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Evan Mobley: 2023 All Defensive 1st Team

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Is Evan Mobley the Greatest Player of All Time?

  • Yes

    Votes: 48 39.0%
  • Yes

    Votes: 21 17.1%
  • Yes

    Votes: 7 5.7%
  • YAAASSS!!!

    Votes: 36 29.3%
  • Jim Chones

    Votes: 25 20.3%

  • Total voters
    123
The fact that a large portion of us are even having this discussion on his perceived abilities speaks volumes. He played very well last night-nothing exceptional- but it was nice to see. However, I find that I am not alone in having trepidation when watching him drop passes at an alarming rate. He has very,very fucking bad hands. I am not sure that can be corrected by coaching, diet regiments, or maturity.

One last point. Many of the most ardent Mobley supporters on here cite KG, Duncan, and other nba legends slow starts to their careers- cool, thats fair. What about the thousands of other players who looked like horse manure on offense early on in their careers who never developed? What I am seeing in year 2 is a really bad offensive player. He isn't raw, young, oozing with talent or any other pathetic euphemisms homers use. He flat out sucks on offense. I understand I am offering a really grim opinion on here...but it is based on what I have watched.
 
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@Jordan hit on the discussion point regarding @Lyuokdea's post on Mobley's RAPTOR numbers: What advanced stats can attribute defensive impact accordingly?

Mobley had a +1.6 DEF RAPTOR last year and has a negative one to date but it's slowly been creeping back after a bad start... Even Lyuokdea's post is outdated as Mobley sits at a -1.8 DEF RAPTOR.. Mobley's DRAPTOR is his only negative defensive rating: https://craftednba.com/players/evan-mobley

What's interesting is his DBPM is +1.5, which is what he finished last year with and is on pace to eclipse his defensive win shares from last year.. His defensive rating has improved ever so slightly this year from 107 to 106.. For reference, Jarrett Allen had a DRTG this year and currently this year of 106.. Even if you look at his defensive dashboard, he's been good at defending every shot outside of three-pointers..

I do wonder how much who he's guarding is impacting his defensive impact stats... Last year, Mobley saw 76% of his minutes at the PF and 23% at C... This year, Mobley has seen 59% of his minutes at PF and 41% at C... Perhaps some of his lower defensive numbers are correlated to his shift in defensive responsibility in playing more minutes at center which his body still may not be fully ready for..
 
I appreciate that we are all Cavs fans and want nothing more than team success. However, I have to say, I have a hard time believing someone can watch this team pre-Mobley and post-Mobley and not think he is a true difference maker, more so than anyone else on the team. Not everything he does or affects shows up in the box score. He is a winning basketball player and will only get better.
 
Mobleys hands can absolutely be improved with coaching/practice. There are passing drills he can work on to accomplish this. Problem is probably nobody has ever taken the time to work with him and not let him stop working on it.
 
I appreciate that we are all Cavs fans and want nothing more than team success. However, I have to say, I have a hard time believing someone can watch this team pre-Mobley and post-Mobley and not think he is a true difference maker, more so than anyone else on the team. Not everything he does or affects shows up in the box score. He is a winning basketball player and will only get better.
Allen, Mitchell, and Garland are all pretty clearly more impactful players than Mobley right now. The plus-minus metrics don’t even remotely back up what you’re saying. Quite the opposite. His box score numbers are actually what’s ahead of his impact stats at the moment, given he has a -21.0 on-off, -1.0 EPM, and a -5.1 RAPTOR. Those are very poor. Noisiness in opponent 3P shooting with him on versus off the floor is making his impact look much worse than it is, but even when considering that, it’s still clear he’s not playing up to the lofty standards on the whole yet.

The difference between our record in 2021 and 2022 wasn’t just the Mobley addition and it’s disingenuous to imply that. Garland improved tremendously. Allen took a leap. Sexton being out was addition by subtraction. Lauri and Rubio were huge additions. Love coming off the bench revitalized his play. And then Mobley helped too obviously. But he was just one factor among many.
 
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the comfort level in this offense just isn’t there for what ever reason(many) but it’s moving there. He is the third option on guard dominant offense, winning is his most important stat. we already starting to see uptick in his aggression.the slowing down of the game on offense for him is coming. Also. he looks so much taller then the tall players(most) he playing against.
 
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@Jordan hit on the discussion point regarding @Lyuokdea's post on Mobley's RAPTOR numbers: What advanced stats can attribute defensive impact accordingly?

Mobley had a +1.6 DEF RAPTOR last year and has a negative one to date but it's slowly been creeping back after a bad start... Even Lyuokdea's post is outdated as Mobley sits at a -1.8 DEF RAPTOR.. Mobley's DRAPTOR is his only negative defensive rating: https://craftednba.com/players/evan-mobley

What's interesting is his DBPM is +1.5, which is what he finished last year with and is on pace to eclipse his defensive win shares from last year.. His defensive rating has improved ever so slightly this year from 107 to 106.. For reference, Jarrett Allen had a DRTG this year and currently this year of 106.. Even if you look at his defensive dashboard, he's been good at defending every shot outside of three-pointers..

I do wonder how much who he's guarding is impacting his defensive impact stats... Last year, Mobley saw 76% of his minutes at the PF and 23% at C... This year, Mobley has seen 59% of his minutes at PF and 41% at C... Perhaps some of his lower defensive numbers are correlated to his shift in defensive responsibility in playing more minutes at center which his body still may not be fully ready for..
On/off stats are always noisy on a small sample size, but they're particularly noisy with Mobley as we've had outlier luck (good) when he's off court and outlier luck (bad) when he's on court. The tweet is a bit old, so the numbers might have changed since then, but I expect the defensive numbers to average out soon.

 
On/off stats are always noisy on a small sample size, but they're particularly noisy with Mobley as we've had outlier luck (good) when he's off court and outlier luck (bad) when he's on court. The tweet is a bit old, so the numbers might have changed since then, but I expect the defensive numbers to average out soon.


Would this also have to do with Mobley seemingly always the one that has to recover and scramble to the perimeter to defend 3s on switches?
 
The fact that a large portion of us are even having this discussion on his perceived abilities speaks volumes. He played very well last night-nothing exceptional- but it was nice to see. However, I find that I am not alone in having trepidation when watching him drop passes at an alarming rate. He has very,very fucking bad hands. I am not sure that can be corrected by coaching, diet regiments, or maturity.

One last point. Many of the most ardent Mobley supporters on here cite KG, Duncan, and other nba legends slow starts to their careers- cool, thats fair. What about the thousands of other players who looked like horse manure on offense early on in their careers who never developed? What I am seeing in year 2 is a really bad offensive player. He isn't raw, young, oozing with talent or any other pathetic euphemisms homers use. He flat out sucks on offense. I understand I am offering a really grim opinion on here...but it is based on what I have watched.
I'll stand by it, he's picked up smoking too much weed and too much fapping. You can see in his demeanor, indecisiveness, and small things like dropping passes. He's living the "high" life now, enjoying his millions and using cannabis to recover. He's gotta become a zen master to turn it around.
 
I like EPM, a lot actually. It’s basically RPM, but instead of only using Bayesian priors (basically information we know to predict what we don’t) based on box score metrics, it also incorporates tracking data. There is also a study in an academic journal that demonstrates it’s short-term and long-term effectiveness at description and prediction.

My favorite is DARKO’s DPM. It basically is EPM, but also includes measures accounting for exponential decay. Basically, rather than strictly being limited by design to long-term analysis like RAPM, DPM’s formula uses a time series model to account for historical priors, but weight it in such a way that it does not add noise to the regular model. In my mind, as far as a single stat goes to explain and predict what’s happening in the NBA, DPM is pretty flawless.

I like EPMD a lot actually, but i don think you are talking about old school hip hop.
 
I appreciate that we are all Cavs fans and want nothing more than team success. However, I have to say, I have a hard time believing someone can watch this team pre-Mobley and post-Mobley and not think he is a true difference maker, more so than anyone else on the team. Not everything he does or affects shows up in the box score. He is a winning basketball player and will only get better.

Some people can see the things that show up in stats and some people cannot. I never liked Melo's game for example because all of his stats were empty in my opinion, Mobley is the opposite of that. He just does all the little things at all moments. He is a 21 year old long athletic big man with a very, very high basketball IQ and room to grow.

Not a GM in the NBA wouldnt value him and trade a ton for him. If they cant see Mobley's value, then no point explaining, they will never understand.
 
Mobleys hands can absolutely be improved with coaching/practice. There are passing drills he can work on to accomplish this. Problem is probably nobody has ever taken the time to work with him and not let him stop working on it.
marginally I suppose. IDK...at this level..if you cant catch passes it is a bad sign.
I'll stand by it, he's picked up smoking too much weed and too much fapping. You can see in his demeanor, indecisiveness, and small things like dropping passes. He's living the "high" life now, enjoying his millions and using cannabis to recover. He's gotta become a zen master to turn it around.
I suffer from the same fapping issue...so i do emphathize with him. Ya know- he does look
like a pretty serious fapper. I'm sure staff will address this issue with him.
 
Would this also have to do with Mobley seemingly always the one that has to recover and scramble to the perimeter to defend 3s on switches?

So take all of this with a grain of salt as I don't have access to the data and can't break everything down, but I would lean against it.

One, Evan does a good job helping late in obvious one pass away situations. That may mean that maybe he doesn't block or alter a shot every so often that he could if he rotated over sooner, but that also means he doesn't leave his man too soon and allow an open corner 3. The opposite is Love, who seems to rotate into the paint as soon as the drive starts so he can draw a charge, and ends up giving up a ton of strongside 3s.

I think what the data will show is that teams are just having abnormal shooting splits up until this point. Sometimes there isn't really a better answer and it is all just noise, specially when you're still so early into the year.
 
marginally I suppose. IDK...at this level..if you cant catch passes it is a bad sign.

I suffer from the same fapping issue...so i do emphathize with him. Ya know- he does look
like a pretty serious fapper. I'm sure staff will address this issue with him.
They better! Sometimes it's not the basketball as the issue, but the "other stuff".
 

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