Thanks SK for noting the injury. So Mitchell doesnt get credit for changing to Calderon.
Ford starts Raptors went 1-3 in first 4 of that series. Game 5 Calderon gets the big minutes run because of injury and they win. Game 6 they lose by 1. If Calderon had started or played more in first 4 games could they have won 1 more and forced game 7 at home? Game 1 was close; he didnt shoot well but 8 assists 1 turnover in 21 minutes gets my attention. Ford went for 21 pts on good shooting but 2 assists 3 turnovers raises some questions. He increased the passing in game 2-4 but the turnovers were high in games 3 & 4 and for the series his A/TO was less than 2. Calderon's was only slightly better for series (because of lots of turnovers ingame 3) but has way better for season. Calderon early series play didnt give Mitchell a super strong case to change but Ford's team +/- on/off would have led me to shake things up faster.
Mike the playoff data is there at hoopsstats.com if you click to the "full stats" page
Thanks SK for noting the injury. So Mitchell doesnt get credit for changing to Calderon.
Ford starts Raptors went 1-3 in first 4 of that series. Game 5 Calderon gets the big minutes run because of injury and they win.
The Ford v. Calderon dispute always has multiple versions of stories being told. And some of the numbers that Mike G in particular have put out there have told mostly the same story I recall observing on TV.
But let me address these assertions specifically.
If you're saying that the Raptors went 1-3 in the first 4 games of that series because Ford started, and Calderon's large minutes in game 5 and start in game 6 made up that difference, I'd beg to differ. In game 5, the Raptors went up by 20 points by the end of the first quarter (mostly because Bargnani had a vendetta against the nylon, drilling everything he threw up), a time span in which Calderon went 2/3 from the floor with 2 assists (in about 5 minutes of play). So, that's really nice production, but it hardly created that 20 point lead. Subsequent to that, he played most of the rest of the way, during which the Raptors slowly but steadily frittered away the lead, especially in the fourth quarter. Calderon's fourth quarter heroics can be summed up in the last play of Game 6, of course.
Personally, I'd be more tempted to give the increased credit for games 5 and 6 to a healthy Bargnani, because while Nesterovic was efficient offensively and great defensively, could not make up for the lack of offensive production of Bosh. Yet Bosh gets a free pass from most Raptors' fans and TJ Ford gets a whole lot of post hoc, ergo propter hoc reasoning thrown at him.
In my opinion, the Raptors struggles in games 1-4 (and in the bulk of game 5) was due to the horrendous play of Bosh, their wing players (except Parker in the first 2 games), and the fact that Bargnani wasn't healthy yet.
Quote:
Game 6 they lose by 1. If Calderon had started or played more in first 4 games could they have won 1 more and forced game 7 at home? Game 1 was close; he didnt shoot well but 8 assists 1 turnover in 21 minutes gets my attention. Ford went for 21 pts on good shooting but 2 assists 3 turnovers raises some questions.
It does, indeed. Like, "why was he shooting so much?" It was mostly because nobody else could do anything offensively, and somebody needed to score. Personally, I believe that game 1 was close for two reasons: Ford's offensive production in the first half, and the Nets exclusively using a ridiculously ineffective Wince Carter for most of the fourth quarter. Other than that, the Nets smacked the Raptors around pretty hard.
Quote:
He increased the passing in game 2-4 but the turnovers were high in games 3 & 4 and for the series his A/TO was less than 2. Calderon's was only slightly better for series (because of lots of turnovers ingame 3) but has way better for season. Calderon early series play didnt give Mitchell a super strong case to change but Ford's team +/- on/off would have led me to shake things up faster.
Really? Jose was jorrible in games 3 and 4, shooting poorly and turning the ball over a lot, too. You might argue he played well in games 5 and 6, and he certainly did, but did he single-handedly rescue the team from Ford? I just don't believe that's the case. I think if Ford were the biggest obstacle to the Raptors winning in that series, they would have walked away with that series handily. There's just too much blame to go around on the offensive side to single out one guy, especially a guy who did his best to bail out the weak performances of his teammates.
Ford's stat line in game 3 was insanely good, and IIRC came to rescue his teammates, not to take away from them.
As usual, the Ford v. Calderon dispute often turns into people favouring one style of play over another, justification be damned...
Boris, I agree that Ford received too much blame for the Raptor's loss to New Jersey. It seemed the real difference was the switch from Joey Graham to Mo Peterson. Blame Sam Mitchell for not knowing to play Peterson from the outset.
I also agree that the difference between Ford and Calderon is more style than ability.
When Bosh was on the court and Calderon was at the point, the Raptors out scored opponents by +5.4 per forty-eight. When Ford was at the point that advantage shrunk to +1.7. Bosh, as an individual, also scored more and shot a significantly higher percentage (.526 to .487) when playing with Calderon. Advantage Calderon.
When Bosh was off the court the team struggled regardless of who manned the point. However, they did slightly better with Ford (-3.2) than with Calderon (-4.5). Advantage Ford.
I think this makes sense. Calderon's style is to act as a "floor general" running set plays (many of which are designed for Bosh), while Ford's strength is using his speed to break down the defense to create scoring opportunities. Looking at their individual statistics, you can see that, when playing with Bosh, Ford takes slightly more direct control of the offense than Calderon.
Code:
with Bosh on the court
Ford Calderon
PTS/40 17.3 15.7
AST/40 10.7 10.0
FG% .432 .516 ( Ford's extra production comes with lower scoring effeciency
TO/40 4.0 2.5 and more turnovers. )
However, when playing without Bosh, Ford really takes over, scoring almost six points more than Calderon (with little effect on his play-making or FG%.)
Perhaps strength of opponents or other factors are affecting these results, but the numbers reinforce my general impression from watching the team play: Calderon is more suited to starting (playing with Bosh), while Ford is better suited to "instant offense" off the bench.
Of course, Bryan Colangelo is the one deciding and I suspect he may see Ford's game as Nash-like and Calderon's as more Billups-like. So, I expect Colangelo to go with Ford for now (I prefer Calderon because I see Ford as more Marbury-like.)
Last edited by Charles on Mon Oct 15, 2007 3:49 pm; edited 2 times in total
Thanks for the insights Boris. I understand more of the complexity better now.
On one point though: Calderon was 6-6 from field in game 3 but 6 turnovers. Not great but I believe his offensive rating would still have been ok and about the same level as Ford's "insanely good" game based on 11-22 FG, a couple FTs and 4 turnovers. While Calderon's +/- was down in this game it was only moderately so at -5 in 38 minutes.
Raw +/- doesnt assign blame precisely and others may well deserve more blame (though Bosh was under more defensive pressure to shut him down I would think) but Ford at -10 per game as the team general was hard to accept. I'd have to see the adjusted +/- to understand the data better but Ford's raw +/- was 2nd worst among players who played a significant amount while Calderon's was 3rd best. It may not tell the whole story but it could still have something worth listening to.
On further review I see that Ford's raw team +/- improved from the horrendous game 1 and bad game 2 to some positives thereafter. Mitchell saw improvement from Ford. Averages don't tell the full story and my earlier remarks fall short for not noticing this.
Also good stuff Charles. Based on your numbers I lean a little more towards the view that Calderon with the starters offers more what the rest of team needs to be productive as a whole. Ford is a larger scorer role with bench make sense to me.
Peterson was associated with second best team +/- while on the court. Strong shooting, though not that many shots.
Colangelo's first season has hits and misses on player adds. Second season will provide more data to evaluate the pieces and his overall construction.
Last edited by Mountain on Mon Oct 15, 2007 7:22 pm; edited 1 time in total
Boris, I agree that Ford received too much blame for the Raptor's loss to New Jersey. It seemed the real difference was the switch from Joey Graham to Mo Peterson. Blame Sam Mitchell for not knowing to play Peterson from the outset.
Can you blame him? Morris Peterson did his best to replicate Charles Barkley's late-career Round Mound of Rebound act all season with his poor conditioning and extremely poor play, and Jabroni Graham actually shocked the entire world by putting together 4 or 5 good games towards the end of the season. I would have gone with Graham, too.
Quote:
When Bosh was on the court and Calderon was at the point, the Raptors out scored opponents by +5.4 per forty-eight. When Ford was at the point that advantage shrunk to +1.7. Bosh, as an individual, also scored more and shot a significantly higher percentage (.526 to .487) when playing with Calderon. Advantage Calderon.
When Bosh was off the court the team struggled regardless of who manned the point. However, they did slightly better with Ford (-3.2) than with Calderon (-4.5). Advantage Ford.
It's always a little touchy to make a lot of statistical points from such a limited data pool as one playoff series, where when a player has a streak of ineffective play it wildly skews the outcomes. Especially Bosh, who had some extremely terrible play and extremely great play (albeit not much) in the same series. Could it be that Calderon was the beneficiary of playing more minutes alongside Bosh when he didn't suck than 1) TJ Ford did? 2) when Bosh wasn't bordering on useless? I know Calderon played alongside Bosh in the 4th quarter of game 6, one of the rare effective times for Bosh during that series, so that brief stretch might wildly skew the results. As well, Calderon also played for half of the 1st quarter of game 5, when the Raptors were dismantling the Nets. That as well will tend to skew the stats (although Ford also benefitted from some of that as well, just not to the extent that Calderon did).
Quote:
I think this makes sense. Calderon's style is to act as a "floor general" running set plays (many of which are designed for Bosh), while Ford's strength is using his speed to break down the defense to create scoring opportunities.
I couldn't disagree more with your analysis here. In fact, Jose has far more opportunities to read the defense on ball screens than Ford does, mostly because Jose is far better at quickly reading the defense (IMO). Ford generally doesn't look to drive hard at the basket off ball screens, whereas that's Jose's primary instinct (and a laudable one). I've found that Jose is often extremely gifted at reading floor spacing, and when the paint isn't being adequately covered, he's at the rim and laying it in and falling to the floor (as he's wont to do after a layup) extremely quickly. Ford tends to come very cautiously off ball screens and look for the screener as he rolls to the basket or pops outside (depending upon the read of the defense), which I personally am opposed to. I personally adhere to the belief that the ball screen's primary function is to get the ballhandler exploding off the screen towards the basket and forcing the defense to react, which I think Jose does extremely well...when he doesn't fall in love with his jumper, of course.
Quote:
Looking at their individual statistics, you can see that, when playing with Bosh, Ford takes slightly more direct control of the offense than Calderon.
Are these numbers from that playoff series?
Quote:
Perhaps strength of opponents or other factors are affecting these results, but the numbers reinforce my general impression from watching the team play: Calderon is more suited to starting (playing with Bosh), while Ford is better suited to "instant offense" off the bench.
My suspicion is otherwise, because I believe Jose Calderon is the poorer defender of the two, and benefits from defenses that do not key to him. Ford, on the other hand, receives more defensive attention. Secondly, I think Ford tends to be far more efficient (even with a high usage rate) when he's not the primary scoring option on the team (even though he can be when he needs to be). I think if Parker is a tad more productive (his efficiency is already quite impressive) and Kapono plays anywhere nearly as well as he did last year, you'll see TJ looking far more effective. I really would be happier seeing TJ not be relied upon to produce a lot of scoring.
I also like the fact that he gets to the free throw line, which is something the Raptors do rather poorly apart from Bosh. I obviously don't think that can be understated on that team.
Thanks for the insights Boris. I understand more of the complexity better now.
On one point though: Calderon was 6-6 from field in game 3 but 6 turnovers. Not great but I believe his offensive rating would still have been ok and about the same level as Ford's "insane good" game based on 11-22 FG, a couple FTs and 4 turnovers. While Calderon's +/- was down in this game it was only moderately so at -5 in 38 minutes.
Ford also had 8 assists to go with 27 points on 11-22 shooting. Perhaps "insanely good" is a tad optimstic, but compared to what everybody else was doing, it was quite good. Especially on a high usage rate, and with Bosh sucking.
I'm not surprised Calderon's +/- wasn't that terrible that game. The game was over very quickly and New Jersey slacked off for most of the late 1st half and almost the entire 2nd half. It's only natural he'd benefit from that situation, just like I'm sure some of Ford's makes were against a more apathetic defense than he might have normally faced (?).
Quote:
Raw +/- doesnt assign blame precisely and others may well deserve more blame (though Bosh was under more defensive pressure to shut him down I would think) but Ford at -10 per game as the team general was hard to accept.
It's pretty hard to be that effective when your star player craps the bed for an entire series. You can put all the blame on Ford you want to, but the reality is that Bosh is the team's best offensive player and it was Bosh who was far less effective than normally.
Yes, Bosh was under defensive pressure, but not the kind you normally think of. NJ's defense sagged into the paint, and dared Dixon, Graham, Peterson, Parker, et al. to hit jump shots and make them come out of the paint. They couldn't do that, so the only option left was for Bosh to put up jump shots and out of confusion (something he even admitted to on his website) made some bad decisions. It's pretty hard to get a defense scrambling and find alternative ways to score when guys hold onto the ball for 4 seconds or so before deciding to hoist a jumper, which is what Bosh mostly did.
Once that defense can pack the paint with impunity (because nobody on the Raptors was going to outbattle them for offensive rebounds on those missed jumpers!) it's no surprise the assists were few in coming for both point guards, and they both had to become scorers.
Quote:
I'd have to see the adjusted +/- to understand the data better but Ford's raw +/- was 2nd worst among players who played a significant amount while Calderon's was 3rd best. It may not tell the whole story but it could still have something worth listening to.
Yes, it does communicate something, but as Mr. Oliver kept pointing out in his book, it should lead us to ask questions to what's happening on the floor.
I could very well be wrong about my analysis. I'm not a raving fanatic for TJ Ford by any stretch of the imagination. I frankly don't care who starts between the two, because as a Raptors fan I just hope whoever does it leads them to wins and whoever comes off the bench does so fairly effectively. But what I reacted to in that series was that Bosh looked entirely lost, Parker was inconsistent, Rasho played well offensively but he can only handle so much of the offensive load, the wings gave them nothing, so to combat that both point guards became more scoring-oriented. I'm okay with that. I'd say Ford's play single-handedly made a couple of those games close and Calderon's play up until crunch time in game 6 was one of the most inspiring moments of their season. If I'm looking to assess a lot of criticism in that series, both TJ and Jose are way down that list. My list starts with Bosh, Bargnani's appendix, and their wing players with everybody else way down that list.
Thanks honestly for the eyewitness material. I didnt see the series but was reading the stats to uncover what I could and learn more. With eyewitness and longterm past viewing and team awareness you certainly can do more.
I wasnt a big believer in Ford's acquistion, from afar. I like what I read and see of Calderon, from afar, as a potential trade or free-agent target. Maybe I was trying to assign a good share of the series loss on Ford based on that team +/- reading and existing PG biases built upon firsthand knowledge and some research on other small and big PGs. But every situation is different and I am glad to listen and put down that knowledge and bias
Overall I still have to wonder why the offense wasn't working well with Ford at helm. I do personally believe PGs deserve more than an equal share of credit or blame for team results than the other positions. But there is plenty of blame Colangelo to Mitchell to Bosh, etc.
The playoff series is a short data set but regular season Calderon better on raw team +/- for player pairings with Bosh, Parker, Garbajosa, Nesterovic, Graham or Peterson. So hey I lean toward starting him. But they aren't my team and I do not know them well from 1st hand observation. So I will take the points of those who have watched them closer under further consideration. Along with Mike G's work estimating starter vs sub effects (though player specific substitution pattern can differ from average pattern and result in a different level of opposition quality than generally assumed). There is a lot to making a fair assessment.
Last edited by Mountain on Mon Oct 22, 2007 10:05 pm; edited 2 times in total
Joined: 14 Jan 2005 Posts: 1705 Location: Delphi, Indiana
Posted: Tue Oct 16, 2007 7:38 am Post subject:
I guess I'd forgotten what an upset that NJ-Tor series was. From their regular season pt-diffs, we might have guessed Tor winning by an average 1.7 ppg, rather than losing by 5.4 . The swing was 7 PPG; Tor wasn't missing anyone, so the 'blame' can well be said to belong to player underperformance.
Probably I posted this as a playoff summary back in the Spring, but here's a recreation of the 6-game over/under-performances.
All the Raps appeared in 6 games, except Rasho (5). The numbers are 'units of production', i.e., standardized Pts, Reb, etc.
96/6 means 16 units per game, which translates to about 9 PPG. (This is more than the 7 mentioned above, but for now I've just averaged statistical weights across all first-round games.)
In any case, the ordering and general magnitude of players' ( + and - ) productions might place 'credit' and 'blame' where it's due. Even the better Raptors were outplayed, at pretty much the same positions.
This doesn't, of course, address the effect that a given player has on a given teammate. Maybe Ford hurt the team by leaving Bosh out of the offense, or some such thing. If Bosh is the team leader, he will step up. _________________ 40% of all statistics are wrong.
Raptors were missing Garbajosa, a loss that probably hurt chemistry and spiralled into several negatives.
His absence coupled with playing smaller than regular season (less Nesterovic) pushed Bosh from 60% center to 70% according to 82 games and I think I've heard he isnt that fond of playing center. Even with some downtime for Bargnani he went from playing 43% of the 48 available in regular season to 63% in the playoffs. And he was -10 per game on team +/- on court. Experience but maybe more than he could fully handle.
Individually he went from beating his PF counterpart by +4.3 in regular season to losing in playoffs by -1.6 (this is at the level of 48 minutes). Where was the slippage? Rebounding? At PF it appears not as he improved over regular season rebound deficit at PF to a small win. The biggest thing I see at PF was he went from 47% FG allowed regular season to 57% in playoffs. Shot defense doesnt appear in most rollup stats. His opponent didnt raise their pts per game but it did give them efficiency gain.
82 games also shows him as being generally successful playing at center, except for rebounding. But it is probably better to blend the PF and C data since the 82games position assignment is rule based and not visually confirmed. Overall Bargnani on the court was 2nd worst team defense by pts allowed and team FG% allowed increased by 7 percentage points. His offensive game was pretty good but that is only half the story. His defensive play contributed to the Raptor point differential slippage, perhaps by a couple points.
Bosh was still beating his counterpart by 10-15 a game in playoffs, in line with or better than regular season but the shooting efficiency slippage cost the Raptors about 3 points.
Bargnani's D and Bosh's O would seem to account for much of the change. How much different things in general and these things in particular would have been with Garbajosa we won't know for that series but presumably we will see him and the team working as a unit in playoffs next year. Bosh had tied for his highest scoring average with Garbojosa and it was his 3rd best player pair. Garbojosa/Bargnani didnt show significant overall impact but Garbajosa as a defensive alternative when Bargnani was having trouble with that could have been helpful.
With regard to the main topic again, Calderon "on" had better team offense and defense numbers than Ford. But it still might be that the Raptors needed Ford, or at least at times. Interesting case study. With 2 good PGs (or any such conflict) you need a maestro as coach. And as important as PG is at setting the table & tone, clearly there were other major things going on.
Losing Garajosa was unexpected but perhaps Colangelo needed something more than Humphries as a big man backup for smaller ball. I don't know enough about Charlie V. but he would have fit that need hypothetically if Garbojosa would have come over with him still there, maybe not. perhaps they could have been it fit with time available at SF. May check back on that trade again in a year or two. Calderon's 05-06 personal stats certainly werent strong overall but they were when he started and the team played better with him than James. I would have gambled and gone with Calderon as the starter in lieu of the Ford acquisition and gotten a cheaper PG backup. I don't see Ford as a cornerstone or a longterm significant impact cornerstone. If he is to be considered one, the team stats will have to improve further when he is on the court. Next real test- next playoff series.
Last edited by Mountain on Tue Oct 16, 2007 6:51 pm; edited 1 time in total
Using database at basketballvalue.com I see that in playoffs Toronto used 7 lineups over 10 minutes for 62.5% of total time.
The most used lineup was
Bosh- Peterson- Calderon- Bargnani- Parker.
It lost by -5 in 64 minutes which would be about Calderon's average team +/- loss. In regular season this was the 9th most used lineup and was 2nd best of the top 10, 6th best of top 20 so it seems like it was a good bet but every opponent will be different.
Ford- Bosh- Peterson- Bargnani- Parker was second most used, won by 3 compared to -29 regular season which was third worst of top 20.
Nesterovic - Ford- Bosh- Peterson- Parker 4th most used and best of the top 4 used over 20 minutes. Regular season that was 11th most used and a dog.
Small samples, reversal of results from regular season for these and other lineups. Mitchell couldn't really steer confidently by data on 5 man lineup results.
Garbajosa was part of 2 best performing regular season lineups per posession of top 15 most used. Those were not available.
Calderon was in each of that top 3 and 5 of top 6 if you take the list down to top 20 used.
Is 5 lineup analysis worth anything? It should be but it seems difficult to get much out of such small samples and opponent variation. Player triplets would give more minutes. You could look at a group of "similar" opponents and may be it would be of a bit more use. Perhaps you could take the data to adjusted +/- basis. But it is still pretty dark. Have to do it largely on feel I guess.
I wrote a post about TJ Ford this offseason for my Milwaukee Bucks blog, www.thebratwurst.com.
I looked at 82games.com's stats for Ford from 06-07 and 05-60, and it appeared to me that Ford's improvement mostly came from shooting free throws better and a fairly random fg% improvement on "in close" shots. his shot selection was pretty much the same.
The big improvement was his assist rate -- but wouldn't his teammates have something to do with that?
Quote:
So TJ didn’t shoot much better or reduce the bad shots much. But what about the assist rate? There is definite improvement there, right?
Once again, I’m not so sure. He went from having a rookie Andrew Bogut and Jamaal “stonehands” Magloire as his frontcourt to a highly efficient all-star Chris Bosh and Rasho Nesterovic (who shot 55%). Doesn’t it seem like any point guard would get one more assist a game by tossing it to Bosh instead of Bogut and also get one more by tossing it to Nesterovic instead of having it bounce off of Magloire’s hands? Also Bosh and Ford were close friends growing up in the Houston area. The chemsitry between them could also account for 1 more assist per game right there.
So I think the question of Ford vs. Calderon has more to do with who is the better player now ... because Calderon is about at his peak, and it seems that Ford wasn't so much an improving player but a player in a better system for him.
Tracking the before and after stats add to the discussion. Didnt know Ford and Bosh grew up together (or forgot it). That helps explain the move a lot. Keeping Bosh happy. Trade went down, then 2 weeks later Bosh signs extension.
I wrote a post about TJ Ford this offseason for my Milwaukee Bucks blog, www.thebratwurst.com.
I looked at 82games.com's stats for Ford from 06-07 and 05-60, and it appeared to me that Ford's improvement mostly came from shooting free throws better and a fairly random fg% improvement on "in close" shots. his shot selection was pretty much the same.
The big improvement was his assist rate -- but wouldn't his teammates have something to do with that?
Quote:
So TJ didn’t shoot much better or reduce the bad shots much. But what about the assist rate? There is definite improvement there, right?
Once again, I’m not so sure. He went from having a rookie Andrew Bogut and Jamaal “stonehands” Magloire as his frontcourt to a highly efficient all-star Chris Bosh and Rasho Nesterovic (who shot 55%). Doesn’t it seem like any point guard would get one more assist a game by tossing it to Bosh instead of Bogut and also get one more by tossing it to Nesterovic instead of having it bounce off of Magloire’s hands? Also Bosh and Ford were close friends growing up in the Houston area. The chemsitry between them could also account for 1 more assist per game right there.
So I think the question of Ford vs. Calderon has more to do with who is the better player now ... because Calderon is about at his peak, and it seems that Ford wasn't so much an improving player but a player in a better system for him.
I read your blog entry, and had some real difficulties with some of the assertions made. Firstly, including FT% in eFG%? Wouldn't you be referring to TS%, then? That's just quibbling over categories, however.
The attempt to put all the credit for TJ's increased production on luck or his teammates is somewhat hopeful, I think. Could it not be that he just got better, as young 3rd year guards are wont to do? In particular, his FG% was just over .450 before he got hurt in late January, and started to slide after he returned prematurely from injury. It declined down to .430 or so, but by the end of the season he was shooting much better, as evidenced in the series against NJ, where he shot nearly .500.
As far as comparing Toronto's bigs of 2006-7 to Milwaukee's bigs of 2005-6, why don't you also compare Milwaukee's wings of 2006-7 to the Raptors'? You think TJ might get a few more assists if he had Michael Redd and a healthy Bobby Simmons on his wing instead of Jorge Garbajosa, Joey Graham, Morris Peterson, and Anthony Parker? As much as Bosh might have an advantage on Magloire and Bogut, Rasho hardly shoots the ball at all (and even so, not much better than Bogut did in his rookie campaign). In fact, your Magloire vs. Nesterovic comparison kind of falls down when you realize that Rasho had 230 FG last year, and Magloire had 287 in 2005-6. So which team really helped him more in assists? In my opinion, this research is really superficial and doesn't tell us much. From my observation, Ford had a large jump in assists because while he still has his moments of poor decision-making (mostly because he is expected to be one of the Raptors' top scorers as well as its primary ball distributor) simply because he moved the ball very well in that offense for the most part.
I wouldn't say Bosh and Ford were close friends growing up at all. They played at a tournament or two and knew of each other (based on what they've said), but they didn't hang out and weren't friends, and didn't even grow up in the same area: Bosh is from Dallas, and TJ is from Houston. Now, granted, I'm a Canadian and I've only been to Texas twice, but last I looked Houston and Dallas were a long ways apart from each other, so they were hardly playing Nintendo and eating grilled cheese sandwiches at each other's homes when they were growing up. They were barely acquaintances, but in any regard, Bosh has long since learned his lesson about advocating personnel changes. As well, there was a feature on Raptors TV about the conversation that led to that trade. Colangelo called Milwaukee on draft day and originally asked about Williams, but they were more interested in moving Ford. And Colangelo's eyes went wide as saucers and it was a done deal 2 days later.
One thing I found absolutely laughable is the attempt to use raptorschat.ca as a supporting opinion for your idea that TJ Ford is somehow deficient as a point guard in some regards. For one, RC is not a particularly authoritative source. Secondly, it's inhabited by a lot of Spaniards who spare no effort to pounce on other players at the same position in order to promote their ideas of Spanish players starting (in this case, Calderon). Thirdly, those comments were made after Ford was admittedly sluggish after returning from injury in the Chicago game. Fourthly, Ford was given a disproportionate amount of the blame for the near choke job in that Chicago game in February. Believe me, I was on that board and watched it all go down.
I am not the biggest TJ Ford fan in the world. But I won't go grasping at straws to prove that any improvement he makes is due to everything except him, and (the flip side of the coin that I always hear) is that when the team falls down, it's entirely his doing alone. It's like people believe that improved +/- numbers with various lines are entirely due to a supposed upgrade of Ford to Calderon. Is Calderon that much better than TJ Ford to account for all that? No - but that apparently doesn't stop people from deploying the ever-popular post hoc, ergo propter hoc argument.
Tracking the before and after stats add to the discussion. Didnt know Ford and Bosh grew up together (or forgot it). That helps explain the move a lot. Keeping Bosh happy. Trade went down, then 2 weeks later Bosh signs extension.
1) They didn't grow up together at all. Bosh grew up near Dallas, Ford in Houston.
2) Bosh was going to sign the extension anyway.
3) Could it not just be that Bryan Colangelo took one look at TJ Ford and saw a PG he thinks is a good player and good for his system, and moved a guy who was not going to start in Toronto in the future to get him?
I don't understand the controversy, here. That was a good trade (on paper) for both teams, even though Charlie Villanueva will never be a big-minute starter in the NBA because he plays no defense at all. Toronto got a guy who wasn't going to flourish in Milwaukee, and Milwaukee got a guy who still might not flourish in Milwaukee, but who certainly wasn't going to in Toronto.
I was interested in the topic- and the original post asked for outside opinion- so I chimed in pieces of what I could find in the stats, hoping to learn more. It is a complicated story with many more pieces that others brought forward. I reacted to the discussion sometimes too fast or far so thanks for correcting my statements / adding to the information where necessary. At this point I'll leave it for and listen to those who have watched the Raptors closely.
All times are GMT - 5 Hours Goto page Previous1, 2, 3Next
Page 2 of 3
You cannot post new topics in this forum You cannot reply to topics in this forum You cannot edit your posts in this forum You cannot delete your posts in this forum You cannot vote in polls in this forum
FAQ
Search
Memberlist
Usergroups
Register
Profile
Log in to check your private messages
Log in
