You Can’t Blame Yi for Everything
by Mark Ginocchio
I certainly understand why a lot of Nets fans are down on Yi Jianlian, and I’ve certainly taken my fair share of shots at him this season, but I also think people need to be fair and realistic about how much Yi’s individual performances actually affect the team overall. When Yi left Sunday’s game against the Knicks with an ankle injury, there were a few comments about how much better the Nets played once Yi left – never mind the fact that in the first quarter, EVERYONE on the Nets was stinking up the joint, regardless of who was on the floor.
Here are the facts: looking at the simple rating for each player on the Nets roster – which is a statistic found at 82games.com that takes into account the team’s offensive and defensive performance when a specific players is on and off the court – you can determine that Yi does have a negative impact on the team when he plays. However, there are many other players on the roster, who currently get significant minutes, that have a more detrimental effect on the team than Yi.
According to 82games, Yi has played 40 percent of the team’s minutes this season. Yi is putting up a Player Efficiency Rating of 13.8 in those minutes, while opposing players matched up against Yi have a PER of 22.5, good for a differential of -8.7. Meanwhile, when Yi plays, the team’s +/- is -7, and when he’s off the floor, their +/- is -13.4, good for a differential of +6.4. When you add these two differentials together, you get Yi’s simple rating of -2.7.
Yi’s simple rating is sixth best on the Nets roster, which is more of a statement of how bad the Nets are (shocking). Only two players have a positive simple rating, Brook Lopez and Keyon Dooling. The other players ahead of Yi include Courtney Lee, and two players who have a relatively small sample size, Bobby Simmons and Sean Williams.
So that puts Devin Harris (-2.8), Kris Humphries (-3.5), Terrence Williams (-3.7) and Chris Douglas-Roberts (-3.8) all behind Yi in terms of simple rating, meaning the team is overall playing worse when those players are on the court when compared to the team’s performance when Yi is on the floor. Of those four players, I think the one that is most worth picking out for the sake of this post is Humphries. While I’ve been relatively impressed with Hump’s aggressiveness and attitude since he came over from Dallas (and thankful to have him over Najera), these numbers demonstrate that he’s not necessarily a better full-time option at the four than Yi. Just based on some observations, I think Humphries has many of the same issues as Yi – occasionally soft on defense, a penchant for bad shots and inappropriate times – so the section of the fan-base that believes Hump MUST start instead of Yi may want to look at the numbers to determine if it really makes a difference for the Nets.
Nets fans need to go a little easier on Yi. Don’t get me wrong, I still believe the Nets absolutely must upgrade at PF next season and that the Yi as a starter experiment should come to the end. But the Nets aren’t bad solely because of Yi, or even primarily because of Yi. The Nets are bad because they are a bad team, and the 7-wins they’ve accumulate is proof enough that their issues run beyond one player.
March 10th, 2010 at 11:26 AM
Man. You can’t do that. PER and +/- differentials aren’t on the same scale so you can’t just add them for the sake of having an argument.
March 10th, 2010 at 11:29 AM
“You Can’t Blame Yi for Everything”
watch me.
March 10th, 2010 at 12:07 PM
What are you talking about SDSC? Those numbers form a statistic known as simple rating over at 82games, a highly respected statistical site for the NBA. I’m not just pulling numbers out of my rear to defend Yi. Face it, the Nets have been a terrible team this year, with or without Yi.
March 10th, 2010 at 12:59 PM
Am I the only Nets fan that thinks Humphries is AWFUL? At least Yi will move the ball when it should be moved. When Humphries gets the ball, the possession is over.
March 10th, 2010 at 1:01 PM
yea, but just because its on 82games.com does not mean it tells the whole story. PER and +/- both have their obvious weakness, combining them does not really say much. Especially considering as far as I can tell this is not adjusted +/-, and even if it was a full season of adjusted +/- still has is not a very reliable sample. And PER is basically an offensive only statistic (not completely, but it does a much better job of capturing offense).
Using this to claim Yi is the sixth best player on the team is weak evidence at best
March 10th, 2010 at 1:36 PM
Jon – you’re looking at the statistics in an isolated matter. Simple rating looks at both the PER of the player and the PER of the opposing player at that position (thus, taking into account defense), and looks at the team’s point differential when the player is on the floor vs. off the floor. This post is not about “ranking” the Nets. It’s about punching a hole in the notion that one player’s presence on the court has as detrimental as an effect on this team as some Nets fans are making it out to be. Looking at the comments section after Sunday, you would have thought that the Nets were only able to turnaround against the Knicks because Yi got injured, when in reality, it was because the team started playing defense and hit a barrage of three pointers.
March 10th, 2010 at 1:51 PM
No you can’t blame Yi, but you can blame KiKi for this mess.
KiKi traded for Yi, fired LFrank, and is coaching the team.
March 10th, 2010 at 1:53 PM
I’m so happy a post like this was finally written. I am obviously one of the few Nets fans who still have faith and Yi and would like to continue giving him chances. While he does have his obvious flaws (questionable defensive energy, questionable shot selection) I feel that he will continue to develop and because a consistent 16 and 9 type of player, and that combined with B-Lo’s 20-10 will prove to be a great post. Yi is still relatively young ( or so his birth certifacate tells us ) at 22 years old, and he has definitely shown flashes of greatness on both ends of the floor. He obviously has the offensive talents, and he has shown that he can block shots and play defense when he feels like putting forth the effort to succeed. I hope we give Yi at least two more years to develop, maybe not as a starter, but behind bosh, amare, or boozer would be nice.
Astro
March 10th, 2010 at 2:28 PM
You hit the nail on the head about Hump not being much of an alternative problem is the nets don’t have anyone close ot being a starting quality power forward. Right now Yi looks like a stretch 4 off the bench with potential but also very questionable. Hump best case looks like a high energy player of the bench with flaws of his own. If the nets go into antoehr season with Yi as the main man at power forward Im going to be pissed. If he’s on the bench behind somone good next year I can live with that but I don’t have problem getting rid of his contract for somone that definately will be a reliable reserve either.
March 10th, 2010 at 3:05 PM
Nets are currently 7-56.
Yi’s missed roughly 25 games
Net’s record w/o Yi is 2-23.
Net’s record w/Yi is 5-23.
Essentially the team is bad with or without Yi.
March 10th, 2010 at 3:06 PM
Apparently I can’t do math.
Net’s record w/YI is 5-33.
March 10th, 2010 at 3:54 PM
I do agree with the main idea of this post that Yi is not to blame for the Nets problem. The Nets are just a bad team. But I also think all these advanced stats are really overblown. As far as I’m concerned what you see is what you get and what we have been seeing all year with Yi is that the team plays worse with him on the floor. True, there is no easy fix for the problem since Hump is not much of an upgrade. If you had to blame one person for the struggles it would be Kiki. Obviously the team wouldn’t be very good either way but at least Frank got them to play defense. Also, on the topic of people playing too much or not enough, TWill is the exact opposite of Yi. Good things seem to happen every time he is on the floor, regardless of what +/- numbers might say. But of course, Kiki plays Hassell and CDR way too much. The Nets are a bad team regardless, but Kiki’s personnel decisions have probably cost us a few wins, Yi’s play contributing to that as well. All this can be discovered by just watching games. No need to look up some advanced stats that require 5 minutes to read up on just to understand what they mean.
March 10th, 2010 at 4:26 PM
I totally agree with your title. But, it means nothing to use the statistics to prove that. Yi is not consistently a good player right now. There are many PFs in this league that are playing much better than Yi, like Boozer, Lee, Bosh and Amare. The Nets can immediately be improved if they trade for these guys. However, I definitely believe Yi could become one these guys if the Nets could continue to give him chances and if his teammates could treat him fair and trust him. Look at Yi’s performance during last December. He did show he can be great on both sides of the court. However, Yi lost himself and did bad when other players in the Nets expressed their uncomfortable during Yi’s return. Believe or not, it’s just because he is a Chinese. They blame him even he or she lost their pets.
March 10th, 2010 at 4:33 PM
I don’t need advanced statistics to form an opinion on Yi. I see him getting lit up by opposing power forwards, contributing nothing on offense, missing rotations, and demonstrating a frighteningly poor bball IQ consistently.
I wish we had the Yi that came when he cameback from injury. Making open jumpers, taking it strong to the rim, posting up small players. How’d that guy completely disappear?
March 10th, 2010 at 4:44 PM
Yi is like the next sexy thing from China..keeping him, or playing him, for that matter, goes way beyond basketball..this is marketing, boys
March 10th, 2010 at 5:07 PM
@Ezra No. You’re not the only one who woke up from the honeymoon.
@Mark G. I know you’re trying hard to put together a case here for Yi whether he is at fault or not. However, all of these so called sports stats fail miserably when taking into account the “rules” of statistics. The obvious one that comes to mind here when adding PER and the on the court/off the court differentials is independence. There is an obvious overlap in points and other “productivity” measures that are built into bother PER and +/-. The combined stat isn’t usable unless you take out that overlap (whatever it may be. I doubt it’s even possible to figure out how to measure the overlap). Stats like the ones conjured up by all those stats sites are useless because they don’t hold any inferential value. It helps pay the bills and keeps the fans entertained to some degree but please don’t call it statistics. It’s not you Mark, it’s the whole culture of stats crazies.
I prefer the eyeball test. You look at their off the ball movement, setting the picks, coming over the screens, etc. Sometimes, their effect isn’t measured in +/- or PER. From what I’ve seen from Yi, I’d puke on some nights but once in a while, there’s a glimmer of hope.
March 10th, 2010 at 5:10 PM
This is my last comment here because I really don’t want to come across as the author who can’t take criticism, but those who are saying the statistics are overblown – I just want to point out that the statistics say what we already know – the Nets are a bad team (about -2.7 points bad) when Yi plays. I just found it interesting how many players have a lower simple rating than Yi. I made Yi the focal point because of his recent injury, but the real title of this article should read all Nets besides Brook Lopez (and Keyon Dooling in a smaller sample) make the Nets bad.
March 10th, 2010 at 6:44 PM
[...] The English: Nets fans like to use Yi Jianlian as a scapegoat, but you can’t blame him for all of their troubles. [Nets Are Scorching] [...]
March 10th, 2010 at 6:49 PM
Honestly i think Yi is a much better player than hes playing now. Neither hes playing with an injury or hes just getting bad coaching.
His defense and shot selections should have been fixed at this point of the season, the nets have been doing a horrible job developing him.
March 10th, 2010 at 7:50 PM
I also don’t think Yi has been the major problem with the Nets this year. But going forward… I believe the best teams are the ones which are not just highly talented, but also communicate at an extraordinarily subtle level. Everyone knows where everyone is, and knows what they’re likely to do. Yi is probably at his best with a bad team– when his shot is working and he’s willing to go hard to the hoop, he doesn’t need to know anything and he doesn’t need teammates. No one’s going to be able seriously interfere with his shot 18 feet out. But a good team will need him to be able to work within the offense all the time, in case his shot isn’t working, and there he’s terrible– slow to pass the ball and often unready when it’s passed to him. (BTW, I don’t really see him as having bad hands as much as slow reactions) And this type of game, one where the rest of the team isn’t involved, is not helpful to the team’s development. They all need to learn to read each other, and all these one-and-dones don’t get them there. If Yi grew up in the US, the game would probably be a lot slower to him and he’d be very effective on a consistent basis in certain matchups, and would be able to integrate with the team better. But the game is clearly a blur to him, and I think this pattern of injury/starter/injury is the worst possible thing. He needs limited time on a consistent basis to help him absorb what just happened. Then, maybe, he’ll begin to get it.
I think this year has NOT been a successful development year, and the poor coaching has actually hurt Yi about as much as anybody. Ironic.
March 10th, 2010 at 8:52 PM
I think mike summed it up the best. True, the Nets are bad as a team. Yet,you need to take into consideration the affect that a player has on his teammates beyond his statistics. Bad attitudes, low basketball iq, terrible effort and poor defense, to name a few, negatively affect how players work together. None of these things are measured in statistics. With that said, how could you possibly feel comfortable, establish any type of chemistry or trust a player like that. Yi continued to get opportunity after opportunity to start and play major minutes and to prove what, He is terrible! So his affect on this team goes beyond statistics.
March 11th, 2010 at 1:26 PM
As they say, there’s stats and then there’s the scout’s eye. While I’m glad that Yi is getting his devil’s advocate argument here, I’d say that just purely watching him and seeing his effectiveness (non-quantitative), you can tell that he’s so much more than what number tell us.
March 11th, 2010 at 1:27 PM
And i mean that in a detrimental way.