It’ll come down to the wire. It’s a fun ROY race
Biased, but I think it’s Cade. Surprised that the betting odds heavily favor Mobley. I put some money on Cade for ROY the other day because he was a longshot. Hoping it pays off nicely.
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I think the argument against Cade is the “of the year” part. I think Cade is the best player today, but his rough start counts. For me, the ROTY is Barnes, who is the only player according to advanced metrics (and they all seem to agree on the point) who has had a net positive impact on his team over the course of the entire season (also, he’s doing it on a pretty good team).
Doesn’t change my eval on Cade (see the post I just made on the 2022 draft discussion thread), but I think Barnes is the guy.
You put Mobley or Barnes on Detroit and they wouldn’t have NEAR the production of Cade and the Pistons would still be in dire need of an alpha. Likewise, you throw Cade on Cleveland or Toronto and I think both of their ceilings rise. Cade is the best player. Way too much was made about his slow start coming off of an injury. He’s showing he’s clearly the best rookie right now. He’s putting up numbers that only some of the greats have done in their rookie seasons. Plus you can pair him with any type of player and he will make them better. Mobley’s production fell off after Allen went out and Barnes fills a role, but isn’t relied on to be the man. It just seems like the narrative on ROY was decided way too early
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If Cade covets the award then I hope he gets it, but otherwise DGAF. He has exceeded expectations in many ways, and looks to me like the player in this draft most likely to be mentioned for an MVP award in the future (not saying he’s going to win one; just comparing to his peers). As a Pistons fan I have to say it’s very hard to process and a wonderful problem to have to watch my team and see a player of this caliber on it. Even our championship squads didn’t have individual players this incredibly good and able to dominate a game individually. I’m having trouble adjusting to this very exciting reality.
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Cade definitely wants it and the Pistons PR team has been campaigning lately
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I feel pretty strongly that Cade should be ROY and I think have a good take against NBA do-it all metrics. I wonder how well these do it all metrics are at quantifying the trade off between usage and effiency, and I don’t know if I’ve ever seen much discussion of it in NBA circles (besides a random article that I read in defense of Carmelo like a decade ago).
For example, Scottie Barnes has a 19.1% usage rate and a 97 TS+ (TS% normalized with 100 as average). Cade has a 27.4% usage rate and a 90 TS+. If you’re just writing a do it all metric it seems like how they are “grading players” is that Cade has a fairly negative true shooting% and thus the fact that he is taking more and more possessions is hurting his advanced metrics. By comparison, Scottie Barnes is ALSO below average effeciency but doesn’t take as much usage so he is “better offensively” just because he does less.
But that’s NOT how basketball works! Someone has to shoot everytime down the floor. Someone has to create offense in order to get good shots. And the reality is, you’re NEVER going to get a good shot every time down the floor. So, SOMEONE has to take those bad shots, and there is value in performing above or at expectations for those kind of shots even if they aren’t “effecient” overall.
Just having high usage is kind of inherently valuable in basketball that is dispoportionately more valuable than just a multiplying usage * effeciency. You probably don’t run into this math problem much when you’re just comparing superstars, but I would guess that these metrics probably underrate the value of the top end guys because of this, and they likely completely fall apart at lower levels of play (like this ROY race).
I feel like Ken Pom and Torvik player grading stats do a lot to deal with this trade-off in their numbers but I don’t think I’ve ever heard this in the NBA sphere.
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I want him to get it so he can start getting some foul calls.
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That’s a good reason!
Cade, it’s April and you’re not in Antarctica. No need for the expedition-grsde puffer.
My main argument, again, is that he missed time/was bad early, and that counts. If the argument is “who would I prefer going forward from today?” or even “who is best today?”, I’m on Cade.
I’m not saying you’re wrong on the all-in-ones, but would just note that usage ang Torvik’s PPG! doesn’t even touch defense which is half the game (and an aspect Barnes is superior in). I also think that Barnes also deserves credit for being a good 2-way player on a good team.
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But even if you factor in the slow start, his production has been so far and away better than everyone else since the all star break that it has to make up for that. Especially when there is a clear reason that can be pointed to for the slow start coming off of injury. Plus he plays on a significantly worse team. Cade’s overall stats are on par with some of the greats even with the slow start. Imagine what his numbers would look like with even a decent, not great start.
Team success should be mostly irrelevant for ROY. The top rookies are drafted by the worst teams. It’s not likely that one player takes a team from worst to playoffs. Toronto and Cleveland have much better rosters.
Not to mention voters look dumb when in 5 years Cade is a perennial all star but didn’t win ROY
I agree that the beginning of the season counts and acknowledge your take that Cade is the best today. But, I’m still making my argument taking that into account. The numbers I dropped are season-long. And I feel like Cade’s offensive numbers are just better than Barnes because of that multiplicative effect of usage.
Defense is definitely a factor, but tbh I think Barnes is a bit overrated there… Not like it’s Melo vs Tony Allen or something. I don’t think it’s a blowing out of the water thing but obviously that’s tough to quantify at all, and I’m probably biased.
On the team success thing, I don’t care about in a vacuum really, just about what is a player doing that leads to winning.
Nah, Barnes is a legitimate potential star on defense. He can guard 1-5, has great positional awareness, and has elite lateral quickness and footwork.
Sure, the numbers are season long, and Cade’s true shooting is still objectively poor (50%) and Barnes’ is above average. I acknowledge the usage argument but what that means is that a bunch of that usage is in additional missed shots and turnovers (and 1 assist per game margin, true).
I’m not using the team quality as a “winners get the award” thing as much as to contextualize the numbers - Barnes has guard-rails on what he’s asked to do (and not) because the team wants to win. Cade is (justifiably!) being allowed to run hog wild.
I’m not going to hang my entire argument on advanced stats but in terms of Net Rating, BPM, PER, Win-shares, APM, RAPTOR, etc etc etc the comparison between who is more valuable isn’t even close.
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Cade is also one of the most double teamed players in the entire league, which explains his high turnover numbers and low shot percentages. I don’t think anyone in their right mind would believe Scottie is a better shooter than Cade.
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We’ve made all our arguments I think, but I want to clarify that Barnes TS% is below average (as my first post outlined).
I certainly don’t. But Scottie does tend to take the vaaaast bulk of his attempts in zones where he is pretty efficient, which is different than being “a good shooter”.
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Lol, I thought Barnes 55% was definitionally average.
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League average is like 56.8% or something. It keeps raising every year I think.
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Having trouble in November, while coming off an injury, with no training camp, and no preseason, shouldn’t discount the rest of the season. And it’s not like his November was that bad.
And, like you said, it’s for the whole season. Match the season numbers up with Barnes and Cade looks pretty good in the matchup.
Cade, while being the primary focus of the opposing defense, is putting up 17.6 points, 5.6 rebounds, 5.6 assists, .7 blocks, and 1.3 steals.
Scottie, while being the 4th or 5th option, is getting 15.3 points, 7.5 rebounds, 3.5 assists, .8 blocks, and 1.2 steals.
Scottie has shot better from 2. Cade has shot better from 3 and the FT line.