The Tangible Value of Jason Kidd
Jason Kidd (wikimedia)
Rick Bucher writes about the enduring value of Jason Kidd:
“His value is in the intangibles now as much as anything,” one Western Conference scouting director says. “He gets guys to play at a higher level. He’s played in the Finals; he’s won gold medals. He was really the guy that set the tone last summer in Beijing.”
I think this is an Andris Biedrins case—a player who is in fact valuable in ways that can be fairly easily quantified, and who’s generally recognized to be valuable, but whose value people insist on making a mystery out of.
Kidd is a well-known triple-double machine because he’s an extraordinary rebounder for a point guard. And even though last year’s 9.9 rebound rate is quite a bit down from the peak of his career, it’s still very good. What’s more, in the past few seasons he’s become an effective three point shooter. Consequently, the .522 TS% he put up last year in Dallas was actually the best of his career. This has partially offset the fact that his assist ratio seems to be on the decline.
The point is that the numbers basically tell the tale you’d expect. Kidd is valuable because he’s still putting up the numbers of a valuable player. He’s also, overall, on the decline at age 36. So any team that signs him will, of course, be worried about further declines in his performance level. He’s also at a point where he probably can’t guard many of the league’s quick point guards, so in some contexts putting him on the floor could create major matchup problems. But I don’t think intangibles have a great deal to do with it.
10 Responses to “The Tangible Value of Jason Kidd”
Register
RSSLogin
Topic Cloud
ArchivesBlog RollAbout Matt YglesiasContact Me
Donate
July 2nd, 2009 at 5:29 pm
40yrs living in berkeley going to most bball and ftball games, we never had it better than the two years jason gave us. sitting under the basket, we saw things i never before or since have seen done. he balled like a baby when he left, because he was a real-deal guy. the only other guy who came close was KJ.
July 2nd, 2009 at 5:32 pm
A few things on this. First, it is entirely possible that Kidd can still be an effective point guard in his personal statistics and ALSO be more effective through helping teammates succeed through his leadership abilities. Saying that his stats show that he is still a good player doesn’t preclude his leadership abilities from being even more important.
That said, as someone who followed him closely throughout his NJ career, his leadership has always been fickle. He has been an excellent leader when he is personally motivated and happy. But he is moody, and if he is in a bad mood, his leadership has a negative effect on the team (just ask Byron Scott). I have no idea why the Knicks would want him – he would be entering a losing situation and is likely to get unhappy very fast. At this point in his career, he needs to be on a playoff contender.
Also, as to his defense, obviously he can’t guard quick PGs any more. But it works on Dallas, because his backcourt-mate (Jason Terry) is a small SG, so they need a big PG to cross match against the bigger SGs. That’s not an ideal situation for J-Kidd either, of course, since even though he’s 6′4″, he’s still usually smaller than a SG.
Finally, one correction, his TS% last year was .550 – which is really very good (his eFG% was .522). He obviously hardly shoots at all any more other than a wide open 3-pointer, so as long as he knocks them down at a good rate, his efficiency should be pretty good.
July 2nd, 2009 at 5:34 pm
Rebound rate also down because he now plays on a team who’s best other rebounder ISN’T Vince Carter.
July 2nd, 2009 at 5:40 pm
Having been at Berkeley too when Jason played, I knew I just had to comment on this. I laughed when I saw the first comment had the same idea. I knew when I first saw him play as a freshman what an amazing player he would be.
As long as he keeps playing, I don’t feel so old.
July 2nd, 2009 at 6:41 pm
America would prefer a post on the Celtics pursuit of ’sheed.
July 2nd, 2009 at 7:26 pm
Matt really is clueless when it comes to basketball. You’d think he might realize that there is a lot more to determining how good a player is than the meager advanced statistics publicly available.
What makes Kidd great is that he gets guys shots in the best position for them. Cuban, I believe, has stated repeatedly that their internal metrics show just how much guys like Dirk excel playing with Kidd. These aren’t intangibles in the sense they are usually meant (leadership, character, camaraderie).
July 2nd, 2009 at 9:15 pm
“Intangibles…” (shudder)
Where have you gone, Fire Joe Morgan?
July 3rd, 2009 at 4:21 am
I wonder if Kidd realizes that if he had that three-point shot eight years ago he’d be in the same conversation that Stockton and Isiah are in about all-time best point guards. And he’d probably have an MVP, maybe even a title.
The big reason Dallas wants to keep Kidd is because without him Jason Terry would be leading the team. At that point you might as well blow it up because it’s not a playoff team. Or maybe with Cuban’s luck giving away Nash and Devin Harris, he figures Kidd will win an MVP the year after he lets him go. Or maybe with Cuban’s luck giving away Nash and Devin Harris, he figures Kidd will win an MVP the year after he lets him go.
July 3rd, 2009 at 6:30 am
Well, two views are correct here. Kidd is cleary valuable for statistical reasons that go oddly unnoticed. But secondly, as a good point guard he gets other guys good shots. The other intagibles are a load of crap. The point I would make here is that this will be reflected in assist numbers. The problem with assists is that what you are really trying to measure there is how effectively you improve your team’s shooting percentage with the ball in your hands. Raw assist numbers aren’t all that helpful as a metric. But for a guy who can’t really get his own shot anymore, still getting a lot of assists is a sign that you are an excellent passer with good floor vision. I don’t actually know whether Kidd’s assist number over or understate is value at getting other players open shots. As far as I can tell, the only decent way to evaluate that is to watch him play and a lot of other point guards play and compare your impressions with their assist numbers. You can try to do it with more advanced analysis, but I fear that anything you would use would be too noisy to allow for real confidence there. The noise is ultimately the fundamental limitation here for why statistical basketball analysis will never be remotely as good as statistical baseball analysis.
July 3rd, 2009 at 1:28 pm
The noise is ultimately the fundamental limitation here for why statistical basketball analysis will never be remotely as good as statistical baseball analysis.
I’m not informed enough nor willing to make the argument that basketball stats are or can be superior to baseball stats analysis. But I will say that once you zero in on what’s important, and then use some at least semi-advanced stats to filter out obvious skews like pace and minutes played, it really seems as though you can predict team success in basketball more reliably than baseball. At least NBA player stats are much more consistent. Things fluctuate much more across the board in baseball.