FanPost

Dion Waiters, Efficiency Statistics, and Context

Walks, bases on balls, have been the rage amongst baseball prospectors for the last ten years. Plate discipline is supposed to be the best predictor of major league success. Moreover, on base percentage, finding players who get on base at least 35% of the time has become a must. The movie MoneyBall put the strategy on blast. Now, anyone off the bricks who wants to talk baseball prospects knows to ask whether a players bb% exceeds 10%. Guys with intense power or amazing speed are discounted in the prospect rankings, even though every team in the league needs a Adam Jones or god forbid a free swinging maniac like Vladimir Guerrero.

Here’s the thing, Billy Beane found that on base percentage was valuable and underappreciated. Therefore, a small market team like the A's could capitalize on the low price attached to the Hatteberg’s, etc. The rest of the world is hip now. And what does Beane do after others have caught on, he goes out and signs a free swinging Cuban slugger named Yoenis Cespedes.

The market had turned, with everybody paying a premium for strike zone judgment. As much as the Dodgers paid Yaisel Puig, it was less than others and he was still considered a question mark because of his aggressiveness at the plate. While Beane understood that walks are an efficient means of scoring, he also understands that efficiency must be put in context.

Efficiency is a tool towards winning, it is not the object. One of the statistic sabermetricians avoid is the correlation between efficiency and championships. The team that is the most efficient is not placed at the top of the rankings. Noone has yet ranked the most efficient teams, then gone to a sports betting parlor and shut it down. Billy Beane’s actual long term strategy is to find undervalued assets, not to win the efficiency title.

But that’s not exactly what this essay is about, especially since I do believe that efficiency and the statistics that measure it are extremely valuable and have made baseball and basketball prospecting a much more exciting and smarter endeavor. I only mean to insist that talent evaluation is still just as much art as it is science. And Dion Waiters perfectly illustrates this.

The knock on Dion is that his game is inefficient. There is also the belief that he is a knucklehead. Perhaps he doesn’t get along with his teammates or coaches, perhaps he only plays his style--the same as another #3 we all know and most love. After all, there’s some reason why he came off the bench for hall of fame coach Jim Boeheim, as well as not so hall of fame coach Mike Brown. If being a knucklehead is the reason for not wanting Dion Waiters, I get that. I might still disagree, but I’m in no position to defend his character since I don’t know the dude at all.

The stats also suggest he plays poor defense. That alone could disqualify him from a Hinkie build team. And I’d be okay with passing on his talents for that reason, strictly.

Still, despite his back up status, Cleveland drafted him #4 in the 2012 draft, and they wouldn’t trade him for Hawes last year. In the NBA rookie/sophomore game, he put on a show, and I think his game is well respected by his peers. For the right price, I think the Sixers and most teams in the league would be happy to have him.

But, as Liberty Ballers pointed out, his game is inefficient. Basketball analysts, following the baseball model, have identified open three pointers, shots at the rim and free throws, as the most efficient ways to score in the NBA. I have no qualm with this claim. If you take only shots at the rim, open threes and free throws, there is no doubt you stand an excellent chance to win an NBA game.

Dion Waiters, the numbers demonstrate, takes a lot of two point shots from outside the paint and he finishes at a low percentage at the rim. This is where I take an issue with doctrinal rigidity and the absence of context. Even though he finishes at a low percentage at the rim compared to all players in the league, is it as bad if you compare him to those who play his position, or players that are already on the Sixers like MCW and Tony Wroten? Aren’t all three of them learning to finish stronger at the rim? I’m actually very surprised that he would be considered a poor finisher, because he seems to be quite athletic, to me at least. How does his conversion percentage rank with those in the same role as his, sixth man scorer?

I don’t know where they rank, myself. I’m just saying there’s more to evaluating a player than applying a simple statistical standard.

Which brings me to the next piece of context: The stats do not say he doesn’t attack the rim, it says his conversion percentages are low. Neither do the statistics say he shoots a poor three percentage. Nor do they say he doesn’t take three pointers, or get to the line for that matter. Which means, he has the rare attribute that he scores from everywhere!

If you think about it, we are criticizing him, a scoring guard, for having a well-rounded offensive game. Some of his conversion percentages from two point land are better than his and others at the rim. In that context, the more efficient play is Dion getting an open two rather than a poor finisher dashing and crashing into the lane.

In other words, teams don’t fill out an application to shoot open threes, get shots at the rim and the free throw. They have to get them against a defense trying to prevent them. When defenses have those areas covered and the clock is running down, a player that can get his own shot and convert at a 40-50% rate, rather than jacking up contested threes, is an asset not a liability. Having a player that can get his shot from anywhere, who requires the other team to provide help defense, is one who helps his team get open threes and shots at the rim for his other teammates. We saw last year how the absence of that scoring allowed other teams to cover us on the perimeter and at the rim. And that’s not just a problem for us, it’s always been a problem in the NBA.

Lastly, we don’t know whether his shot selection was encouraged or discouraged by Cleveland coaching, or whether and why he would’nt buy into a three-and-dunk regime. Funny thing is, old school heads like myself and those who probably have coached Dion all his life, complain incessantly about today’s players lacking a mid range game, complaining that ‘kids today’ lack offensive versatility. Waiters is one who brings it all to the table, offensively, and is being criticized by the new school for it! Lol.

If the future is MCW, Saric, Embiid, and Noel, I don’t get how we couldn’t use a two guard who wants to and could possibly average thirty, by scoring from everywhere on the floor. Of course, you want him to work within the system, and participate in offensive sets that get other players open looks. But when the plays break down, and someone needs to create offense, a player like Dion is a must.

It doesn’t have to be Waiters. I can live very well without him. And if attitude and defense are the objections, I have little to counter that. But the inefficiency of his game, the concept of efficiency generally, should be placed in proper context.

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