[Wojnarowski] The Lakers have agreed to trade Marc Gasol, a 2024 second-round pick and cash to the Grizzlies for the draft rights to Wang Zhelin, sources tell ESPN. Deal saves Lakers $10M. Gasol and Grizzlies will work together on waiver and release to allow him to remain in Spain w/ family.
After the tumult of the Orlando bubble in 2020 and the COVID-19 restrictions of the 2020-2021 season, Gasol made a decision to remain with his family in Spain for the start of the 2021-2022 season, sources said.
This sounds like a buyout, likely using the cash that was included in the deal. I’m assuming Memphis doesn’t mind carrying the dead cap space and gets a 2nd rounder for their troubles.
One of the questions heading into next season is if Wiggins' improved shooting was a fluke season or if it was a sign of improvement (or at least a function of playing next to Curry and thus likely to continue). His FT% didn't really improve despite his 3P% and his midrange percentage improving. I also wonder how the lack of crowds affected things league-wide, I think I read there was a big spike in terms of number of (qualifying) players who shot 40+% from three last season. Unless that is where the NBA is trending towards?
I think I'd throw Wiggins' shooting into the giant pile of unknowns for next season. If he regresses back to like 33% from three, it'd be much harder to play him, Draymond, and a center together.
Wiggins' shooting numbers are a really strange beast.
Throughout his career he's been a pretty consistent 37-38 3PT% shooter when Open (the two outliers being '15-16 at 26%, '19-20 at 29.5%). He hit the nail on the head this past season, shooting 37.9% on Open threes.
What has been really inconsistent over his career is his Wide Open 3P% which varies wildly and is often LOWER than his Open percentages. What changed this past season was he hit 41.7% of his Wide Open while having never cracked 38% prior.
If he regresses to 33% (which means he basically becomes a guy teams will leave wide open to help off), that means lineups with Wiggins, Dray and a C are unviable unless the C is a proper shooter like Bjelica.
Fluke? Effect of fewer fans? Sign of a new era of shooting excellence? Is Nikola Vucevic now a 40% three point shooter on 6 attempts a game? Could be, but I'd throw that into an unknown category for Chicago as well. There are other guys too.
It makes sense that Curry opened up possibilities for him he didn't have before. It seems pessimistic to think he'll regress with Klay coming back and an improved group of shooters on the bench.
I don't think it's ever pessimistic to think that a player will regress towards their career average especially after an extreme outlier/breakout season like Wiggins just had. I would say that I'm cautiously optimistic that he will repeat, but it's likely that he'll be somewhere in between his average of 34% and his breakout of 38%, so maybe near the NBA average of 36-36.5%?
I'd actually be curious to see the timeframes for regression to the mean. Where is the room for improvement? Also, what is the impact of the "system" impacts? Basketball is not a game played by one person alone in a gym. It is not played by a player whose body is the same all the time.
Let's hope that the last season demonstrated Wiggins' improvement/breakout and system effects (Kerr/Curry, etc) and not a statistical aberration. This year we hope Wiggins' last season is the continuation of an upward trend line.
totally! I think we should all hope that, and it's entirely possible! Regression to the mean isn't a law, it's just something that's often likely to happen.
Could be. But Curry opened up possibilities for Oubre that Oubre didn't have before and Oubre's three point percentage went down from the previous season. If Wiggins had more than one good season shooting with the Warriors, it'd be easier to chalk it up to improvement/Curry. Hence, I'd throw it in the unknown category. Don't know why DFiB considers that a pessimistic take, a pessimistic take would be that I don't expect Wiggins to keep the shooting up, no?
Also though, if Wiggins hasn't improved as a shooter and shot a better percentage due to a Curry boost then that has to be factored into his overall value as a player. There were a lot of comparisons of Wiggins and Siakam this past summer that gave Wiggins the edge as a three point shooter, but if they swapped teams would Siakam get a similar boost and Wiggins go back to shooting 33%?
For those with all of the advanced stats at their fingertips, any way to look at Wiggins' shooting percentages when he was playing with primarily starters (i.e. Steph, Dray, Loon) vs. when he was anchoring the bench unit and expected to put up a greater number of shots as the first scoring option? If there's a significance difference there, that might be a good indicator of the impact of Steph's gravity on Wiggins' shooting.
Worried Wiggins will "regress to the mean" yet clamor for a Ben Simmons trade and say sh*t like "he'll improve with us just like Wiggins did". F*ckin sports fans, amiright
- I don't see how those things are contradictory though. Thinking Wiggins will regress to the mean probably means you'd be in favor of a Simmons trade though (as Simmons is a significantly better basketball player than Wiggins).
- Simmons might well improve with us. Wiggins did undoubtedly, and our system (uptempo, heavy transition opportunities for a grab and go guy, switching defense) suits Simmons much better than Philly's system.
- If someone believes both Wiggins and Simmons will not improve, then going for Simmons is quite possibly the right move as he has a much, much higher "mean".
Bear in mind I'm not advocating for a Simmons trade (I might be the most anti-Simmons guy on the board lol and I believe that Wiggins is a more useful or anti-fragile playoff player than Simmons for most roster constructions). But what you are considering as logical inconsistency seems to be logically coherent thinking.
Simmons must overcome an absolutely fatal flaw - poor free throw shooting (<35% in over 70 chances in the last 2 playoff series) - to even be considered to be a Warrior. He's not even worth a G-leaguer at a vet minimum salary if that can't be fixed.
Andre Iguodala shot 41% (27/65) from the FT line in our first title run in 14/15 (only the playoffs). It's a humongous flaw, but saying he's "not even worth a G-leaguer at a vet min" is dumb.
On a larger sample, Simmons has shot 60% for his career and 52% in the playoffs. Not exactly Kevin Durant but I think the 35% is not his true level.
Perhaps, but the thing I always keep in mind when a Wiggins/Simmons trade discussion resurfaces, is the other pieces we have to let go to acquire Ben. Which IMO wouldn't be the smart thing to do, considering how iffy his commitment to bball seems to be and the fact that the Warriors value character as well as talent.
I'll admit, I'm very anti-Simmons to the dubs and I'm very much pro-development/compete direction the team is taking.
Don't get me wrong, I think BS is a fine player, and was advocating for him last year but I believe continuity serves this team a lot better than giving up young, extremely talented players for a shorter window that still doesn't guarantee a championship. I mean, weren't the Nets supposed to be defending their title this season?
Agreed. Not many who’d resist a straight up Simmons-Wiggins trade, He’s obviously got some unique skills/size that are worth a little risk — but just a little. Not giving up Kuminga or Moody in the deal; could be convinced to send off Wiseman in a 3 team trade and maybe 1 draft pick, but that’s about it. At some point very quickly the downside risk isn’t worth giving up all that much.
The Nets would be defending their championship if 2 out of their 3 best players did not get injured. No team is surviving that, not even the KD Warriors did. Even after that, they lost a Random Ending series to the eventual champions.
I don't know how people can look at the Nets last year as a failed experiment.
Regression to the mean is the most reasonable position, not pessimistic. I am an optimist and think Wiggs can keep shooting well with the new context, but I recognize this is a causal story we tell ourselves to explain something that may just be a statistical anomaly.
I totally disagree. Regression to the mean makes sense for coin flips or other events with equal possibilities. It makes no sense in a world where active interventions to improve performance (diet, physical and mental training, system familiarity) are constantly taking place. That regression to the mean happens at all is likely due to aging, upset and injury (in the case where the regression is in a downward direction) or recovery from that (where performance gets better). The story to tell is one of continuous improvement and the coherent heart of Warriors' players getting better over time (that would be "light years") versus the rest of the league that is changing players, coaches and approaches all the time.
Regression to the mean happens often in the context of active interventions as well. Stock picking is an example - with interventions being increased data, access to management, etc. It also happens frequently in sports with all the examples you brought up. The reason it’s often discounted is that there isn’t a clear causal story we can tell ourselves, so we often discount based on cognitive biases. Read thinking fast and slow by kahneman for some more examples. Again, I am hopeful, but I recognize that’s an optimistic, not realistic take.
I had a rocket scientist friend (Ph.D from MIT) who liked to put together aphorisms that contradicted each other - "Penny saved is penny earned" with "Pennywise and pound foolish". "Don't sweat the small stuff" with "The Devil's in the details." "A stitch in time saves nine." with "Haste makes waste."
And while "past performance is the best predictor of future performance," it is still not a very good predictor(the correlation coefficient is, I think, .37. "Regression to the mean" as a predictor of future performance is about as good as my belief that athletes in the Warriors system, playing with Steph Curry, will improve.
It has a Colbert-like "truthiness" but I'd be surprised if a deep look proved "regression to the mean" to be a useful predictor in individual cases. The "of course" that we state after a player regresses to the mean is 20/20 hindsight.
I read Kahneman and Tversky years ago. Of course, we humans have many ways our judgment is colored by biases. The question for fans (or, at least, fans like me that believe that nobody in the Warriors' organization is going to take my musings as serious guides for action) is what position we should take regarding the future of our favorite players and teams.
In view of the ultimate unpredictability of the future, I would argue that there is no "realistic" take. The "takes" I prefer are the ones that make me feel good, or are more entertaining. Who predicted Juan Toscano-Anderson would have such a year last year? Or Jordan Poole? Or even that Steph would have one of his best years (where was that regression to the mean)?
Unless you've got access to the Akashic Records (in which case, please let me know who wins the NBA finals next year), give up your realism in favor of delightful hope.
lol that's funny, I always thought that pessimism implied an unreasonably negative take, but that's nowhere to be found in any definitions. I guess shit often sucks, and so pessimism often overlaps with realism.
Coaching switch up within the Warriors: Seth Cooper is now the head coach of the Santa Cruz Warriors and Kris Weems, who was the head coach, is moving into a player development coaching role for the Warriors.
Thanks for this Eric!
On that first head tap play where Wiggins was doubled, am I the only one who thought, “Does Wiggins even know a wide open DLee 3 is a GOOD thing?”
In all these examples, it looked like Wiggins thinks that he’s obligated to score himself since the play is called for him.
Good insight. I guess it takes a while to train the Minnesota out of someone
Slow day but:
[Wojnarowski] The Lakers have agreed to trade Marc Gasol, a 2024 second-round pick and cash to the Grizzlies for the draft rights to Wang Zhelin, sources tell ESPN. Deal saves Lakers $10M. Gasol and Grizzlies will work together on waiver and release to allow him to remain in Spain w/ family.
Is Memphis going to become this weird layover for aging vets that want to only play half a season or only the post season?
Hmmm, so Marc is just leaving the NBA? I thought GSW was courting him…
Okay, article said
After the tumult of the Orlando bubble in 2020 and the COVID-19 restrictions of the 2020-2021 season, Gasol made a decision to remain with his family in Spain for the start of the 2021-2022 season, sources said.
https://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/32183865/sources-los-angeles-lakers-again-trade-marc-gasol-memphis-grizzlies-plan-waive-veteran
Which is slightly more specific. There is a sliver of hope that he’ll rejoin later in the season.
This sounds like a buyout, likely using the cash that was included in the deal. I’m assuming Memphis doesn’t mind carrying the dead cap space and gets a 2nd rounder for their troubles.
...and then a sliver of hope that he'd choose the Warriors, if we want him. A sliver times a sliver is .... not much :)
SO YOU’RE SAYING THERE’S A CHANCE
If he will comeback , it would be to the Nets for sure 😅
One of the questions heading into next season is if Wiggins' improved shooting was a fluke season or if it was a sign of improvement (or at least a function of playing next to Curry and thus likely to continue). His FT% didn't really improve despite his 3P% and his midrange percentage improving. I also wonder how the lack of crowds affected things league-wide, I think I read there was a big spike in terms of number of (qualifying) players who shot 40+% from three last season. Unless that is where the NBA is trending towards?
I think I'd throw Wiggins' shooting into the giant pile of unknowns for next season. If he regresses back to like 33% from three, it'd be much harder to play him, Draymond, and a center together.
Wiggins' shooting numbers are a really strange beast.
Throughout his career he's been a pretty consistent 37-38 3PT% shooter when Open (the two outliers being '15-16 at 26%, '19-20 at 29.5%). He hit the nail on the head this past season, shooting 37.9% on Open threes.
What has been really inconsistent over his career is his Wide Open 3P% which varies wildly and is often LOWER than his Open percentages. What changed this past season was he hit 41.7% of his Wide Open while having never cracked 38% prior.
Interpret this as you wish but as long as he's getting more "Open" & "Wide Open" shots, I think he has a good chance to repeat or improve.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/e/2PACX-1vRBhpb_EYynbgEkWQwAiH7_b_e9WMl4t4OAqMEiYaQKN2fRhO-GTTsCQuVwZMN7lt8MySK1wSLuqITc/pub
Or at least not fall down to 33%
Source: https://www.nba.com/stats/player/203952/shots-dash/?Season=2020-21&SeasonType=Regular%20Season
If he regresses to 33% (which means he basically becomes a guy teams will leave wide open to help off), that means lineups with Wiggins, Dray and a C are unviable unless the C is a proper shooter like Bjelica.
It would put a ton of strain on the team defense if Wiggins and Draymond were tough to play together, for sure.
Here's the thing I thought I read, and it turns out I did indeed read it:
https://twitter.com/RejectedByBam/status/1427294769647063044
Fluke? Effect of fewer fans? Sign of a new era of shooting excellence? Is Nikola Vucevic now a 40% three point shooter on 6 attempts a game? Could be, but I'd throw that into an unknown category for Chicago as well. There are other guys too.
It makes sense that Curry opened up possibilities for him he didn't have before. It seems pessimistic to think he'll regress with Klay coming back and an improved group of shooters on the bench.
I don't think it's ever pessimistic to think that a player will regress towards their career average especially after an extreme outlier/breakout season like Wiggins just had. I would say that I'm cautiously optimistic that he will repeat, but it's likely that he'll be somewhere in between his average of 34% and his breakout of 38%, so maybe near the NBA average of 36-36.5%?
I'd actually be curious to see the timeframes for regression to the mean. Where is the room for improvement? Also, what is the impact of the "system" impacts? Basketball is not a game played by one person alone in a gym. It is not played by a player whose body is the same all the time.
Let's hope that the last season demonstrated Wiggins' improvement/breakout and system effects (Kerr/Curry, etc) and not a statistical aberration. This year we hope Wiggins' last season is the continuation of an upward trend line.
totally! I think we should all hope that, and it's entirely possible! Regression to the mean isn't a law, it's just something that's often likely to happen.
Could be. But Curry opened up possibilities for Oubre that Oubre didn't have before and Oubre's three point percentage went down from the previous season. If Wiggins had more than one good season shooting with the Warriors, it'd be easier to chalk it up to improvement/Curry. Hence, I'd throw it in the unknown category. Don't know why DFiB considers that a pessimistic take, a pessimistic take would be that I don't expect Wiggins to keep the shooting up, no?
Also though, if Wiggins hasn't improved as a shooter and shot a better percentage due to a Curry boost then that has to be factored into his overall value as a player. There were a lot of comparisons of Wiggins and Siakam this past summer that gave Wiggins the edge as a three point shooter, but if they swapped teams would Siakam get a similar boost and Wiggins go back to shooting 33%?
Siakam did shoot 37% from 3 in 2019
For those with all of the advanced stats at their fingertips, any way to look at Wiggins' shooting percentages when he was playing with primarily starters (i.e. Steph, Dray, Loon) vs. when he was anchoring the bench unit and expected to put up a greater number of shots as the first scoring option? If there's a significance difference there, that might be a good indicator of the impact of Steph's gravity on Wiggins' shooting.
Pessimists gonna pessimist...
Worried Wiggins will "regress to the mean" yet clamor for a Ben Simmons trade and say sh*t like "he'll improve with us just like Wiggins did". F*ckin sports fans, amiright
A couple of things about this:
- I don't see how those things are contradictory though. Thinking Wiggins will regress to the mean probably means you'd be in favor of a Simmons trade though (as Simmons is a significantly better basketball player than Wiggins).
- Simmons might well improve with us. Wiggins did undoubtedly, and our system (uptempo, heavy transition opportunities for a grab and go guy, switching defense) suits Simmons much better than Philly's system.
- If someone believes both Wiggins and Simmons will not improve, then going for Simmons is quite possibly the right move as he has a much, much higher "mean".
Bear in mind I'm not advocating for a Simmons trade (I might be the most anti-Simmons guy on the board lol and I believe that Wiggins is a more useful or anti-fragile playoff player than Simmons for most roster constructions). But what you are considering as logical inconsistency seems to be logically coherent thinking.
Simmons must overcome an absolutely fatal flaw - poor free throw shooting (<35% in over 70 chances in the last 2 playoff series) - to even be considered to be a Warrior. He's not even worth a G-leaguer at a vet minimum salary if that can't be fixed.
Andre Iguodala shot 41% (27/65) from the FT line in our first title run in 14/15 (only the playoffs). It's a humongous flaw, but saying he's "not even worth a G-leaguer at a vet min" is dumb.
On a larger sample, Simmons has shot 60% for his career and 52% in the playoffs. Not exactly Kevin Durant but I think the 35% is not his true level.
Perhaps, but the thing I always keep in mind when a Wiggins/Simmons trade discussion resurfaces, is the other pieces we have to let go to acquire Ben. Which IMO wouldn't be the smart thing to do, considering how iffy his commitment to bball seems to be and the fact that the Warriors value character as well as talent.
I'll admit, I'm very anti-Simmons to the dubs and I'm very much pro-development/compete direction the team is taking.
Don't get me wrong, I think BS is a fine player, and was advocating for him last year but I believe continuity serves this team a lot better than giving up young, extremely talented players for a shorter window that still doesn't guarantee a championship. I mean, weren't the Nets supposed to be defending their title this season?
Agreed. Not many who’d resist a straight up Simmons-Wiggins trade, He’s obviously got some unique skills/size that are worth a little risk — but just a little. Not giving up Kuminga or Moody in the deal; could be convinced to send off Wiseman in a 3 team trade and maybe 1 draft pick, but that’s about it. At some point very quickly the downside risk isn’t worth giving up all that much.
The Nets would be defending their championship if 2 out of their 3 best players did not get injured. No team is surviving that, not even the KD Warriors did. Even after that, they lost a Random Ending series to the eventual champions.
I don't know how people can look at the Nets last year as a failed experiment.
*Aren't
Regression to the mean is the most reasonable position, not pessimistic. I am an optimist and think Wiggs can keep shooting well with the new context, but I recognize this is a causal story we tell ourselves to explain something that may just be a statistical anomaly.
I totally disagree. Regression to the mean makes sense for coin flips or other events with equal possibilities. It makes no sense in a world where active interventions to improve performance (diet, physical and mental training, system familiarity) are constantly taking place. That regression to the mean happens at all is likely due to aging, upset and injury (in the case where the regression is in a downward direction) or recovery from that (where performance gets better). The story to tell is one of continuous improvement and the coherent heart of Warriors' players getting better over time (that would be "light years") versus the rest of the league that is changing players, coaches and approaches all the time.
Regression to the mean happens often in the context of active interventions as well. Stock picking is an example - with interventions being increased data, access to management, etc. It also happens frequently in sports with all the examples you brought up. The reason it’s often discounted is that there isn’t a clear causal story we can tell ourselves, so we often discount based on cognitive biases. Read thinking fast and slow by kahneman for some more examples. Again, I am hopeful, but I recognize that’s an optimistic, not realistic take.
I had a rocket scientist friend (Ph.D from MIT) who liked to put together aphorisms that contradicted each other - "Penny saved is penny earned" with "Pennywise and pound foolish". "Don't sweat the small stuff" with "The Devil's in the details." "A stitch in time saves nine." with "Haste makes waste."
And while "past performance is the best predictor of future performance," it is still not a very good predictor(the correlation coefficient is, I think, .37. "Regression to the mean" as a predictor of future performance is about as good as my belief that athletes in the Warriors system, playing with Steph Curry, will improve.
It has a Colbert-like "truthiness" but I'd be surprised if a deep look proved "regression to the mean" to be a useful predictor in individual cases. The "of course" that we state after a player regresses to the mean is 20/20 hindsight.
I read Kahneman and Tversky years ago. Of course, we humans have many ways our judgment is colored by biases. The question for fans (or, at least, fans like me that believe that nobody in the Warriors' organization is going to take my musings as serious guides for action) is what position we should take regarding the future of our favorite players and teams.
In view of the ultimate unpredictability of the future, I would argue that there is no "realistic" take. The "takes" I prefer are the ones that make me feel good, or are more entertaining. Who predicted Juan Toscano-Anderson would have such a year last year? Or Jordan Poole? Or even that Steph would have one of his best years (where was that regression to the mean)?
Unless you've got access to the Akashic Records (in which case, please let me know who wins the NBA finals next year), give up your realism in favor of delightful hope.
Pessimists often align with reasonable positions. It does not change the fact that they are pessimists.
I mean if you want to strategically redefine pessimism, sure. The way I look at it is there is optimism, realism, and pessimism.
I don't think I've redefined anything. Reasonable positions are just reasonable positions. Both pessimists & optimists can have reasonable positions.
I don't understand your concept of a third "realism" in the context of projecting the future.
lol that's funny, I always thought that pessimism implied an unreasonably negative take, but that's nowhere to be found in any definitions. I guess shit often sucks, and so pessimism often overlaps with realism.
OED: "a tendency to see the worst aspect of things or believe that the worst will happen"
In other news
***
Coaching switch up within the Warriors: Seth Cooper is now the head coach of the Santa Cruz Warriors and Kris Weems, who was the head coach, is moving into a player development coaching role for the Warriors.
https://twitter.com/anthonyvslater/status/1436356142062456833?s=21
***
Don’t know much about Cooper…
Previous SCW coach Aaron Miles also moved to GSW player development and Wikipedia considers that a promotion, so I assume Weems is happy about this…
While I’m looking, the SCW coaches and where they went after:
Kris Weems - player dev GSW
Aaron Miles - player dev GSW
Casey Hill - head coach G-League LAC (and then asst coach NOP)
Nate Bjorkgren(!!!) - head coach Iowa D-League (then Bakersfield D-L, then asst PHX, and eventually… head coach IND with spectacular firing)