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MVP
When Marshall Plumlee first anointed himself ‘MVP’ (Most Voluptuous Plumlee) it began to raise the question of who the legitimate MVP (Most Valuable Player) for this Duke team was. In this case, I base my pick on whom would be the biggest loss from the lineup by looking for the largest drop off from team efficiency when the player is taken out of the lineup.
As Duke’s horrendous luck with foot injuries to their bigs continues, the case study becomes more fascinating than ever. Ryan Kelly, presumed to be the MVP, was a key to offensive spacing and matchups for the Blue Devils, who now lack that big weapon in the arsenal.
In order to find the statistical MVP, you can’t simply look at each players efficiencies. You must also look at the numbers of the replacements. For example, we can hypothesize that if UNC lost Dexter Strickland to injury, it would mean very little as PJ Hairston (a more efficient player) would step in.
Let’s work our way down the lineup:
(PER – ORtg – DRtg – MPG)
PG: Quinn Cook (18.94 – 113.9 – 89.4 – 33.5)
Replacement: Tyler Thornton (11.15 – 103.3 – 87.3 – 21.3)
Cook has been one of the revelations for the Blue Devils this season as his defense has improved considerably. Thornton is the steady leader who has his limitations but makes up for it with heady, hustle plays. The difference between the players, as you can see in their numbers, is that Thornton is a slightly more efficient defensively but the team loses, over 70 possessions, 7 points per game if Cook were to go down injured. The defense would be improved by 1.4 points over the same game.
Cook’s Net Worth: 5.6 points above replacement (PAR)
SG: Seth Curry (21.14 – 121.8 – 96.9 – 30.4)
Replacements: Thornton, Alex Murphy (13.8 – 93.2 – 88.4 – 5.5)
In the only game that Seth Curry has sat out this year, Thornton logged 33 minutes and Murphy sweated out 21 minutes. In a tight, ACC game, I don’t expect to see Murphy get 21 minutes like he did against Delaware. However, with Curry out that frees up 30 minutes of playing time and Duke is suddenly without a bench to play unless Murphy steps in. So, ten extra minutes go to Thornton and twenty go to Murhpy. (More likely scenario sees Sulaimon play closer to 40 but that is nearly impossible to estimate)
For this situation, we need to find the point differential for the extra ten minutes Thornton gets and then Murphy’s time. For Thornton, we see that Curry is 18.5 points per 100 better on offense, while TT is 9.6 points better on defense. Brought back to 70 possessions, Curry is +12.95 on offense and – 6.72 on defense. However, we need to find the difference for just ten minutes, which works out to +3.2 on offense, -1.7 on defense.
Curry is only 1.5 points better than Thornton in those ten minutes.
The real separator for Curry comes with Murphy. In 20 minutes, roughly 35 possessions, Curry is 10.0 points greater on offense and only 2.97 points worse.
Curry’s Net Worth: 8.5 PAR
SG: Rasheed Sulaimon (14.88 – 108.1 – 92.8 – 29.5)
Replacements: Thornton, Murphy
I don’t think there is anyone in their right mind that believes playing Amile Jefferson on the perimeter is a good idea. Even if Kelly is healthy and you move him to the 3, you change the team dynamic by adding another low post player that clutters the lane for Mason Plumlee.
Instead, we fill in Murphy and Thornton for this position with a similar minute distribution for Curry’s spot. Fact of the matter, in Duke’s offense, Curry and Sulaimon are interchangeable in terms of role.
Rasheed comes out at only 0.84 points better on offense over the additional ten minutes for Thornton. However, Tyler comes out ahead overall because he is 0.96 points better defensively. In a basketball sense, trading Sulaimon for Thornton over ten minutes is largely negligible. Statistically, Thornton is 0.12 points better. If the minutes were more, Thornton actually grades out a bit better for the team.
Murphy, on the other hand, isn’t nearly as good as Sulaimon or Thornton on offense. Over twenty minutes, for our sakes we’re using 35 possessions, Murphy rates 5.2 points worse on offense but 1.5 points better defensively.
Sulaimon’s Net Worth: 3.6 PAR
PF: Ryan Kelly (25.3 – 131.2 – 89.7 – 28.3)
Replacements: Amile Jefferson (19.1 – 110.7 – 87.9 – 10.2)
An interesting case as swapping Kelly for Jefferson has completely changed the offense. Now, Duke is playing more high-low basketball and Jefferson is contributing more rebounding and scoring in the paint. Kelly’s absence we know has affected the offense by between 8 and 9 points just based off the points per possessions numbers from the Georgia Tech and NC State games. Duke’s ppp rate dropped from 1.18 to 1.04 without him.
In the mean time, Jefferson has asserted himself as a force on the boards (if he qualified, his 15.3% offensive rebounding rate would find him a slot in the top 30 in the country) and an effective scorer in the post.
Prior to his breakout, this difference might have been larger but Jefferson has shown that his role of cleaning up missed shots and sinking put backs actually proves quite valuable to a team that is missing more shots due to the spacing Kelly brought.
Instead of just taking the difference in minutes and applying them, I’m going to swap their minutes altogether because Jefferson’s numbers have altered severely since Kelly went down, thus painting a slightly inaccurate picture from minutes played.
The difference over thirty minutes offensively is that Kelly brings in 10.8 more points. Defensively, Jefferson rates slightly better than Kelly (although Kelly is a much better defender in isolation sets) at 0.95 points.
Kelly’s Net Worth: 9.85 PAR
C: Mason Plumlee (27.6 – 116.2 – 83.0 – 34.0)
Replacements: Jefferson, Hairston (5.5 – 94.7 – 94.0 – 12.1)
It is totally reasonable for someone to say Marshall would get minutes here if Mason were to go down. I don’t disagree. The question is how much. Jefferson has shown to more than adept at playing the low block and K has shown to favor Hairston there as well to spell the ACC Player of the Year candidate.
For this instance, we’re going to assume that Kelly is healthy and getting the lion’s share of the minutes at the 4 opening up Jefferson to get the majority of the minutes at the 5. Because of that, I can only assume Jefferson would get all of Plumlee’s minutes and Hairston would give breathers to both Kelly and Jefferson.
Jefferson, in 34 minutes, would actually only be a 3.3 point downgrade from Plumlee. Defensively, Jefferson isn’t quite as bad as you’d presume, compared to Plumlee. Plumlee rates at 4.16 points better on the other side of the ball.
Plumlee’s Net Worth: 7.46 PAR
Overall, we see that Ryan Kelly is in fact the most valuable player in terms of strict efficiency numbers. Somewhat surprising is the fact that Curry is actually more valuable compared to his replacements than Plumlee. Even more interesting is that if Tyler Thornton were getting Sulaimon’s minutes, theoretically, Duke would be better off.
When Marshall Plumlee first anointed himself ‘MVP’ (Most Voluptuous Plumlee) it began to raise the question of who the legitimate MVP (Most Valuable Player) for this Duke team was. In this case, I base my pick on whom would be the biggest loss from the lineup by looking for the largest drop off from team efficiency when the player is taken out of the lineup.
As Duke’s horrendous luck with foot injuries to their bigs continues, the case study becomes more fascinating than ever. Ryan Kelly, presumed to be the MVP, was a key to offensive spacing and matchups for the Blue Devils, who now lack that big weapon in the arsenal.
In order to find the statistical MVP, you can’t simply look at each players efficiencies. You must also look at the numbers of the replacements. For example, we can hypothesize that if UNC lost Dexter Strickland to injury, it would mean very little as PJ Hairston (a more efficient player) would step in.
Let’s work our way down the lineup:
(PER – ORtg – DRtg – MPG)
PG: Quinn Cook (18.94 – 113.9 – 89.4 – 33.5)
Replacement: Tyler Thornton (11.15 – 103.3 – 87.3 – 21.3)
Cook has been one of the revelations for the Blue Devils this season as his defense has improved considerably. Thornton is the steady leader who has his limitations but makes up for it with heady, hustle plays. The difference between the players, as you can see in their numbers, is that Thornton is a slightly more efficient defensively but the team loses, over 70 possessions, 7 points per game if Cook were to go down injured. The defense would be improved by 1.4 points over the same game.
Cook’s Net Worth: 5.6 points above replacement (PAR)
SG: Seth Curry (21.14 – 121.8 – 96.9 – 30.4)
Replacements: Thornton, Alex Murphy (13.8 – 93.2 – 88.4 – 5.5)
In the only game that Seth Curry has sat out this year, Thornton logged 33 minutes and Murphy sweated out 21 minutes. In a tight, ACC game, I don’t expect to see Murphy get 21 minutes like he did against Delaware. However, with Curry out that frees up 30 minutes of playing time and Duke is suddenly without a bench to play unless Murphy steps in. So, ten extra minutes go to Thornton and twenty go to Murhpy. (More likely scenario sees Sulaimon play closer to 40 but that is nearly impossible to estimate)
For this situation, we need to find the point differential for the extra ten minutes Thornton gets and then Murphy’s time. For Thornton, we see that Curry is 18.5 points per 100 better on offense, while TT is 9.6 points better on defense. Brought back to 70 possessions, Curry is +12.95 on offense and – 6.72 on defense. However, we need to find the difference for just ten minutes, which works out to +3.2 on offense, -1.7 on defense.
Curry is only 1.5 points better than Thornton in those ten minutes.
The real separator for Curry comes with Murphy. In 20 minutes, roughly 35 possessions, Curry is 10.0 points greater on offense and only 2.97 points worse.
Curry’s Net Worth: 8.5 PAR
SG: Rasheed Sulaimon (14.88 – 108.1 – 92.8 – 29.5)
Replacements: Thornton, Murphy
I don’t think there is anyone in their right mind that believes playing Amile Jefferson on the perimeter is a good idea. Even if Kelly is healthy and you move him to the 3, you change the team dynamic by adding another low post player that clutters the lane for Mason Plumlee.
Instead, we fill in Murphy and Thornton for this position with a similar minute distribution for Curry’s spot. Fact of the matter, in Duke’s offense, Curry and Sulaimon are interchangeable in terms of role.
Rasheed comes out at only 0.84 points better on offense over the additional ten minutes for Thornton. However, Tyler comes out ahead overall because he is 0.96 points better defensively. In a basketball sense, trading Sulaimon for Thornton over ten minutes is largely negligible. Statistically, Thornton is 0.12 points better. If the minutes were more, Thornton actually grades out a bit better for the team.
Murphy, on the other hand, isn’t nearly as good as Sulaimon or Thornton on offense. Over twenty minutes, for our sakes we’re using 35 possessions, Murphy rates 5.2 points worse on offense but 1.5 points better defensively.
Sulaimon’s Net Worth: 3.6 PAR
PF: Ryan Kelly (25.3 – 131.2 – 89.7 – 28.3)
Replacements: Amile Jefferson (19.1 – 110.7 – 87.9 – 10.2)
An interesting case as swapping Kelly for Jefferson has completely changed the offense. Now, Duke is playing more high-low basketball and Jefferson is contributing more rebounding and scoring in the paint. Kelly’s absence we know has affected the offense by between 8 and 9 points just based off the points per possessions numbers from the Georgia Tech and NC State games. Duke’s ppp rate dropped from 1.18 to 1.04 without him.
In the mean time, Jefferson has asserted himself as a force on the boards (if he qualified, his 15.3% offensive rebounding rate would find him a slot in the top 30 in the country) and an effective scorer in the post.
Prior to his breakout, this difference might have been larger but Jefferson has shown that his role of cleaning up missed shots and sinking put backs actually proves quite valuable to a team that is missing more shots due to the spacing Kelly brought.
Instead of just taking the difference in minutes and applying them, I’m going to swap their minutes altogether because Jefferson’s numbers have altered severely since Kelly went down, thus painting a slightly inaccurate picture from minutes played.
The difference over thirty minutes offensively is that Kelly brings in 10.8 more points. Defensively, Jefferson rates slightly better than Kelly (although Kelly is a much better defender in isolation sets) at 0.95 points.
Kelly’s Net Worth: 9.85 PAR
C: Mason Plumlee (27.6 – 116.2 – 83.0 – 34.0)
Replacements: Jefferson, Hairston (5.5 – 94.7 – 94.0 – 12.1)
It is totally reasonable for someone to say Marshall would get minutes here if Mason were to go down. I don’t disagree. The question is how much. Jefferson has shown to more than adept at playing the low block and K has shown to favor Hairston there as well to spell the ACC Player of the Year candidate.
For this instance, we’re going to assume that Kelly is healthy and getting the lion’s share of the minutes at the 4 opening up Jefferson to get the majority of the minutes at the 5. Because of that, I can only assume Jefferson would get all of Plumlee’s minutes and Hairston would give breathers to both Kelly and Jefferson.
Jefferson, in 34 minutes, would actually only be a 3.3 point downgrade from Plumlee. Defensively, Jefferson isn’t quite as bad as you’d presume, compared to Plumlee. Plumlee rates at 4.16 points better on the other side of the ball.
Plumlee’s Net Worth: 7.46 PAR
Overall, we see that Ryan Kelly is in fact the most valuable player in terms of strict efficiency numbers. Somewhat surprising is the fact that Curry is actually more valuable compared to his replacements than Plumlee. Even more interesting is that if Tyler Thornton were getting Sulaimon’s minutes, theoretically, Duke would be better off.
