Harrison signs elsewhere and Gray gets traded. Collier either waived or traded for next to nothing.
PG: Burton/Harris SG: Ogunbowale/Dickey SF: Mabrey(RFA)/#7 pick PF: Sabally/Thornton C: McCowan(RFA)/Kuier/Alarie +whatever they get in the Gray trade.
I'd be surprised if both Mabrey and McCowan returned. Yes, the team should be able to afford/pay both, but it just... idk, it feels like the odds are, someone will want to go elsewhere. Much like the aforementioned Collier/Gray/Harrison trio.
During tonight's Game 3, the broadcasters said Mabrey really didn't know what her role was until July. You'd think because she was a starter and at times the primary ball-handler for the team, it would be crystal clear a lot earlier what VJ wanted her to do for the team. So I wonder if that ever bothered her.
I also wonder if this was a good enough season for VJ to keep her job. It's not like we haven't seen newer coaches get canned after just two seasons, despite some improvement from the first year to the second (Walt Hopkins). I'd like her to get another year, but then again, I'm not really impressed with her coaching. 😓
Last Edit: Aug 25, 2022 11:41:51 GMT -5 by Deleted
I think VJ keeps her job. They got better and won a playoff game first time under the current ownership. It's not like coaches are clamoring for a job in Dallas. Plus, the list of possible replacement is not very exciting. The Wings also (like many teams) were hit hard by injuries throughout the season so excuses are abundant.
Here are some issues:
1.) Will McCowan be willing to prioritize the WNBA? 2.) Will Sabally ever be healthy? 3.) Is Burton good enough, and ready to the the starting PG? 4.) Will Mabrey be back?
I think the biggest question is whether Arike Ogunbowale playing as she did in 2022 makes Dallas better or worse?
The =/- numbers for this year and her career do not make a strong case in her favor, but they are also not quite definitive. (And of course Rhyne Howards +/- is even worse, and everyone is convinced she's a star.)
Ogunbowale sorely needs to be reeled in as a shot-taker. 3-5 fewer attempts per game, like I said – that shouldn’t be unrealistic IF she’s coached that way, which I don’t believe she has yet been sadly.
Wouldn’t the +/- of Rhyne Howard, the Dream’s MPG leader (31.5), naturally better if her team won more games? And weren’t they not supposed/expected to win very many anyway?
And some players' habits are ingrained, and almost impossible to change. Others can adjust, with the proper encouragement. It would seem Ogunwobale falls into the former category, but it's hard to know for sure.
Trying to find +/- stats but either I don’t know what to look for or I’m looking in the wrong place. Does that mean the team had a better +/- when she wasn’t playing than when she was?
Ogunbowale probably only changes as a player if she goes to a different team (particularly a better team than Dallas). But since that’s not happening anytime soon given her super-duper-max extension, it could only fall on the coaching to change her.
I guess the only bright side is, staying in Dallas will help her eventually (try to) get to 10K points, for what that’s worth. Not that such an elite individual accomplishment is sure to help her team along the way – cuz it ain’t. Taurasi was on her fair share of bad teams in Phoenix – especially in the first half of her career.
You answered my question before I finished the long essay I had edited in. So here it is:
I'm trying figure out if you are saying that the Wings (and apparently coach VJ) simply don't do a good job of developing players, or that the roster construction doesn't suit this (and other) players.
I know I’ve absolutely said that before in probably one of the past Dallas Wings 202X threads. Players really don’t develop when they go to Dallas – they pretty much stay the same player they were when they first got there. The stats back me up, last I checked. Doesn’t mean they don’t have a great first year in Dallas (see: Ogunbowale). Just that they don’t ever take a step up from that.
Re: Roster construction, they’ve always needed more vets. Even Allisha Gray still feels like a young player to me, though she’s definitely considered “vet” status. This team just doesn’t have (enough of) that leadership & experience that truly good teams have.
The teams record has improved from 14-18 to 18-18 or from a losing team to 500. VJ has taken a lot of criticism, but she has gotten this team into the playoffs 2 years a row and that's something no other coach did in a while. I feel like she is improving as a coach, and has made strides in working new players into the mix. McCowan for example, arrived late and missed camp and a number of games. As a result she was slow to get into the lineup. However, McCowan's play in the last part of the season improved greatly, and the Wings did a lot better. Mabrey improved over her 2020 scoring and passing. Arike and Thornton have gotten more efficient as measured by eFg%. The teams record has improved from 13-16 to 18-18 or from a losing team to 500.
I will say, I had this Wings team in the Lottery before the season. While I still don’t have total confidence in VJ as coach – especially if you factor in the rumors of current players who want out, not to mention Dungee who was happy to be out of a job when they cut her – VJ did seem to have more consistent rotations than she did last season. That said, any improvement done by both individuals and the team as a collective has been at a snail’s pace. This is where the GM Bibb comes into play, as he is also to blame for being as conservative as the state of Texas with regards to roster management. He has apparently been unwilling to trade some of the many Top-6 picks he has garnered over the many years for veteran players. Enough wasted talent (Akhator, Dungee, Collier and sorta Kuier even if they’re still on the roster) that compares in amount with who has worked out (Gray, Ogun., Sabally-ish). The PG situation is still unclear. Lest we forget (I almost did) the growing consensus that the team at least doesn’t necessarily miss Ogunbowale when she’s out, which is sort of a bonkers concept if she’s supposed to be the team’s best player (which… 🫢😬). All of this is to say, I’m not sold that Dallas will improve in 2023. It’d probably be logical to think so, but especially if folks really do leave for greener pastures, I just can’t be too sure. A home-run free agent signing would help, but also, when have they ever done that?
Anyway, hope that answers some remaining questions lmao.
Last Edit: Aug 26, 2022 14:40:38 GMT -5 by Deleted
Thanks. I guess I always had the Wings as a perpetual rebuilding team, and figured they were lottery bound again this season, but was pleasantly surprised. Under Agler (arguably a proven coach, who with 2x Finals wins) they finished with only 9 wins. In two years they've gone to 18-18. So I see improvement. While VJ may have gotten the team to win more games individual players don't seem to have progressed as well as the team. Then again, winning games is sort of the idea. I guess I look at their roster and think they over achieved. It does look like Collier was a bad pick (at least for the Wings) but it was a terrible draft anyway. I think the argument can be made now that McDonald was the best player in that draft. I also feel like Sabally has been too injury prone to do much of anything so far, despite her obvious talent. As for Awak, I think it is probably questionable how much she can be counted on when prioritization goes into full effect (2024). As a foreign player with no ties to the US and plenty of earning opportunities overseas, I can see why she wasn't played all that much - she may not be coming back once her game is polished. But FWIW - she played more and improved in almost every statistical category from 2021 to 2022.
The problem with incremental improvement sometimes is, the player can just as easily regress the next year. You think about Myisha Hines-Allen who went from 3 PPG in 2019 to 17 PPG in 2020. Hasn’t looked as good as she did since 2020, but, she still averaged 9 PPG this year – still usable & more productive than she was in 2019 or 2018.
The problem with incremental improvement sometimes is, the player can just as easily regress the next year. You think about Myisha Hines-Allen who went from 3 PPG in 2019 to 17 PPG in 2020. Hasn’t looked as good as she did since 2020, but, she still averaged 9 PPG this year – still usable & more productive than she was in 2019 or 2018.
A number of players emerged or had their best seasons in the Wubble: Dangermouse, Laney, MHA, even Liz Williams had a good season. I think it's because a lot of the better players were absent for all or most of the season, especially some of the bigs (EDD, Liz, BG, Fowles, JJones, Charles). MHA probably benefited a lot from not having to go up against those kinds of players. Most the stars of the Wubble have never done as well since.
Basketball-reference.com is the best stat site I've found -- at least for free. (Blows the WNBA site away ...)
+/- measures how the team does when a player is on or off the court. There are two metrics, and both are independent of the opposition, to an extent. Like most stats, +/- becomes more and more accurate as the sample size increases. Howard's +/- is the worst on the team.
Prior to this last season, the Golden State Warriors dumped the bottom players from their +/- list, and though that was hardly why they won, it is an indication that the stat is taken seriously.
Basketball-reference.com is the best stat site I've found -- at least for free. (Blows the WNBA site away ...)
+/- measures how the team does when a player is on or off the court. There are two metrics, and both are independent of the opposition, to an extent. Like most stats, +/- becomes more and more accurate as the sample size increases. Howard's +/- is the worst on the team.
Prior to this last season, the Golden State Warriors dumped the bottom players from their +/- list, and though that was hardly why they won, it is an indication that the stat is taken seriously.
My opinion: +/- is trash and doesn't become more accurate over time as many people claim, because people don't know how to read it.
My thinking: -Atlanta lost most of their games. So as a team, their +/- will overall be in the minus. -Howard played the most minutes of anyone on Atlanta. -Therefore as an individual, it will naturally appear on paper that she is responsible for a greater share of the "minus" than anyone else on her team.
To state this another way: It would take an *exceptionally* good individual player on a bad team for the individual -- who is playing a ton of minutes -- to have a favorable +/- when the team overall is losing most of its games.
For example, Kelsey Mitchell has the worst +/- of anyone player in the league this season. That's not because she's bad -- she should have been an All-Star IMO. It's simply because she played the most minutes on the worst team.
Yes, Howard plays more minutes, but even allowing for that, she's still worse than Aari McDonald and others. I'm not claiming she's not a good player, but I do think it's fair to point out that her scoring shouldn't obscure her other deficiencies. When I've watched Atlanta, Howard usually makes three or four horrid defensive plays, especially in help, every time out.
+/- seems like one of those stats that’s only useful to analyze in .500 or better teams – though I guess one could get away with saying that about any stat lmao
+/- seems like one of those stats that’s only useful to analyze in .500 or better teams – though I guess one could get away with saying that about any stat lmao
I have to disagree. It's a comparative stat (and I'm going to do more research with an NBA analytics' person) so the fact that Howard is worse, per minute, than anyone else on the team does reveal something.
And the numbers are all internal, within the team, so it's not like comparing Howard to Shakira Austin.
+/- seems like one of those stats that’s only useful to analyze in .500 or better teams – though I guess one could get away with saying that about any stat lmao
I have to disagree. It's a comparative stat (and I'm going to do more research with an NBA analytics' person) so the fact that Howard is worse, per minute, than anyone else on the team does reveal something.
And the numbers are all internal, within the team, so it's not like comparing Howard to Shakira Austin.
I think it is obvious that Howard needs to improve a lot aspects of her game. She wasn't efficient on offense, though she does have pretty good numbers in a number of categories (3%FGA, rebounds, assists, steals, and A/TO is not too bad.) Her DRating/100 is 101 same as her ORating/100 which suggests the team is not losing ground when she is on the floor. That puzzles me because the on-off/100 is as you pointed out -11. 3. It would seem to imply someone coming off the bench was either a much better defender or offensive player. My take though is that the Dream lack any other first option other than Hayes who only played in 11 games. Also it wasn't until the end of the season Howard started figuring out how to take the ball closer to the basket and finish. My guess is that the Dream's offense was pretty stagnant a lot of the time with Howard throwing up too many bad shots because there was nothing better happening and she was being told to shoot. On the Dream the best on-off/100 was Megan Walker (Howard's backup for a while, but in limited minutes) Aari McDonald and (of all people) Kia Vaughn.....
The Dream aren't the only team with a odd result for the on-off/100 plays. Looking at the Lynx (ignoring players who didn't play very many minutes) we find that Dantas, Brigitte Carlton and Rachael Banham were the teams "best" players by that metric. Perhaps Dantas doesn't have enough minutes to make a valid stat, but Carton and Banham had plenty of minutes. We also find Achonwa and Milic were better posts than Fowles and that they Lynx worst players were Powers (-13.1 unfortunately not shown below) and Shepard. My overall take is this stat is telling us something but may have more to do with when players are playing and how they are being used. In the case of the Dream and Lynx I think it symptomatic of the fact there were a lot of things not working for those two teams. It also may be that on teams where there were a lot of losses due to player injuries players who were healthy most of the time end up looking bad.
I have to disagree. It's a comparative stat (and I'm going to do more research with an NBA analytics' person) so the fact that Howard is worse, per minute, than anyone else on the team does reveal something.
And the numbers are all internal, within the team, so it's not like comparing Howard to Shakira Austin.
... My overall take is this stat is telling us something but may have more to do with when players are playing and how they are being used. In the case of the Dream and Lynx I think it symptomatic of the fact there were a lot of things not working for those two teams. It also may be that on teams where there were a lot of losses due to player injuries players who were healthy most of the time end up looking bad.