefully the Knight-less version of the team will be so dominant they'll be basketball gods, and then we can call the two versions of the team Knight and Dei.

[Superbone]

Here's a chart:

Code: Select all

       Overall  Knight   Day
Len       -135    -139    +4      
Bledsoe   -100    -106    +6
Booker     -86     -78    -8
Chriss     -84     -73   -11
Warren     -74     -73    -1
Tucker     -65    -117   +52
Dudley     -33     -52   +19
Barbosa    -18     -64   +46
Chandler   -13     -41   +28
Bender      -4     -46   +42
Ulis       +10     -34   +44
Williams   +19      -5   +24

Booker, Chriss and Warren are the only players with a negative +/- in their non-Knight minutes.

The difference is Knight and Day!

[Superbone]

I think ol' Dirk might have stayed one year too long. Not sure it will be much fun for him to play for the worst team in the West this year as his body struggles to stay on the court.

That seems to be contagious. See Kobe Bryant.

[Cap]

I think ol' Dirk might have stayed one year too long. Not sure it will be much fun for him to play for the worst team in the West this year as his body struggles to stay on the court.

That seems to be contagious. See Kobe Bryant.

Dirk wishes he were having a season like Kobe did last year.

[UglyTruth]

I agree that +/- doesn't mean everything. For example, in the Utah game, Knight was a +12. That doesn't capture the fact that in the final two minutes, he was almost single-handedly responsible for losing the game.

Who here wouldn't love to see Knight miss a few weeks with a bizarrely ambiguous minor injury? It would go a long way to answering whether those day stats are some kind of fluke. Hopefully the Knight-less version of the team will be so dominant they'll be basketball gods, and then we can call the two versions of the team Knight and Dei.

Minor injury? I've been hoping for Knight to tear his ACL, MCL and anything else so that he can never play basketball again. No fan base deserves to have to watch an idiot like him play basketball. He needs to give up basketball and go do something else, he just isn't good at it.

He's lucky he found a POS like Ryan McDonough to trade the Lakers pick for him and then overpay the crap out of him.

[Superbone]

I'm not going to wish injury on anybody. It's kharma for you guys that he's finally having a healthy season here.

[The Bobster]

Here's a chart:

Code: Select all

       Overall  Knight   Day
Len       -135    -139    +4      
Bledsoe   -100    -106    +6
Booker     -86     -78    -8
Chriss     -84     -73   -11
Warren     -74     -73    -1
Tucker     -65    -117   +52
Dudley     -33     -52   +19
Barbosa    -18     -64   +46
Chandler   -13     -41   +28
Bender      -4     -46   +42
Ulis       +10     -34   +44
Williams   +19      -5   +24

Booker, Chriss and Warren are the only players with a negative +/- in their non-Knight minutes.

He is just staggeringly bad.

[specialsauce]

Here's a chart:

Code: Select all

       Overall  Knight   Day
Len       -135    -139    +4      
Bledsoe   -100    -106    +6
Booker     -86     -78    -8
Chriss     -84     -73   -11
Warren     -74     -73    -1
Tucker     -65    -117   +52
Dudley     -33     -52   +19
Barbosa    -18     -64   +46
Chandler   -13     -41   +28
Bender      -4     -46   +42
Ulis       +10     -34   +44
Williams   +19      -5   +24

Booker, Chriss and Warren are the only players with a negative +/- in their non-Knight minutes.

He is just staggeringly bad.

These +/- numbers and attempting to come up with a Non-Knight +/- for each player is a huge, huge reach. Yuuge. Just shows how far we're willing to go to try and prove how badly Knight sucks.

[Split T]

The Knight hate on here has gone way overboard. He's been bad this year, we all can see that, but to say he should give up basketball is ridiculous. He needs to start shooting better, and he takes ill advised shots, but I've felt like he's actually moved the ball better in recent games.

I still think we should move him as I don't feel he has a role here anymore. Barbosa lately has been doing exactly what I'd want knight to do anyways.

[UglyTruth]

I'm not going to wish injury on anybody. It's kharma for you guys that he's finally having a healthy season here.

The team's better with him on the bench and McD isn't willing to admit the fact that he got screwed in the LAL pick for Knight trade so he won't just cut ties with Knight and trade him for anything cheap either.

If we're stuck with Knight, wouldn't you rather see him in a suit on the sideline supporting his teammates than making Shaqtin A Fool highlights on the floor?

[Mori Chu]

The Knight hate on here has gone way overboard. He's been bad this year, we all can see that, but to say he should give up basketball is ridiculous. He needs to start shooting better, and he takes ill advised shots, but I've felt like he's actually moved the ball better in recent games.

I still think we should move him as I don't feel he has a role here anymore. Barbosa lately has been doing exactly what I'd want knight to do anyways.

I think that's a fair take. I especially agree with you that Barbosa is giving us what we'd want from Knight 100%.

[specialsauce]

The Knight hate on here has gone way overboard. He's been bad this year, we all can see that, but to say he should give up basketball is ridiculous. He needs to start shooting better, and he takes ill advised shots, but I've felt like he's actually moved the ball better in recent games.

I still think we should move him as I don't feel he has a role here anymore. Barbosa lately has been doing exactly what I'd want knight to do anyways.

He really should give up basketball though

[Superbone]

The Knight hate on here has gone way overboard. He's been bad this year, we all can see that, but to say he should give up basketball is ridiculous. He needs to start shooting better, and he takes ill advised shots, but I've felt like he's actually moved the ball better in recent games.

I still think we should move him as I don't feel he has a role here anymore. Barbosa lately has been doing exactly what I'd want knight to do anyways.

He really should give up basketball though

No he shouldn't. He's an NBA level talent. He just needs to do it on another team.

[Cap]

BTW, another bad team that can put all their negative +/- on one player is New Orleans. The Pels are -107 on the season; Buddy Hield is -119.

The Nuggs are -81. Mudiay is -162 and Nurkic is -112.

[specialsauce]

The Knight hate on here has gone way overboard. He's been bad this year, we all can see that, but to say he should give up basketball is ridiculous. He needs to start shooting better, and he takes ill advised shots, but I've felt like he's actually moved the ball better in recent games.

I still think we should move him as I don't feel he has a role here anymore. Barbosa lately has been doing exactly what I'd want knight to do anyways.

He really should give up basketball though

No he shouldn't. He's an NBA level talent. He just needs to do it on another team.

He'd make a better vacuum

[Superbone]

The Knight hate on here has gone way overboard. He's been bad this year, we all can see that, but to say he should give up basketball is ridiculous. He needs to start shooting better, and he takes ill advised shots, but I've felt like he's actually moved the ball better in recent games.

I still think we should move him as I don't feel he has a role here anymore. Barbosa lately has been doing exactly what I'd want knight to do anyways.

He really should give up basketball though

No he shouldn't. He's an NBA level talent. He just needs to do it on another team.

He'd make a better vacuum

That's a hell of an expensive vacuum.