RPM released

[DanSchwartzgan]

 

Noteable numbers.

Luka ranks 15th in the league. 5th among SFs. He has the worst DRPM among regular rotation players at -0.9. On offense he ranks 7th in the entire league.

Brunson really suprises with the 17th best overall RPM. 3rd among PGs. Nearly a +2 on defense.
Delon ranks 15th among PGs. JJB manages to sneak in right in front of him. Ranking 13th among PGs in a really small sample size.

Curry ranks 23th among SG. Only + 0.13 ORPM but +1.26 DRPM.
THJ is right behind him at 26. His numbers are the direct opposite of Currys. +1.26 ORPM, -0.05 DRPM.

DFS is the only regular Mavs rotation with a negative RPM (-0.23). Him being the 2nd worst defender (-0.85 DRPM) among them is a real suprise. Right now he is 38th among SFs.
Jackson is clearly in front of him. Negative on defense as well (-0.59 DRPM) but a big plus on offense (+1.28 ORPM). Ranking 24th among SFs.

Kleber and Powell are clearly in front of KP. Powell has balanced numbers (+0.6 ORPM on offense, +0.7 DRPM on defense). Ranking 13th in the league.
Kleber shows himself as a defensive specialist. He is by far the worst offensive player in the rotation (-1.42 ORPM) but also by far the best defender (+2.11 DRPM). Overall that leaves him with rank 22 among PFs. 9th on defense.
KP ranks 36th among PFs. -0.76 ORPM / 0.94 DRPM. Not a big suprise to see him that low but I expected him to be closer to Maxi on defense and even worse on offense.

Boban ranks 18th among centers. The numbers agree with the eye test. He ranks 6th on offense (+1.08 ORPM) but is a slight negative on defense (-0.03).


Interpretation: Always take RPM with a grain of salt.  

Brunson is an advanced stats darling this year.  The metrics at 538.com make him look good.  His PER is over 17 this year and his WS/48 is over .150.  The most interesting thing is he gets most of his minutes opposite Luka.  In fact, the only real knocks you can make against his numbers are that the sample size is small and he achieves those results mainly against bench players.

There is a narrative around here that this is a team of "6th/7th men" type players.  According to this, we may not have a "3rd man" type, but we have a team of 4th/5th man types, not 6th/7th.  One has to wonder what some of those offensive ratings would look like if Luka were replaced by an average PG.

Actually, we don't currently have a #2.  KP has never been good at O-RPM.  But, his D has typically been much better by this metric.  His prior two seasons had him ranked 9th and 14th best at PF, mostly on the strength of his defensive showing.  If the expectation is KP will soon return to being a 22 ppg all-star, take a look at his FG% and the number of shot attempts it took to get him to 22 points.  That has never been who he is.  In fact, his .500 TS% is by far the worst on the team (.067% worse than JJB, the next closest at .567%).  In fact, his career best TS% would be the worst on this team by .021%.  I'm not saying there isn't room for improvement with greater comfort and role definition.  But KP never was AD and probably never will be.

Whether we like it or not, the Mav's own analytics seem to have an element of this in it.  Matthews and Parsons were both RPM studs before arriving here.  However, TJ Warren has ranked 29th and 47th the last two years among SF's and is currently ranked 10th.  Sometimes just getting into the right situation helps.  He's having by far his best +/- year.  I wonder is something in the data showed that he could be a good player in the right situation.  His defensive numbers are good (I've never thought of him as a defender).  And he hits 40% of his 3's.  Imagine what this offense looks like with him in place of DFS.

Note Christian Wood's ranking as the 5th best PF.  Good for him.