Morrissey rips Noah Options

[Balta1701-B]

Today's tribune piece.

As a rookie last season, he got into a verbal altercation with an assistant coach. Earlier that season, he criticized his teammates for a lack of togetherness. Former coach Scott Skiles noted that had Noah actually played more than one NBA game at the time he spouted off, the criticism might have had some meaning.

The truth about professional sports is that if you can play, you can get away with just about anything. In that sense, Noah's problem is a complete lack of awareness. He thinks he can play. And because of it, he gets himself in all sorts of situations he should avoid if he wants to have an NBA career that lasts longer than a few seasons.

The difference between Hughes and the double-headed, inconsistent monster of Noah and Thomas is that Hughes can play a little bit. Those of us who have been waiting for Thomas to fulfill his potential are inching toward giving up, and those of us who never thought Noah was any good have, unfortunately, been proven right.

Noah informed Andres Nocioni last week that he had missed a defensive assignment, leading to a verbal altercation. That's called being out of touch. Nocioni is to defensive effort what a tornado chaser is to bad hair.

Noah's supporters say he's a monument to hustle. No. He's the king of looking like he's hustling.

When you're 6 feet 11 inches, wave your arms with exaggerated gestures and have a ponytail that bobs as you run up and down the court, you tend to look busy. He's averaging 4.5 points, 5.9 rebounds and 18.2 minutes per game. The numbers say he's not worth the hassle.

While I'm at it, a response from Truehoop:

I think that's a case of old-school stats deceiving. Because more sophisticated numbers show Noah's one of the best rebounders in the NBA per minute. Noah is third in the whole NBA getting offensive boards, and his overall rebound rate is ahead of that of Shaquille O'Neal, Tim Duncan, Antonio McDyess, Kendrick Perkins, David Lee, Ben Wallace, Yao Ming and many other big names among big men. Noah looks like a bit of a spaz out there -- agreed -- but he is not unproductive.

So what do you think happens here? Maybe being called out focuses him quite a bit more, and he winds up proving RM wrong? Maybe Paxson reads this column and does dump Noah for virtually nothing, setting up our Gooden-at-Center lineup for life and giving Larry Hughes more minutes. Maybe someday VDN plays Noah more minutes and we see if his rebounding rate stays the same, such that he actually looks like he's putting up good numbers?

[SoxFan1]

Clearly he sucks because of a lack of minutes and also because of the small lineup.

[Balta1701-B]

Clearly he sucks because of a lack of minutes and also because of the small lineup.

At least with the lack of minutes, that would be what a projection of the #'s that TH sites says.

[SoxFan1]

At least with the lack of minutes, that would be what a projection of the #'s that TH sites says.

There isn't a player in the NBA whose numbers don't look better when you multiply them by 2.

[Balta1701-B]

There isn't a player in the NBA whose numbers don't look better when you multiply them by 2.

Larry Hughes?

[ZoomSlowik]

Larry Hughes?

But he's averaging 18 points per 40 minutes!

[Chicago Bulls Fr...]

But he's averaging 18 points per 40 minutes!

40 minutes isn't enough for Larry Hughes.. He'd biitch and complain still because he's not playing a full game.

[Steve9347]

Noah really does suck, but the entire Bulls front court is a joke.

There should be mass articles ripping Reinsdorf and Paxson, not Noah.

[Balta1701-B]

Another piece here saying that Noah doesn't suck but that anyone's numbers will look bad if they are buried on the bench.

As we often do here, let’s look a bit more closely at the numbers. We will start with a comparison of Noah, Aaron Gray, and Spencer Hawes. Each of these players was selected in the 2007 draft. Noah was selected with the 9th overall pick, Hawes went one pick later, and the Bulls took Gray in the second round. In sum, Hawes and Gray are Chicago’s alternatives to Noah. In 2007 Chicago could have selected Hawes. And today, Gray is often being chosen over Noah. Across the last 16 games, it’s Gray who has been the primary starter at center for the Bulls.

When we look at the numbers - reported in Table One - we see that Noah is actually offering more per-minute than either alternative. You wouldn’t see this, though, if you focus solely on point production. Noah certainly leaves much to be desired as a scorer. With respect to all of the scoring stats, Noah is below average. When we move past scoring, though, we see that Noah excels in everything except personal fouls. In sum, there is much to like about Noah. At least, as long as you look at more than scoring.

...
To put Noah’s production in perspective, let’s look at the 10th player chosen in 2007. Spencer Hawes - who plays about 10 minutes more per game than Noah — is below average with respect to everything except taking shots from the field, shooting efficiency from the free throw line, blocked shots, and assists. But because Hawes takes an above average quantity of shots, some people have argued that he is a better player than Greg Oden. And I suspect many would take Hawes over Noah. The numbers, though, suggest Chicago made the right decision in the summer of 2007.

Despite the story the numbers are saying, Chicago is acting like they made the wrong choice. Noah is only averaging 18 minutes per game this season and as noted, recently Gray is starting at center for Chicago.

...
And when we look at Wins Produced, we see that Chicago is actually getting quite a bit from Noah. In fact - as Table Two indicates — Noah currently leads this team in both WP48 [Wins Produced per 48 minutes] and Wins Production.

Unfortunately for the Bulls (of the players who have played 500 minutes this year) only Aaron Gray is more productive than even an average player. And Gray plays the same position as Noah (and he’s not offering as much as Noah). At every other position, the players getting minutes are below average. In other words, every other player getting significant minutes is “not good” (at least, not so far this season).

Actual data and numbers @ link.

[jorgefabregas]

Do any of those metrics factor in defense? Because my impression is that Noah is not much of a defender. Though Morrissey certainly seeems to overrate Nocioni's defense as well.

Also, I am suspicious of any metric that suggests that Gray and Noah are more productive/efficient than Derrick Rose.

[ZoomSlowik]

Using per-minute stats for bench players is often highly misleading. People always want to extrapolate them out to starter minutes but it simply doesn't work that way. We've been through this several times with Tyrus, he's not going to average 14 rebounds because he rebounded at that rate in limited time. For one, their good games tend to carry more weight statistically because they're generally not on the floor very long when they're playing poorly. Secondly, a very good chunk of their production comes against the other team's second unit instead of against the starters, inflating both their stats and plus/minus numbers. Case in point: Nocioni has a rating of +13.2 when he's on the floor while Rose is at -7.8 despite the fact that the latter is a far better player. Win shares create a similar problem, it's hard for good players that play heavy minutes on bad teams (ie Gordon and Rose) to rack up decent ratings when they're usually the ones taking the brunt of the beating from the opposing team's star players.

Noah doesn't play more for a variety of reasons. His conditioning has been a serious problem at times, he fouls at a pretty high rate (2.7 in 18 MPG), he's often out of position on both sides of the floor, teams don't even have to think about guarding him more than a few feet from the basket, and he can't guard bigger post players (which matters because Tyrus and Noc can't either and Gooden really shouldn't, giving him fewer opportunities). The only reason he isn't a complete scrub is because he has above average mobility, good length and usually plays with energy.