This should be stickied. It's basically the answer for all the lineup discussions. Reed is one of our best players. We're better when he plays. But, we don't play as well as we can with both he and Sengun on the court at the same time. Two things can be true. They have to stagger these guys as much as they can. It's the main reason why we get rocked at the beginning of games and for stretches in the 4th. Then, miraculous they come back or extend leads when the bench comes in. Our bench is actually weak but we're better when we mix in some defenders. I know it will never happen but there's a decent argument that Sengun should come off the bench since he plays best with 3 and D guys all around him and Reed plays better with a rim protector.
I was surprised by Reed's BPM this season. It is 2.7, which is 32nd in the league. With three games to go it is largely set. So then I wondered how that compares to the second season BPM of other great point guards over the last decade. This is an arbitrary list of players chosen by scrolling through all-NBA teams until I got bored, but here it is: 2nd year BPM 3rd year BPM Chris Paul 5.0 10.4 Trae Young 3.9 3.7 Kyrie Irving 3.7 3.4 Damian Lillard 3.2 4.7 Reed Sheppard 2.7 - Tyrese Haliburton 2.6 7.2 Steph Curry 2.3 4.3 James Harden 1.9 4.3 De'Aaron Fox 1.5 1.8 Kemba Walker 1.4 1.7 Donovan Mitchell 1.3 1.9 Ja Morant -0.4 6.1 Jalen Brunson -0.9 0.9 Devin Booker -1.9 0.9 (Sorry for the formatting. I don't know how to insert a table.) About all we can conclude is that Reed is in good company. He sits in between Haliburton and Lillard, and above many great players. We can hope that he takes an enormous 3rd year leap, but it's not definite. Anyway. It's hard to make too much of this. Different team situations and different roles. Different player ages. I was too lazy to adjust for any of this. Just wanted to share something I was curious about, and found encouraging.
Not a PG, but how about comparing him to Rockets legend Jalen Green? 2nd season BPM -2.1 That's not fair, how about his 3rd season? -0.5 That's also not fair since he's still just 19 years old, so how about THIS season? -1.1 It's interesting how when it comes to some narratives, the numbers strongly disagree.
Good work. I wonder how many non-great PGs have had a similar BPM - like a PG who had a similar BPM but never did much else.
I haven't been able to find many second year PG's with a 2.7 or better BPM at all. I kind of thought I would find more, but I'm not sure there are 10 in NBA history to have done it. If someone has better access to those numbers, by all means speak up, but from what I have been able to find, there might only be the 6 I found other than Reed. The ones I found were Magic Johnson, Steve Francis, CP3, Luka, Allen Iverson, Kyrie Irving
Interesting question. I didn't really find any instances of this. Mike Conley took a long time to become positive. Jrue Holiday only went >2.7 a few times. Mike Bibby never did. Derek Fisher never even came close. However I just manually search BBRef. Might be an engine that can do queries like this. (Everyone's favourite comparison, Mark Price, was +2.2 in year 2 and leapt to +4.5 in year 3.)
All of those minus Magic were on bad teams. All were starters, primary ball handlers, and either lead the team or were 2nd in usage. Considering how Ime has used Reed this year it’s more impressive that he’s done this as a bench guy.
BPM overemphasizes steals and blocks. The offensive component is likely fine (not looked too much at it). It is likely fine for most players, but guys that are extreme one way or another are likely misjudged. I would not use it when there are better stats available. That said, PGs take a while to develop. It would not surprise me if he had another big leap in ability next season.
Yeah, most advanced catch-all metrics really struggle with measuring defense accurately. They register the off-ball turnover-creation and rebounding components, but usually don't incorporate on-ball defense or the "intimidation factor" of a rim protector very well, if at all.
When metrics disagree with narrative, blame the metrics. Turns out they are all wrong, only the narrative is correct apparently.
He better not, he is so much better than FVV it isn't funny and if Ime can't see that Ime has to go. DD
He is a lot more talented than FVV but probably not "better" yet. He will be next year around this time and there is no point in starting FVV at all next year unless we're running it back with Traffic Cone A (Dickerson) and Traffic Cone B (Sengun). Which is what I fear we will do. Trading both FVV and Katie for someone that better fits this team would be awesome. Need another lengthy defender that can help cover Sengun and Reed on defense. Just dont know who. Durant/Sengun/Reed doesn't work. They all need the ball and theyre all bad defenders.
