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The Terry Duerod Fan Club, Ltd.
sweet·due (swēt-dū) n.
A Voluntary Association Dedicated To Moderately Timely And Occasionally Incisive Commentary On Professional Sports, With Particular Emphasis On The Teams Of The Boston Area. Since 2006.
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Blog Archive
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2006
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March
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- Even Bill Simmons can't resist
- Fun with graphs
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- Gomes Watch Update
- Basketball reports from outside of Boston, pt. 2
- Basketball reports from outside of Boston, pt. 1
- Movin' on up
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- We pause to consider this moment in Celtics history
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- Good thing Bradley lost?
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- Non-abortion related news from South Dakota
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- Al Jefferson's trade value slips a notch
- TMI Dept., Yao's Feet Div.
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- Grounds for divorce
- Bronson Arroyo to Cincinnati for Mo Pena.
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- T.O. to Dallas
- Gomes watch
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- Ron and Kobe, redux
- Well, that was ugly
- Most and least improved
- >sniff<
- Like shooting fish in a barrel
- Keeping up with the Jones
- More on Mr. Gomes
- NFL labor deal
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- Another look at Gomes and stats
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12 comments:
RE: Gomes
To follow up on my post from last month, here are the latest per game averages for Gomes since his insertion into the "starting" lineup on Feb 10th (the first day he played more than 30 minutes).
Total games: 12
Minutes per: 38.4
Points per: 15.1
Rebounds per: 8.7
Again, the most remarkable thing is his consistency. There have been only two games where he didn't score in double figures, and only one game with less than 5 rebounds. If you recall my last post, the key point is Gomes's consistency. In their best 7 game stretches, Perkins and Jefferson had better numbers per 48 minutes (although neither of them were able to stay on the court as long as Gomes). But I'd be willing to bet that Gomes is even on a per 48 minute basis over any 12 game stretch. If I have time tonight, I'll do the math.
Has Disney been in on the script for this season?
In each game that I've watched Gomes has had half a dozen plays that don't show up in the stat sheet but absolutely make a difference in these close wins. Last night Wally missed a jumper in the forth and Gomes went up in traffic between Salmons and Dalembert with basically no chance of coming down with the ball. So he punches it to Jefferson who is a few feet away on the other side of the basket for the wide open dunk. Great, great play. He does some crap like that every few minutes. It's just great to watch.
Strangely, with Blount gone, Perkins out and Jefferson wasting his second year as a pro the C's offense has started to look much more like the Jim O'Brien teams that lived and died with their outside shooting. There is no member of the current regular rotation who can post up and score within 5' of the basket. Raef draws the other team's center away from the paint and camps out behind the three point line. [insert PG here] does the same. Wally and Pierce initiate and offense by working off high screens and either drive to the hoop, look for cutters like Gomes coming through the paint, or rotate the ball outside for the 3.
First thought: how well does Perkins work with the rest of this lineup once he's back? He's mediocre on offense close to the basket and couldn't hit the side of the proverbial barn from more than 5' away. At the same time there's absolutely no question his rebounding and team defense around the rim would help a lot.
Second thought: Almost every time I watch Gomes play I think how Gerald Green should be playing college ball right now. Gomes is also making Jefferson look even worse by comparison. Twelve months ago Jefferson was the best young player on the team and talked about as the future of the franchise. Now he's no better than the 4th best.
Not to diminish the luster of the Ryan Gomes show, but last night it helped dramatically that the 76ers didn't play much defense at all. None of them rotated out on Raef, Wally and Greene, although all three obliged by missing a ton of 3s. Philly has come a long way from the hard-nosed defense they played under O'Brien and last night strategy seemed to be to double and triple team Pierce and wave an arm at everybody else, if you happened to be standing near them when they had the ball.
Full credit to Gomes for beating up a team that's playing like that. I'm waiting to see how he does against top teams and/or in the playoffs before I'm convinced that good games against .500 teams in February and March translate.
At the risk of ruining the good harmony on the blog at the moment, I think it's time to get over worrying about how Gomes will do against better power forwards in the league. He's not going to be an All Star. That we can agree on. But he's played against some teams with good frontcourts recently -- the Magic, Heat, Pacers, Raptors, and Suns.
There's no doubt that this is the stretch of the season where good teams are just biding their time before the playoffs. And admittedly some of those teams had their #1 guy down (like the Suns). But Gomes has played well, consistently, and against some decent competition, for 12 games now. Even if Gomes's production goes down to 10 points and 6 boards a game, and even if he gets eaten alive during the playoffs, that's still pretty good for an undersized power forward who realistically should be your 4th best frontcourt player.
Alright, I'll lay of being the buzz kill of the blog for a while.
I think we're all agreed that Gomes is not going to be the leading scoring option on the team. But good teams need guys who don't have to have the ball in their hands to make a contribution, and -- though, sadly, I haven't seen him play -- it sounds like Gomes can do that.
On a whim, I went over to Basketball-Reference.com to check out some stats. Let me preface this by saying that Gomes is by no means in any of these players leagues. Nor is there any reasonable expectation that Gomes's recent production will last, either over the course of a full season or a 10 year career. But still...
Here are 3 players who we are all intimately familiar with, and their career stats, per game, followed by Gomes stats over the past 12:
Derrick Coleman: 16 points, 9 rebounds
Christian Laettner: 12 points, 7 rebounds
Keith Van Horn: 17 points, 7 rebounds
Ryan Gomes: 15 points, 9 rebounds
Of the three, Van Horn is the most interesting comparison, given that unlike the other two, he doesn't have poor stats from the end of his career when he was washed up to dilute his numbers. Let me also say that all three players had, at their best, much better stats over the course of a year than Gomes is averaging in his last 12 games. But for a second round pick who couldn't get off the bench earlier this season, Gomes is playing pretty well. In fact, he's currently the only member of the Celtics youth movement (other than Delonte West) who looks like he could be in line for a $10 m per year contract when his rookie deal is done.
What I'd really like to do is to find current players who have averaged nearly his exact numbers over the course of a season and compare them, as well as their salaries. Maybe tonight.
Why wasn't Laettner more productive? I always thought he'd be better than that.
I went back and double-checked. Laettner actually scored 13 points per game, not 12 (I rounded down when I should have rounded up). But yeah, quite a mediocre pro career for one of the best college players ever.
There's no question that for a second round pick Ryan Gomes is playing incredibly well. Salim Stoudamire in Atlanta and Monta Ellis in Golden State are the only other two that I can think of that have made anything like the same impact. The majority of '05 second round picks will be lucky to play to the end of their rookie contracts. There should be little doubt now about Gomes' ability to play ten years in the league.
While I'm a big fan of using comps to provide some context for Gomes' future, I'm not sure that points and rebounds per game are the stats to use for these comps. Laettner, Coleman and Vanhorn are each 6'10-11" post players that were drafted high in the lottery because there was little question about their physical tools or their potential to play PF/C in the paint.
A better comp for Gomes might be Kenny Thomas. Both were big interior scorers in college who had/have to lose weight and diversify their offense to be regular contributors in the pros. Both play with a lot of hustle and have both a good nose for the ball, despite their small size. Thomas has done a good job of turning himself into the kind of player that can hold his own defending 4s for 35 minutes a night.
I suspect Thomas' MLE-level contract is also a good comp for what Gomes can expect if he keeps playing like this for the next few years.
By the way, I'll repeat my earlier comment: if you're not watching the Celtics these days the incredible player you're missing out on is Paul Pierce.
2-3 years ago the big knock on him was that he was just a shooter who didn't do enough to make his team-mates better. Now he's doing everything: rebounding, breaking down defenses, making great passes, playing the other team's best perimeter threat every night, and doing everything Doc Rivers and the coaching staff asks of him. Without Pierce feeding him over and over again out of double- and triple-teams there's no way Gomes is shooting something close to ~60% during his recent run. If Gomes has been the best thing to happen to the C's in the last month, Pierce has been the best alpha dog that Gomes could have played with his rookie year. You think Ryan would have looked nearly this good playing in the shadow of Kobe, Iverson or Wade?
Last night they flashed the stat that Pierce is the only player in the NBA to lead his team in points, rebounds, assists and steals. Let that sink in for a minute.
If the Celtics make a serious run at the final playoff spot in the East we should probably start counting the days until Bill Simmons writes a major piece plugging Pierce for MVP.
Agreed on your last point. I think Kenny Thomas is a pretty good comparison -- his career stats are 11 pts and 7 boards in just 30 minutes per game, and his 05-06 stats are very similar. If that's what Gomes gives you for a 10 year career, that's a great pick for a 2nd rounder, and solid value in the MLE range.
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