Keeping perspective on Jrue...

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I generally like your articles, but (IMO) this analysis is incredibly flawed from top to bottom.

“Sadly, I was the guy driving the Young and Speights bandwagons when they crashed and burned. In both cases Sixers fans (me included) continually bashed the head coach and clamored for more playing time. And in both cases we got our wish:”

Valid comparison with Young, not so much with Speights. His playing time actually was less in February and March than it was in December in January. His April playing time was a short month (9 games) influenced largely by a three game run, which then went back down to normal levels to finish the season and went to virtually nill in the playoffs. Saying his playing time increased throughout the year on the back of essentially three games isn’t really painting an accurate picture.

Second, defensive stats stink. Horribly. Listen to some of the lectures at the MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference (which DraftExpress attended) and you can hear the originators of a lot of these advanced analytics talk about how horribly a lot of the defensive statistics measure both defensive ability and defensive impact. This is coming from Dean Oliver and Kevin Pelton.

Looking at Jrue’s opponents production in a vacuum really has little relevance. Until all players defend the same players, around the same defenders, in the same situations, this number will NEVER accurately measure defensive ability. Especially playing primarily with Iverson and Williams in the backcourt, Jrue is ALWAYS playing against a significantly taller opponent, and usually defending the best wing player. Furthermore, he’s often asked to rotate off his man after Williams/Iverson was beaten off the dribble and the entire team is forced to rotate. He’s taken off the ball defensively, which is his greatest strength. And the Sixers are bottom-5 in the league in defending the pick and roll, a big part of it is our bigs inability to defend the pick and roll, down to a T.

What would Jrue’s opponents PER, eFG% and pp48 look like if he was playing with Iguodala on the wing instead of Williams? What would it look like if Jordan didn’t play Thad so much at the 4, who provides NO weakside shotblocking? What would it look like if he had KG defending the pick and roll instead of Brand (who’s been awful this year in that respect)? What would his numbers look like if he were simply not out of position defensively?

Then, as for the rotations, are you really using two lineups that played 36 minutes and 12 minutes as a major part of your argument? You’ll have to excuse me if I don’t find that all that statistically relevant.

Making an argument on defensive ability and impact based on these crude stats really isn’t one I find all that compelling. Neither do most sabremetrics.

As for his personal production? Well, duh. Jrue Holiday’s less productive than Tyreke Evans, Stephen Curry, and Darren Collison? You don’t say.

Jrue Holiday is what you would expect a 19 year old. Shows flashes offensively, but is wildly inconsistent. I don’t think anybody’s making the argument that Jrue Holiday is an incredibly productive offensive play at this stage of his development. If they are, you have a point.

But then again, I don’t think most talent evaluators are looking at this when determing either Jrue’s upside or his probability to reach his upside, either. Advanced statistics are great to show current effectiveness. They’re not so great at projecting future development, upside, and probability of reaching that upside.

What will talent evaluators see? The rapid development of a player who hit less than 31% of his three’s last year and only 27% of his midrange shots now making nearly a 3 per game at over 40%. Who’s showing an increasing ability to finish with his left hand, to get to his spots off dribble penetration with a great hesitation move, and shows create ability to create off a pick and roll.

They’ll probably see a guy who struggled mightily in half-court situations last year at UCLA actually be significantly more effective in the half-court against NBA offenses, due mainly to his hard work in improving his all-around game.

And they’ll see all this improvement from a 19 year old kid.

You can throw out all the stats you want, advanced or otherwise, to show that Holiday has been less productive offensively than Tyreke Evans, Stephen Curry, Brandon Jennings and Darren Collison. I’m not going to argue that fact with you at all. I will argue that it has virtually nothing to do with projecting what Holiday will be as a 22 year old point guard, though.

Unfortunately, some things need to be left to the eye. Unfortunately, the misuse of advanced statistics probably does a disservice to the widespread adoption of them.

“Jrue has all the tools — so does Marreese Speights. But! Jrue has all the tools plus a great attitude and work ethic — so does Thaddeus Young.”

Marreese Speights was never a good defender. He was an unheralded recruit coming out of high school, and had huge question marks and red flags as a defender coming out of Florida.

Thaddeus Young does have a great work ethic. But, again, he was never known as a great defender. Not in high school, and not in his one year at g-tech. His rookie year he showed great effort, and because of that caused some problems forcing turnovers, but he does not have great defensive tools. Neither at the 4, where his inability to block a shot is a huge detriment to team defense and he’s outweighed by 20 lbs per night, nor at SF where his lateral quickness is below average. The hope is with his length and work ethic he can become an average defender at the 3. He doesn’t have near Jrue’s defensive pedigree, reputation, foot speed, anticipation, or past production.

“If you want to hold tight to the small ‘sample size argument’ or the fact that your personal “eye for talent” is better than advanced statistics, be my guest."

I’m a huge fan of advanced statistics. When used correctly.

There isn’t one talent evaluator in the nation who would be using these “advanced” (and really, these aren’t advanced, but that’s another argument) statistics in a vacuum, and none who would be using them for more than they are: a measure of current productivity that is not an evaluator of future upside and probability of reaching that upside.