36 Special

There are many statistical ways to slice and dice these Warriors of ours, but one of the simplest and most informative is to correct for varying amounts of playing time. If we want to compare, say, Chris Hunter's contributions to Ronny Turiaf's, we have to account for the fact that Ronny plays nearly twice the minutes per game that Hunter does. And while small sample size issues exist here as in every other corner of the stat world, we're not overly worried about bench players' stats being artificially inflated. All evidence suggests that, if anything, the opposite is true: players tend to produce better when given extended stretches on the court, as their increased comfort zone outweighs the increased level of competition they might face. (See the Millsap Doctrine for more on this.)

So let's take a look at each Warrior's stat line, when prorated out to 36 minutes per game. (Data is taken from the excellent Basketball-Reference.com, and awkwardly compressed so's Blogger won't mess with it.)

Something you'll notice right off the bat: a number of players -- Hunter, Biedrins, Mikki, Ronny, to a lesser extent Randolph and Cartier -- foul too often to actually be playable for 36 minutes a night. You could get 30 a night out of Randolph without too much trouble, but more than 25 for Biedrins would be tough at his current pace, and it'd be hard to get Hunter more than 20. Curry and Maggette both boast abnormally high foul rates for their positions, as well. This team's proclivity for fouling -- the Warriors commit the second-most fouls in the league -- is one of its biggest and most underreported problems. A fast pace doesn't mitigate a high foul rate... you only get six fouls a player and four fouls a quarter, no matter how quickly or slowly you play. Like so many other Warrior woes, this is a coaching issue.

Anyway, let's start at the top. Balancing out minutes clarifies the degree to which Maggette has been outplaying Monta: more points in vastly fewer shots, plus a top-notch rebounding rate for his position. And while at a 36-minute-per-night rate (around the rate he probably should be playing), Monta's turnover totals look a bit less gruesome, his rebounding is exposed as the quiet weakness it's been... accounting for our fast pace highlights that further. Azubuike's per-36 numbers read a fair amount like Maggette's. He probably wouldn't have kept that pace up, but we sure miss that guy.

Take a look at Anthony Randolph's per-36 numbers and try to tell me he didn't earn a permanent starting job on the third-worst team in basketball. To reiterate, at that foul rate, he's more of a 30-minute guy than a 36-minute guy, so he'd give you something more like 15.4 points on 12.4 shots, 8.6 boards, 2.1 blocks and 1.1 steals. Still, you're gonna kick that out of bed for Vladimir Radmanovic or an out-of-position Corey Maggette?

When you note that 'Buike and Randolph are both MIA, you notice this team's central offensive problem: behind Monta and Maggette, we've had no other volume scorers whatsoever. Last year, nine guys -- Maggette, Monta, Jack, Crawford, Wright, 'Buike, Morrow, Randolph and Marco -- scored over 15 points per 36 minutes for us. Only four guys on the roster are averaging that this year, and two are probably out for the year. Even if you grandfather in Curry, who could join that club with a big game tonight, the cupboard is bare.

Poor health is obviously a culprit here, as is a back roster of untalented guys -- you can't reasonably expect Mikki Moore or Chris Hunter to create a lot of offense for you. But a lot of this also boils down to plain old offensive inefficiency. Morrow (.612 TS%), Biedrins (.553 TS%) and CJ (.545) still rate as useful weapons, and yet their collective per-36 scoring average has dipped from 44.3 points last year to 33.2 points this year. Curry (.557 TS%) was an evident scoring asset long before we started using him as one. We simply have not done a good job of using some of our weapons when they've been on the floor.

This has to do with Monta's tunnel vision, Biedrins's absence from the offense and free throw woes, Morrow's recent timidity, Ronny's playing in pain, Nellie's unwillingness to call a lot of plays for our shooters... the reasons for this failure are myriad. But let's be clear: it is a failure, and a big part of the reason why we're only nineteenth in the league in offensive efficiency. Something is not adding up here.

Finally, if you're looking for proof that any of our three D-Leaguers are diamonds in the rough, you won't find much here... while all three have shown decent early defensive returns according to plus-minus, all three of them are rare and inefficient scorers and posting sub-NBA-quality production. By the numbers, Cartier Martin's probably been the best of the three... his three-point shooting and modest ability to get to the line make his scoring efficiency a bit less ugly than it looks at first glance, and he's rebounded quite well for a swingman. Still, between his low scoring rate, his high foul rate and his refusal to pass, his line reads like a guy who's overmatched at this level. Anthony Tolliver remains the most promising of the trio, with solid rebounding showings on both ends and decent foul and turnover rates, but he's shown zero ability to affect shots and zero ability to make them. And while Chris Hunter may have shown enough beef and defensive production -- 1.9 blocks and 0.7 steals per 36 -- to stick around the league as a bruiser type at the very end of a bench, he simply hasn't rebounded well enough to suggest any more potential than that. Long story short: these D-Leaguers are playing like D-Leaguers.