Notable Moves by the Kings and the Cavs
The offseason has been full of headline-worthy moves. The Heat have shipped out Eddie Jones and brought in Jason Williams, Antoine Walker, and James Posey. The Lakers picked up Kwame Brown and dropped Caron Butler. The Bucks dropped $80 million for a player who is essentially a poor man's Steve Kerr. And Joe Johnson is being treated by the Hawks as if he is LeBron James.
But two teams made moves that will likely fly under the radar, but are definitely worth noting.
The Sacramento Kings once again showed why they have been such a consistently solid team under GM Geoff Petrie. After picking up a great shooter in Francisco Garcia in the draft, they supplemented with a solid 1-guard and an excellent power forward in Jason Hart and Shareef Abdur-Rahim, respectively. Hart played last year as a backup in Charlotte with an astounding PER (player efficiency rating) of 16.87, scoring 15 points with just under 8 assists per 40 minutes. In fact, this little known backup pg was among the best in the league last year. Still, they got him for a measley $3.5 million over a two year period.
The Shareef pick up was key as well. The 9-year veteran has averaged just under a 20 PER through his career, with a rating of 19 last year. In limited time, he has demonstrated that he is a remarkably efficient scorer, going at 20 pts/40 minutes last year with a TS% (true-shooting %) of 58%. While historically he is a slightly sub-par defender, his offensive talent is unquestionable. Perhaps the most striking thing is that when a similarity analysis is done, of all the NBA players that Abdur-Rahim has been most like through his career, names such as Kevin Garnett, Bob McAdoo, Grant Hill, Pau Gasol come up. To be able to get Shareef for a rather cheap price, especially considering that he made over $14 million last year alone, is quite a steal for the veteran who has never played in a playoff game.
It is worth noting that a similarity analysis is essentially taking a number of factors (rebound rate, assist rate, 2-pt rate, 3-pt rate, PER, etc.) and then calculating the "distance" between two players for all these factors. The player who has the least distance (error) from our player in question is the one that is most similar.
Discussion of similarity scores gives us a good transition to look at the Cavs under-the-radar acquisition of Donyell Marshall. The similarity scores of Donyell Marshall over his career have put him close to Jason Richardson, Josh Howard, Rashard Lewis, Shareef Abdur-Rahim, Shawn Kemp, Rasheed Wallace, and Bill Lambier. While this list is no Michael Jordan, Larry Bird, Dr. J style list, it is worth noting that there are some very talented power forwards and small forwards that Marshall has played like. He is a double-double on a per 40 minute basis going at 18 pts and 10 boards a game. On top of that, much like Rasheed and Rashard, he is a talented big man with a deep range. He attempted nearly 9 3's per 40 minutes last year, hitting on 42%. He is a fairly solid defender with capacity to be a tremendous offensive force (Offensive rating of 120 last year, league avg. was 106). And he plays remarkably efficiently, with a TS% of 59% and a PER of 20. Getting Marshall for just over $5 million/year playing fifth fiddle to LeBron, Hughes, Z, and Gooden? Seems like a steal to me.
But two teams made moves that will likely fly under the radar, but are definitely worth noting.
The Sacramento Kings once again showed why they have been such a consistently solid team under GM Geoff Petrie. After picking up a great shooter in Francisco Garcia in the draft, they supplemented with a solid 1-guard and an excellent power forward in Jason Hart and Shareef Abdur-Rahim, respectively. Hart played last year as a backup in Charlotte with an astounding PER (player efficiency rating) of 16.87, scoring 15 points with just under 8 assists per 40 minutes. In fact, this little known backup pg was among the best in the league last year. Still, they got him for a measley $3.5 million over a two year period.
The Shareef pick up was key as well. The 9-year veteran has averaged just under a 20 PER through his career, with a rating of 19 last year. In limited time, he has demonstrated that he is a remarkably efficient scorer, going at 20 pts/40 minutes last year with a TS% (true-shooting %) of 58%. While historically he is a slightly sub-par defender, his offensive talent is unquestionable. Perhaps the most striking thing is that when a similarity analysis is done, of all the NBA players that Abdur-Rahim has been most like through his career, names such as Kevin Garnett, Bob McAdoo, Grant Hill, Pau Gasol come up. To be able to get Shareef for a rather cheap price, especially considering that he made over $14 million last year alone, is quite a steal for the veteran who has never played in a playoff game.
It is worth noting that a similarity analysis is essentially taking a number of factors (rebound rate, assist rate, 2-pt rate, 3-pt rate, PER, etc.) and then calculating the "distance" between two players for all these factors. The player who has the least distance (error) from our player in question is the one that is most similar.
Discussion of similarity scores gives us a good transition to look at the Cavs under-the-radar acquisition of Donyell Marshall. The similarity scores of Donyell Marshall over his career have put him close to Jason Richardson, Josh Howard, Rashard Lewis, Shareef Abdur-Rahim, Shawn Kemp, Rasheed Wallace, and Bill Lambier. While this list is no Michael Jordan, Larry Bird, Dr. J style list, it is worth noting that there are some very talented power forwards and small forwards that Marshall has played like. He is a double-double on a per 40 minute basis going at 18 pts and 10 boards a game. On top of that, much like Rasheed and Rashard, he is a talented big man with a deep range. He attempted nearly 9 3's per 40 minutes last year, hitting on 42%. He is a fairly solid defender with capacity to be a tremendous offensive force (Offensive rating of 120 last year, league avg. was 106). And he plays remarkably efficiently, with a TS% of 59% and a PER of 20. Getting Marshall for just over $5 million/year playing fifth fiddle to LeBron, Hughes, Z, and Gooden? Seems like a steal to me.
posted by arun at 6:43 PM
2 Comments:
Cool, sweet new blog, i'll be reading it
Gooden and Marshall play the same spot, dont they?
the really should have been worried about getting a point man and a shooter to stretch out the defense. hughes fulfills neither. and marshall seems redundant.
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