Comments on: Myth: Chauncey Billups is really ‘Mr. Big Shot’

By: Billups leads New York Knicks with more than just big shots

Billups leads New York Knicks with more than just big shots — Mon, 28 Feb 2011 11:30:32 +0000

[...] The actually ‘biggness’ of Billups isn’t quiet what it’s cracked up to be, as broken down by Patrick Hayes earlier this season. [...]

By: Power Poll Week 7 « The Greatest Fantasy Basketball League in da WORLD

Power Poll Week 7 « The Greatest Fantasy Basketball League in da WORLD — Tue, 14 Dec 2010 00:37:45 +0000

[...] veterans on the squad are starting to show life as Marcus Camby put up 137.95 points and Chauncy “Big Shot” Billups added an additional 121.05. With their next 3 games against T-Boyz, ILLicit, and [...]

By: xerowattbulb

xerowattbulb — Mon, 27 Sep 2010 10:56:11 +0000

This is a fine article, if you want to overlook the fact that being “clutch” is really just a description the fans place on a player, and not beholden to statistics at all. Just like in baseball, where a guy like Derek Jeter can be labeled “clutch” because of a solid handful of (amazing) “clutch” plays, Billups was labeled that by the fans, not the statisticians. C’mon guys, it’s sports, not physics- reputations with the fans is not something that has hard and fast rules.

By: Graham Simmington

Graham Simmington — Mon, 27 Sep 2010 03:31:45 +0000

The following are the comments that were lost in the site migration:

Luis (September 22, 2010 at 6:20 PM)

Great article!! Like a good scientist, your conclusions are based on statistics………

Patrick Hayes (September 22, 2010 at 10:21 PM)

@The Rake: I support informed debate. I don’t support whining, I don’t support idle threats that are meaningless and I don’t support people who respond to disagreements unreasonably. I love the commenters here. It’s one of the best things about writing here vs. where I was previously writing — a good community of well-informed commenters that doesn’t have the drive-by trolling by morons that goes on on a lot of sites. There are plenty of commenters here — laser, in particular — who I and other commenters have frequent disagreements with. But you know what? We both have opinions, we state them, argue them and defend them, and at the end of the day, I have a lot of respect for his contributions to the site and I hope he has respect for mine. Dozens of other smart opinions/analysis float around here from people like brgulker, nuetes, gmehl, hell, even from Keri Laimbeer. Your comment amounts to you disagreeing with something and taking your ball and going home. I don’t respect that, and if that’s how you feel, I won’t beg you to stay. This isn’t Burger King. I’m satisfied enough with the people who do choose to frequent the site and engage in discussions without being babies.

frankie d (September 22, 2010 at 11:09 PM)

Then why would you block my posts when I merely point out factual discrepancies. It seems like the height of cowardice…blocking posters who present strong arguments against your position. Its a great tchnique bue incredibly dishonest.

frankie d (September 22, 2010 at 11:19 PM)

Please excuse the typos. . Previous posts had been blocked so I wanted to make certain these got online

Dan Feldman (September 22, 2010 at 11:24 PM)

Frankie, I can assure you nobody blocked your posts.

Patrick Hayes (September 22, 2010 at 11:26 PM)

@frankie d: I agree it is the height of cowardice. But I didn’t block anything. I don’t even know how to go about doing that. Your last two comments came through fine, perhaps there was a problem on your end?

gmehl1977 (September 23, 2010 at 6:15 AM)

@Patrick/Dan Hey with Denver looking for a 3rd team to help make the Carmello trade happen so he can wind up in either New York or Chicago i was wondering if you guys think there is anyway the Pistons can be that 3rd team?

Patrick Hayes (September 23, 2010 at 9:57 AM)

@gmehl: The Knicks desperately need a team to get involved that will part with a first round pick, potentially a lottery pick, b/c Denver has said they want a good first rounder in any deal for Melo. They’d be the most likely to need third team. I think Chicago or NJ could do the deal on their own b/c they have the picks. It’s a matter of if either team is willing to part with Noah or Lopez.

By: The Rake

The Rake — Wed, 22 Sep 2010 21:48:31 +0000

@patrickhayes
Outstanding. Way to support your readership. Smart move.

By: Patrick Hayes

Patrick Hayes — Wed, 22 Sep 2010 15:08:41 +0000

@The Rake again:
Sorry, I can’t just let your comment go with only a one sentence reply. Threatening to “quit reading” is the single stupidest, most hollow threat.
How much do you pay to read this site? How much do I care what your opinions on what I write are? (Hint: They are the same amount).
Your comment deserves a line-by-line refutation, so here we go:
“Using that BS metric at 82 games for the whole basis of your argument is pointless and pathetic.”
My argument was that Billups, despite taking an inordinate number of last second/potentially game-winning shots, hit them at a below league average rate. So yes, that stat is the basis of my argument that Billups is not a good last second shooter in potential game-winning situations.
It’s explicitly stated in the post that he did other things well in those situations. Shooting was just not one of those things.
“What is the point of bashing a former star, (my favorite Pistons and countless others at the timeI am sure) who has been gone from the team for a few years?”
There was no bashing. In fact, there were much more compliments (calling him “criminally underrated” for instance) going on than bashing. He’s a really good player. There are maybe only three PGs in the league I’d rather have running my team than him. There is no one in the league I’d rather have my young players around than him. But his reputation as a knock-down shooter late in games is a bit overstated. Saying that doesn’t change any of those other great things about his game and it doesn’t mean that he’s not a great, great player.
“I don’t understand. Why ar eyou making this argument?”
Because it’s Myth Week.
“He was the best option we had, the last 24 seconds of a game “do not a clutch player make.” The guy is money from the line, hitting countless shots prior to us being in that last 24 second situation.”
He was a very good option. He wasn’t always the best option. If the Pistons needed someone to make a play, then yes, go to Billups. I would say Hamilton and Prince were also very good options in last second situations because both are much better catch-and-shoot shooters than Billups, who’s a better shooter off the dribble.
And yeah, your dumb comments about “clutch” situations have been covered by me in several other comments in this thread. Nowhere did I say that Billups wasn’t a clutch player. I’ve said in the post and throughout these comments: He wasn’t a good last second shooter. That is true. It doesn’t tell the whole story, but it is true.
“This is completely bogus and you ought to be ashamed of yourself for writing this trash on a Pistons fan site. F*cking ridiculous.”
You need to relax. You should be ashamed of yourself for getting that worked up over a rather innocuous post. You should be ashamed of yourself for reading too much into it and drawing conclusions about what I wrote that aren’t there.
If this is how you behave, if you really, really feel like you have the right to try and tell me what is appropriate for me to write on this site and what isn’t, then I hope you do choose to read/comment elsewhere. No one twists your arm to hang out here. Your comments don’t really add much to any discussion. You aren’t vital.
If you want to have discussions, present arguments, etc., then those are the readers/commenters we want around here. You don’t run this town, and just because something written here offended your delicate sensibilities doesn’t mean that it’s not worth talking about/writing about/discussing.

By: travis

travis — Wed, 22 Sep 2010 14:58:41 +0000

George Blaha coined ‘Mr. BigShot’, and if Blaha says it, than I believe it! And as Blaha would say: “Hello!” and “Thankyou!”

By: Patrick Hayes

Patrick Hayes — Wed, 22 Sep 2010 14:47:04 +0000

@the binxster (second comment):
“when it was first announced, i predicted exactly what would happen and i was absolutely correct.”
You predicted that Iverson would rapidly decline skill-wise that quickly, that he’d murder his career by publicly refusing to go to the bench when everyone could see that’s where he was better-suited to play, that he’d (allegedly) get banned from all of Detroit’s casinos and that, minus brief appearances in Memphis and Philly, his NBA career would be all but over? Why do I find this hard to believe that you got this “EXACTLY” correct?
I’m very happy that your forum buddies have given you virtual high-fives on your correctness on the trade. I have zero interest in searching through any forum archives to find the evidence. I’ll take your word for it.
As for my reaction to the trade, I didn’t hate it. Trading Billups wasn’t my first choice. (Or my second or third, for that matter). But it was inevitable that someone was gonna get traded. It was inevitable that Dumars was getting the itch to rebuild. What the trade accomplished — creating cap space to sign free agents and opening up playing time for Rodney Stuckey, viewed as their best young player at the time — are not things I can argue with. If you’re a GM, and you want to rebuild, cap space and minutes for your perceived young stud are valuable things.
They certainly become less valuable when it becomes clear a year later that Stuckey may have peaked already and you spend your cap space on Gordon/Villanueva and extend one of your aging stars who probably should’ve been purged with Billups and Wallace in the rebuilding effort. I have no defense for the follow-up moves. I’m not a fan of them and they haven’t worked out at all.
But for anyone to say that the Billups/Iverson trade made no sense is either lying or doesn’t understand the business aspect of the NBA. It made sense. And Dan Feldman’s post saying that it made sense, which you reference, wasn’t saying that it was the right move. There you go again, interpreting things that aren’t there.
Just to reiterate: All of these ‘Myths’ posts we’ve done haven’t been to advocate anything. They’ve simply been presenting the other, usually forgotten or overlooked, side to very commonly held beliefs about the Pistons.
It doesn’t mean we’re necessarily right. It means we’re trying to create some discussion and (hopefully) encourage fans to consider all the different angles or ways of looking at things.

By: Patrick Hayes

Patrick Hayes — Wed, 22 Sep 2010 14:28:53 +0000

@the binxster (first comment):
I have nothing to fess up to. I wrote in the post and throughout these comments that I don’t think his below league average shooting percentage on last second shots in any way impacts whether he was a good or bad player. In fact, he’s still very underrated as a player.
This is the gist of it: I think it’s an interesting stat. Do I think it’s a tell-all stat? Of course not. But I would think that if you asked any Piston fan if he/she thought Billups was a great last second shooter, they’d pretty universally say yes. The reality was, he wasn’t a great last second shooter. Doesn’t mean he didn’t do other things in those scenarios great (getting to to the line, getting assists and not turning it over are all important skills and all of those things were all pointed out in the post).
So no, I don’t need to “fess up” to anything. I used a stat, admitting it’s not an all-encompassing one by any stretch. This is a thread full of people putting extra words in my mouth — “You are denigrating Chauncey!” or “you are discounting all of the other great things he did!” — and being drama queens. Read the post. I draw one conclusion: Billups was not a great shooter in the last 24 seconds of games when the Pistons needed a tying or game-winning shot. He took more of those types of shots than all but a handful of players in the league during that stretch. His percentage was very low on those shots. That’s it. That’s the whole argument. I’d certainly rather give him the ball than Vince Carter.
But if you or others want to read deeper into this or extrapolate what you think I’m trying to say from this very isolated stat I’m looking at, that’s your call. Don’t expect me to apologize for how you interpret what I wrote.

By: Patrick Hayes

Patrick Hayes — Wed, 22 Sep 2010 14:18:44 +0000

@gmehl:
It’s possible. I don’t know where to find that stat, but if anyone does know a site that tracks it, I’d be happy to look it up.