MVN: Most Valuable Network

Redd much better at shooting guard

Most of the time, when I'm looking at production splits on 82games, and a player does better or worse at one position than he does at the other, I don't draw any conclusions from it, unless there is a substantial difference between the positions.

For instance, early in the season, Malik Allen had excellent numbers at center and poor numbers at power forward.  But I didn't jump to the conclusion that he was better at center... he plays pretty much the same game at each position.  The center numbers, having been based upon a small sample set, turned out to be an aberration.  As I figured, Allen sucks at both positions.

I would tend to have the same opinion about Michael Redd's inferior performance at small forward (compared to shooting guard).  There isn't that much clear blue water between the duties of the two positions, so it wouldn't make a hell of a lot of sense for Redd to be substanially better at SG than he is at SF.

Except that the difference in performance for Michael Redd at each position this season is quite substantial, and an overall difference in performance goes back a couple of seasons.  This season, Redd's marginal win score at shooting guard is +1.7.  His marginal win score at small forward is -3.3.  Last season his MWS at SG was +0.6.  Last season his MWS at SF was -0.8.  And you see the same pattern going backwards.  So something is at work here.

The key difference appears to be scoring efficiency.  Redd is having to take many more shots than his small forward counterparts to produce the same scoring gap he produces at shooting guard. 

Mostly, I think it can be explained like this.  Redd is a little worse at SF than he is at SG at all of the "bigger guy" stats.... blocks and rebounds. But, he is much less efficient than his counterparts with shots.  I think he is playing the SF position with a SG mentality, whereas on the other end the SFs he is matched up against are abusing him down low. 

Check this out.  This season, when playing SG, Redd's eFG% is about the same as his CO shooting guards.  Yet when playing SF, Redd has an eFG% of 37.3%, whereas his CO small forwards are shooting 63.7% against him.  You see the same pattern going backwards. The eFG% gap between Redd and his COs always seems to be worse at SF than SG. 

So perhaps Redd simply doesn't match up well against small forwards. But, since the team has no decent backup for Richard Jefferson at small forward, Redd is probably going to continue to get minutes at that position, and its going to continue to hurt his Win Contribution.

Footnote:  You're going to think I'm crazy, but I maintain it was a mistake to force the retirement of SF Adrian Griffin.  He was an excellent "blue-collar" win contributor throughout his career, he played good defense, and he could have spelled RJ at the 3.  I don't know why they did that.  He wasn't that old, and he produced last season.