Is Joel Embiid a star? Should the Wolves trade Ricky Rubio? Should the Warriors be worried? Jokic is good and do the Nuggets finally have a point guard?
Hosts
- Andres Alvarez(@nerdnumbers)
- Produced by Brian Foster (@boxscorebrian)
Sources
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Video Show
Reminder, my "regular" segment "the Top Ten Boxscores of the Week" is back! Thanks for all the great comments and feedback, keep em coming! Spoiler, Jokic is gonna be at least 20% of next week's list.
Joel Embiid has gotten a lot of hype. Deadspin calls him historically good. Some have asked if he belongs in the MVP race. We think he's a below average big in the NBA. And it boils down to turnovers and fouls, both of which are important.
People love "Behavioral Economics" in sports analytics it seems. Well, they seem to like praising them, while not reading the fine print. We tie a lot of today's show to "Behavioral Economics" to fallacies in sports.
We discuss how some use on/off and +/- statistics to say why Embiid is great (the Deadspin piece above.) Brian found a perfect image of how people think on/off statistics works, and I explain why it's a crap image and expand on the issues with on/off statistics.
We discuss NBAWowy's take on an on/off example - Chris Paul on the court without Blake or DeAndre. Of course, this amounts to 53 minutes of playing time. The Clippers have played over 2,000 minutes this NBA season. If this sample was an NBA game, it would be 72 seconds of playing time. Not a great sample size.
The Timberwolves are looking to trade Ricky Rubio. Our numbers indicate he's currently the Wolves best player. The Wolves have tried trading off one of their best players to rebuild twice now. Will the third time be a charm?
We also discuss arbitrage and how it should apply to the NBA. Namely, you should trade overvalued assets (like Andrew Wiggins) and not trade undervalued assets like Rubio.
We talk about an odd article on the Warriors that originally had the title "Why Steph Curry and Kevin Durant haven't clicked -- yet." The Warriors are the best team in the NBA, have better numbers (right now) than they ended last season with. Kevin Durant is playing career ball, and Curry is still star level. We talk how saying boring narratives doesn't always get clicks.
We give Nikola Jokic some love. Coach Nick called him the best passing center in the NBA. We note the Nuggets just need a point guard. They recently picked up Mo Williams. I note this is an iffy move unless they're using him for a future trade.
Brian brings up how TNT's studio broadcasting is going to expand to more exciting former players. We like some of the names like Brent Barry and Chris Webber. We'll see how it goes.
Brian gives a follow-up shout out to Awesome Games Done Quick 2017. They raised over $2.2 million for the Prevent Cancer Foundation.
Brian shouts out Dom Tullipso.
Brian shouts out Justin Wilcox the new Cal Bears head coach.
I shout out Aaron Rodgers, Jared Cook, and Mason Crosby.
WHAT A CATCH BY JARED COOK! GREEN BAY WINS!https://t.co/RPzsq5NJLq
— Athlete Advisory™ (@AthleteAdvisory) January 16, 2017
We shout out ProWrestlingTees who make fantastic shirts that both Brian and I have purchased. This is after I bought a comically bad t-shirt from a site called T-Shirt Bandits (I guess I should blame myself for trusting a site with that name.)