From Paul Tutka
"but Zywicki puts it all on the line every shit, every game no matter who’s clubbin’ him in the back of the neck. That kinda grunt work is almost unseen from some teams in this league."
I can almost guarantee that about 99.9% of the players in the NLL care. Just behind John Grant doesn'tdo the grunt work doesn't mean he doesn't want to win or try hard. He doesn't need to try hard. Jeff Zywicki is awesome, but, so are a bunch of others in the league. I guarantee Chicago works its tail off. They just aren't that good.
Showing posts with label NLL Insider. Show all posts
Showing posts with label NLL Insider. Show all posts
Monday, May 5, 2008
Wednesday, April 2, 2008
Tutka with his top 20
Here is some analysis from Paul Tutka's top 20 rankings, with the first being on John Tavares:
Will JT have enough left in the tank to make a run past either guy above
him? Been there, done that and still had time to teach his kids about
fractions. He’s still that good.
OK. I get sick when I read these articles about NLL players and how their day jobs somehow make them better at their sport, as having time to teach kids about fractions does not make him good. Blaine Manning is fucking awesome because he can analyze the hell out of a bond transaction. Chris Gill was an amazing goal scorer because he puts out fires and saves people from burning buildings. Their day jobs have no bearing on how good he is on the floor. It makes for an interesting article, but not when analyzing performance.
This is why Tavares is awesome this year:
22 G, 67 PTS, a decent 17.2 shooting %, and a solid 13.9% goal contribution
Now on to Ryan Cousins:
Cousins is still playing solid ball, but just isn’t getting the same kinda
effort outta the boys at the other end of the court, which is affecting the
scoreboard.
As I said a couple of posts ago regarding Jordan Hall, team performance shouldn't have any bearing on these rankings. Cousins is still playing awesome. What Andy Secore did on Saturday should have no effect on where Cousins is ranked. The rest of the team's performance is irrelevant.
Finally, Matt Vinc
Like I said the other week, Vino is definitely a lot of people’s dark horse
pick for tender of the year, and if New York keeps piling up the results,
will be hard to deny him the nod.
If anybody picks Matt Vinc as goalie of the year, I will actually cry. Matt Vinc is a decent goalie, but unless Bob Watson has a monumental collapse over the final few weeks, then Watson is the goalie of the year.
Lets just look at the numbers:
Watson: 9.93 GAA, .790 SVP
Vinc: 12.34 GAA, .765 SVP
Also, there are a number of guys in between them. If somebody wants to use wins as a barometer, Watson has him beat there too, 7-5.
That is all for now. That website is starting to frustrate me.
Will JT have enough left in the tank to make a run past either guy above
him? Been there, done that and still had time to teach his kids about
fractions. He’s still that good.
OK. I get sick when I read these articles about NLL players and how their day jobs somehow make them better at their sport, as having time to teach kids about fractions does not make him good. Blaine Manning is fucking awesome because he can analyze the hell out of a bond transaction. Chris Gill was an amazing goal scorer because he puts out fires and saves people from burning buildings. Their day jobs have no bearing on how good he is on the floor. It makes for an interesting article, but not when analyzing performance.
This is why Tavares is awesome this year:
22 G, 67 PTS, a decent 17.2 shooting %, and a solid 13.9% goal contribution
Now on to Ryan Cousins:
Cousins is still playing solid ball, but just isn’t getting the same kinda
effort outta the boys at the other end of the court, which is affecting the
scoreboard.
As I said a couple of posts ago regarding Jordan Hall, team performance shouldn't have any bearing on these rankings. Cousins is still playing awesome. What Andy Secore did on Saturday should have no effect on where Cousins is ranked. The rest of the team's performance is irrelevant.
Finally, Matt Vinc
Like I said the other week, Vino is definitely a lot of people’s dark horse
pick for tender of the year, and if New York keeps piling up the results,
will be hard to deny him the nod.
If anybody picks Matt Vinc as goalie of the year, I will actually cry. Matt Vinc is a decent goalie, but unless Bob Watson has a monumental collapse over the final few weeks, then Watson is the goalie of the year.
Lets just look at the numbers:
Watson: 9.93 GAA, .790 SVP
Vinc: 12.34 GAA, .765 SVP
Also, there are a number of guys in between them. If somebody wants to use wins as a barometer, Watson has him beat there too, 7-5.
That is all for now. That website is starting to frustrate me.
Why Rochester Won: Osburn Style
Chris Osburn on NLL Insider:
This has been an up and down season for the defending champs. After two straight losses to league basement dwellers Chicago and Edmonton, it appeared that Rochester had nothing left.
Now the first part I agree with, it has been an up and down season for Rochester. What gets me is him saying they had nothing left when they boast one of the most incredible players ever: a guy who easily scores about 100 points a year and a guy who increased the production of every player on the team. This guy scores 8 points and has 13 loose balls on Saturday. Any team in this league would have a chance with John Grant playing offence for them.
Those losses to the basement dwellers were each by 1 goal. Other close games this year for Rochester: a 15-14 loss to Philadelphia and a 18-17 loss to Minnesota.
Just a couple more goals throughout the course of the year, and the Knighthawks are a 9-2 team.
This has been an up and down season for the defending champs. After two straight losses to league basement dwellers Chicago and Edmonton, it appeared that Rochester had nothing left.
Now the first part I agree with, it has been an up and down season for Rochester. What gets me is him saying they had nothing left when they boast one of the most incredible players ever: a guy who easily scores about 100 points a year and a guy who increased the production of every player on the team. This guy scores 8 points and has 13 loose balls on Saturday. Any team in this league would have a chance with John Grant playing offence for them.
Those losses to the basement dwellers were each by 1 goal. Other close games this year for Rochester: a 15-14 loss to Philadelphia and a 18-17 loss to Minnesota.
Just a couple more goals throughout the course of the year, and the Knighthawks are a 9-2 team.
Kojima on Hall
This is what Steve Kojima said in his weekly top rookie rankings about Jordan Hall:
"1 (1) Jordan Hall, New York – The thing about Hall and the Titans is they keep improving. Jordan had seven points in New York’s last win and is No. 18 overall in league points. Huge game this weekend at Minnesota."
The thing about picking a top rookie is that it should have little to no bearing on how the team is doing. The thing is I don't care if the Titans win when judging Hall's performance. The thing is if he had 17 points in a 20-17 loss would Kojima write this? He shouldn't, but he probably would.
*Notice how many times I use the phrase "the thing". Doesn't it get annoying? Isn't "the thing" about Hall is that he 25.3% shooting percentage and has scored 13.8% of New York's goals?
This would be a much better opening sentence, and one that a normal lacrosse analyst might write:
Jordan Hall continues to improve at all facets of his game, increasing his points per game average and contributing significantly on the power play.
Not much for now, more later hopefully.
"1 (1) Jordan Hall, New York – The thing about Hall and the Titans is they keep improving. Jordan had seven points in New York’s last win and is No. 18 overall in league points. Huge game this weekend at Minnesota."
The thing about picking a top rookie is that it should have little to no bearing on how the team is doing. The thing is I don't care if the Titans win when judging Hall's performance. The thing is if he had 17 points in a 20-17 loss would Kojima write this? He shouldn't, but he probably would.
*Notice how many times I use the phrase "the thing". Doesn't it get annoying? Isn't "the thing" about Hall is that he 25.3% shooting percentage and has scored 13.8% of New York's goals?
This would be a much better opening sentence, and one that a normal lacrosse analyst might write:
Jordan Hall continues to improve at all facets of his game, increasing his points per game average and contributing significantly on the power play.
Not much for now, more later hopefully.
Sunday, March 30, 2008
Shanny on the Weekend
Before I write this, I have to make one thing perfectly clear. Brian Shanahan is a good guy. He does great things for the sport of lacrosse, has a good knowledge of the players in all levels of the game, and was great to listen to when the Rock televised their road games way the hell back when. But I have read his columns on NLL Insider this year, and a lot of them don't follow any logic, or have any structure. Here is his an example of some that in his latest column after this weekend's games.
"Wow. Again, another surprising weekend. Chicago beats Minnesota – not a huge surprise – but you have to like Chicago’s 10 goal run after a slow start."
This is Brian Shahahan, the guy is THE lacrosse analyst in North America. The guy that gets to analyze NLL championship games, Minto Cups, and just about every other major lacrosse game or tournament shown on TV. There are a few major flaws with this collection of sentences and sentence fragments. He first says that it was a surprising weekend. This is fair, because it was. The statistical data favoured San Jose and Minnesota in particular. They both lost, so yes, it was in fact surprising. However, following that he says that it wasn't a huge surprise that Chicago beat Minnesota. Didn't he say that it was surprising right before that? I guess he means it was surprising, but not hugely surprising. It was surprising Mr. Shanahan, you said that right before you said it wasn't huge surprise. Don't go back and forth.
"It doesn’t look like the Power Rankings have changed much but try to use your imagination to picture this. A month ago the distance between number 1 and 12 was huge – you would have to scroll down your computer a long way to go from Philadelphia to Chicago. Today the distance between 1 and 12 is much smaller. If we could we would squish them on your computer screen today."
Now this is great. Try to follow this. He says that the distance between the 1st and 12th team in the NLL was huge. It was in terms of their record, with Philadelphia being 6-0 and Edmonton being 0-6 or something similar. But then he says that the distance on my computer screen was longer back then than it is now. I am pretty damn sure it is the same distance. The exact same formula for how to format his rankings have been used every week. The teams are listed by his magical ranking system, with their logo and a small blip of information surrounding them. This hasn't changed since January. The distance today on my computer screen isn't smaller. The only thing that has changed is that the winning percentage differential is much smaller from first to last (or in Shanny's case, the weird, sometimes head scratching logic used to rank teams has somehow mysteriously pushed the teams closer together). But somehow, I need to scroll a smaller distance down my computer to get from 1 to 12. That is why the standings are much tighter. It is because my computer screen has tightened up. Good logic Shanny!
"Wow. Again, another surprising weekend. Chicago beats Minnesota – not a huge surprise – but you have to like Chicago’s 10 goal run after a slow start."
This is Brian Shahahan, the guy is THE lacrosse analyst in North America. The guy that gets to analyze NLL championship games, Minto Cups, and just about every other major lacrosse game or tournament shown on TV. There are a few major flaws with this collection of sentences and sentence fragments. He first says that it was a surprising weekend. This is fair, because it was. The statistical data favoured San Jose and Minnesota in particular. They both lost, so yes, it was in fact surprising. However, following that he says that it wasn't a huge surprise that Chicago beat Minnesota. Didn't he say that it was surprising right before that? I guess he means it was surprising, but not hugely surprising. It was surprising Mr. Shanahan, you said that right before you said it wasn't huge surprise. Don't go back and forth.
"It doesn’t look like the Power Rankings have changed much but try to use your imagination to picture this. A month ago the distance between number 1 and 12 was huge – you would have to scroll down your computer a long way to go from Philadelphia to Chicago. Today the distance between 1 and 12 is much smaller. If we could we would squish them on your computer screen today."
Now this is great. Try to follow this. He says that the distance between the 1st and 12th team in the NLL was huge. It was in terms of their record, with Philadelphia being 6-0 and Edmonton being 0-6 or something similar. But then he says that the distance on my computer screen was longer back then than it is now. I am pretty damn sure it is the same distance. The exact same formula for how to format his rankings have been used every week. The teams are listed by his magical ranking system, with their logo and a small blip of information surrounding them. This hasn't changed since January. The distance today on my computer screen isn't smaller. The only thing that has changed is that the winning percentage differential is much smaller from first to last (or in Shanny's case, the weird, sometimes head scratching logic used to rank teams has somehow mysteriously pushed the teams closer together). But somehow, I need to scroll a smaller distance down my computer to get from 1 to 12. That is why the standings are much tighter. It is because my computer screen has tightened up. Good logic Shanny!
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