Ultimate Game Breakdown: Players For Nuggets 106 Clippers 92 in Los Angeles Oct. 24, Preseason Game

USER GUIDE FOR THIS TYPE OF REPORT
This is much of what an Ultimate Game Breakdown-Players (UGB:P) is going to look like for the new season. It's a "just the important facts please, and give them to me quick" type of report.

I will in many cases do a little commentary at the bottom of the UGB:Ps, but most of the game and team commentary will be in the separate "Game and Team Reports." Game and Team articles are, with any luck, going to be produced for 26 Nuggets and for 26 Raptors games this season. Ultimate Game Breakdowns: Players, such s the one here, will be done for the 26 key games, and for other games as well, but not necessarily for all 82 games. I don't really know how all this new editing is going to play out time wise yet!

The games that get the full treatment have been very carefully chosen to be the most important games, which are generally the games against the best teams. Full treatment including the kitchen sink report games have been chosen from among only games where neither team is at a disadvantage due to playing on back to back nights. Other internet basketball "experts" are really wasting their time to some extent when they report on a Kegame where one team was playing on back to back nights and the other team was not, because the great majority of those games are almost automatically won by the team that has more rest. I used to do those stupid games, but I'm not doing them anymore, because I keep trying to get better and better at understanding and teaching basketball, so I make changes such as this.

With an Ultimate Game Breakdown-Players report, you can see very rapidly who was most responsible for the winning or the losing of the game. Then someone like me can easily write a separate game report which explains how things might have worked out better for a team, or why things worked out just about as well as possible, as the case may be.

The Real Player Ratings formula has been very carefully and accurately tweaked again and is currently as follows:

POSITIVE FACTORS
Points 1.00 (at par)
Number of 3-Pt FGs Made 1.00
Number of 2-Pt FGs Made 0.60
Number of FTs Made 0.00

Assists 1.75

Offensive Rebounds 1.15
Defensive Rebounds 1.25
Blocks 1.60
Steals 2.10

NEGATIVE FACTORS
3-Pt FGs Missed -1.00
2-Pt FGs Missed -0.85
FTs Missed -0.85

Turnovers -2.00
Personal Fouls -0.80

ACTUAL COMBINED AWARD OR PENALTY BY TYPE OF SHOT
3-Pointer Made 4.00
2-Pointer Made 2.60
Free Throw Made 1.00
3-Pointer Missed -1.00
2-Pointer Missed -0.85
Free Throw Missed -0.85

ZERO POINTS: PERCENTAGES BELOW WHICH THERE IS A NEGATIVE NET RESULT
3-Pointer 0 score % 0.200
2-Pointer 0 score % 0.246
1-Pointer 0 score % 0.459

ASSISTS VERSUS TURNOVERS ZERO POINT
Assist/Turnover Ratio That Yields 0 Net Points: 1.143

QUALITY (RPR) AND QUANTITY (RPP) EXPLANATION
RPR game reports show for each player the RPR (Real Player Rating) which tells you how good a player did (all the good things minus all the bad things) out on the court per unit of time. The RPP (Real Player Production) report tells you how much in total (the sum of the of the good things minus the sum of the bad things) a player did out on the court.

Many and maybe most sports watchers and an unknown but probably disturbingly large number of sports managers make the mistakes of exaggerating the importance of quantity and overlooking to some extent quality. These reports allow you to expand your horizons. These reports put quantity and quality side by side, which is extremely valuable, because both are roughly equally important in explaining accurately why and how the game turned out the way it did.

Players who over many games consistently have higher RPR (quality) but lower RPP (quantity) results are in many cases not getting enough playing time. Players that over many games consistently have lower RPR (quality) but higher RPP (quantity) results are in many cases getting too much playing time.

The exceptional cases are very often going to be players who are either truly outstanding defenders or truly bad defenders. This is because the one and only thing that is not counted, because it is impossible to calculate it, is the number of shots that a player prevents from being scores. Investigation has to date revealed that, apparently, no one has even attempted, for the NBA, rough estimates of the actual value of each player's defending, in terms of number or percentage of scores prevented, or in terms of number or percentage of possessions made worthless.

Over the coming year, I am going to be working to see if it is possible to use some combination of advanced statistics that are tracked on certain internet sites as an accurate proxy for the number of shots and/or for the number of possessions ruined by a defender.

Another exception. where it is really alright when it looks like a player is playing too much, will be if a team has a point guard who has many more turnovers than the average point guard has. Because the point guard is so important, a good coach has to play his best guard who can make plays at the position for a full set of minutes every game, pretty much regardless of how many turnovers that player makes. If you take out your designated point guard due to "too many turnovers," it's most often going to be sort of like cutting your foot off because you have a bad case of athletes foot!

REAL PLAYER RATINGS FOR THIS GAME
DENVER QUALITY
Linas Kleiza, SF 1.230
J.R. Smith, SG 0.842
Chris Andersen, PF 0.670
Dahntay Jones, SG 0.638
Juwan Howard, PF 0.620
Nene Hilario, PF 0.618
Carmelo Anthony, SF 0.559
Allen Iverson, SG 0.470
Anthony Carter, PG 0.432
Kenyon Martin, PF 0.255


LOS ANGELES CLIPPERS QUALITY
Mike Taylor, PG 1.282
Chris Kaman, C 0.810
Eric Gordon, SG 0.617
Brian Skinner, PF 0.550
Jason Hart, PG 0.487
Cuttino Mobley, SG 0.473
Steve Novak, SF 0.368
Ricky Davis, SF 0.339
Al Thornton, SF 0.183
DeAndre Jordan, C 0.146


SCALE FOR RPR (QUALITY) RATINGS FOR A SINGLE GAME
Historic Superstar for this game 1.400 and more
Superstar 1.050 to 1.399
Star/Outstanding 0.800 to 1.050
Very Good 0.625 to 0.799
Major Role Player 0.525 to 0.624
Role Player 0.450 to 0.524
Minor Role Player 0.400 to 0.449
Very Minor Role Player or Very Important Defender 0.350 to 0.399
Poor Game or Extremely Importand Defender 0.275 to 0.349
Very Poor Game Regardless of Defending 0.200 to 0.274
Disaster Game Regardless of Defending minus infinity to 0.199

****************************************************
REAL PLAYER PRODUCTION
DENVER QUANTITY
Linas Kleiza, SF 30.75
J.R. Smith, SG 25.25
Chris Andersen, PF 18.75
Allen Iverson, SG 15.05
Juwan Howard, PF 14.25
Nene Hilario, PF 13.60
Carmelo Anthony, SF 12.85
Anthony Carter, PG 10.80
Dahntay Jones, SG 7.65
Kenyon Martin, PF 5.60

LOS ANGELES CLIPPERS QUANTITY
Chris Kaman, C 23.50
Jason Hart, PG 17.05
Cuttino Mobley, SG 15.15
Mike Taylor, PG 14.10
Brian Skinner, PF 13.20
Eric Gordon, SG 12.95
Ricky Davis, SF 9.15
Steve Novak, SF 8.10
DeAndre Jordan, C 3.65
Al Thornton, SF 2.75

SCALE FOR RPP (QUANTITY) RATINGS FOR A SINGLE GAME
FOR STARTING PLAYERS
Happens only a few times a year in the NBA 40.0 and more
Massive and Memorable Game 36.0 to 39.9
Huge Game 32.0 to 35.9
Very Big Game 28.0 to 31.9
Big Game 24.0 to 27.9
Typical Average Game 20.0 to 23.9
Somewhat Below Average Game 16.0 to 19.9
Way Below Average Game 12.0 to 15.9
Bad Game 9.0 to 11.9
Really Bad Game 5.0 to 8.9
Total Disaster minus infinity to 4.9

SCALE FOR RPP (QUANTITY) RATINGS FOR A SINGLE GAME
FOR NON-STARTING PLAYERS
Massive and Memorable Game 30.0 and more
Huge Game 26.0 to 29.9
Very Big Game 22.0 to 25.9
Big Game 18.0 to 21.9
Typical Non-Starter Game 12.0 to 17.9
Below Average Even For a Non-Starter 9.0 to 11.9
Way Below Average Even For a Non-Starter or Limited Minutes 6.0 to 8.9
Bad Game Even for a Non-Starter or Very Limited Minutes 3.0 to 5.9
Disaster: Nothing Much to Report minus infinity to 1.9

THE HIGH QUALITY PLAYERS IN THIS GAME







CLIPPERS OUTSTANDING QUALITY GAMES
Superstar during minutes on the court: Mike Taylor
Star/Outstanding during minutes on the court: Danny Kaman
Very Good during minutes on the court: Brian Skinner









NUGGETS OUTSTANDING QUALITY GAMES
Superstar during minutes on the Court: Linas Kleiza
Star/Outstanding during minutes on the court: J.R. Smith
Very Good during minutes on the court: Chris Andersen
Very Good during minutes on the court: Juwan Howard
Very Good during minutes on the court: Nene

POWER PERFORMERS IN THIS GAME







CLIPPERS POWER PERFORMERS
BIg Game: Chris Kaman (starter)









NUGGETS POWER PERFORMERS
Massive and Memorable Game: Linas Kleiza (Non-starter)
Very Big Game: J.R. Smith (Non-starter)
Big Game: Chris Andersen

COMMENTS
It was Linas Kleiza's turn to have a huge preseason game, but he was not very impressive in the other preseason games. Anthony Carter was mediocre or bad during all but one of the preseason games. Allen Iverson was banged up and had one of his worst preseasons ever.

On the plus side for the Nuggets, J.R. Smith was impressive in many preseason games, as was Chris Andersen. Nene showed some signs late in the preseason, and Renaldo Balkman did so early.

Linas Kleiza and J.R. Smith were a combined 7/11 on threes for the Nuggets which was enough to put the short of star power Clippers to rest for the night. Key Clippers PF/C Marcus Camby, PG Baron Davis, and PF Tim Thomas were all slightly injured and on the mend for the Clippers.

Ultimate Game Breakdown: Players For Nuggets 105 Raptors 94 in Edmonton, Canada, Oct 21, Preseason Game

USER GUIDE FOR THIS TYPE OF REPORT
This is much of what an Ultimate Game Breakdown-Players (UGB:P) is going to look like for the new season. It's a "just the important facts please, and give them to me quick" type of report.

I will in many cases do a little commentary at the bottom of the UGB:Ps, but most of the game and team commentary will be in the separate "Game and Team Reports." Game and Team articles are, with any luck, going to be produced for 26 Nuggets and for 26 Raptors games this season. Ultimate Game Breakdowns: Players, such as the one here, will be done for the 26 key games, and for other games as well, but not necessarily for all 82 games. I don't really know how all this new editing is going to play out time wise yet!

The games that get the full treatment have been very carefully chosen to be the most important games, which are generally the games against the best teams. Full treatment including the kitchen sink report games have been chosen from among only games where neither team is at a disadvantage due to playing on back to back nights. Other internet basketball "experts" are really wasting their time to some extent when they report on a game where one team was playing on back to back nights and the other team was not, because the great majority of those games are almost automatically won by the team that has more rest. I used to do those stupid games, but I'm not doing them anymore, because I keep trying to get better and better at understanding and teaching basketball, so I make changes such as this.

With an Ultimate Game Breakdown-Players report, you can see very rapidly who was most responsible for the winning or the losing of the game. Then someone like me can easily write a separate game report which explains how things might have worked out better for a team, or why things worked out just about as well as possible, as the case may be.

The Real Player Ratings formula has been very carefully and accurately tweaked again and is currently as follows:

POSITIVE FACTORS
Points 1.00 (at par)
Number of 3-Pt FGs Made 1.00
Number of 2-Pt FGs Made 0.60
Number of FTs Made 0.00

Assists 1.75

Offensive Rebounds 1.15
Defensive Rebounds 1.25
Blocks 1.60
Steals 2.10

NEGATIVE FACTORS
3-Pt FGs Missed -1.00
2-Pt FGs Missed -0.85
FTs Missed -0.85

Turnovers -2.00
Personal Fouls -0.80

ACTUAL COMBINED AWARD OR PENALTY BY TYPE OF SHOT
3-Pointer Made 4.00
2-Pointer Made 2.60
Free Throw Made 1.00
3-Pointer Missed -1.00
2-Pointer Missed -0.85
Free Throw Missed -0.85

ZERO POINTS: PERCENTAGES BELOW WHICH THERE IS A NEGATIVE NET RESULT
3-Pointer 0 score % 0.200
2-Pointer 0 score % 0.246
1-Pointer 0 score % 0.459

ASSISTS VERSUS TURNOVERS ZERO POINT
Assist/Turnover Ratio That Yields 0 Net Points: 1.143

QUALITY (RPR) AND QUANTITY (RPP) EXPLANATION
RPR game reports show for each player the RPR (Real Player Rating) which tells you how good a player did (all the good things minus all the bad things) out on the court per unit of time. The RPP (Real Player Production) report tells you how much in total (the sum of the of the good things minus the sum of the bad things) a player did out on the court.

Many and maybe most sports watchers and an unknown but probably disturbingly large number of sports managers make the mistakes of exaggerating the importance of quantity and overlooking to some extent quality. These reports allow you to expand your horizons. These reports put quantity and quality side by side, which is extremely valuable, because both are roughly equally important in explaining accurately why and how the game turned out the way it did.

Players who over many games consistently have higher RPR (quality) but lower RPP (quantity) results are in many cases not getting enough playing time. Players that over many games consistently have lower RPR (quality) but higher RPP (quantity) results are in many cases getting too much playing time.

The exceptional cases are very often going to be players who are either truly outstanding defenders or truly bad defenders. This is because the one and only thing that is not counted, because it is impossible to calculate it, is the number of shots that a player prevents from being scores. Investigation has to date revealed that, apparently, no one has even attempted, for the NBA, rough estimates of the actual value of each player's defending, in terms of number or percentage of scores prevented, or in terms of number or percentage of possessions made worthless.

Over the coming year, I am going to be working to see if it is possible to use some combination of advanced statistics that are tracked on certain internet sites as an accurate proxy for the number of shots and/or for the number of possessions ruined by a defender.

Another exception. where it is really alright when it looks like a player is playing too much, will be if a team has a point guard who has many more turnovers than the average point guard has. Because the point guard is so important, a good coach has to play his best guard who can make plays at the position for a full set of minutes every game, pretty much regardless of how many turnovers that player makes. If you take out your designated point guard due to "too many turnovers," it's most often going to be sort of like cutting your foot off because you have a bad case of athletes foot!

REAL PLAYER RATINGS
DENVER QUALITY
J.R. Smith III, SG 1.129
Nene Hilario, PF 1.083
Carmelo Anthony, SF 1.045
Nick Fazekas, PF 1.004
Ruben Patterson, SF 0.815
Chris Andersen, PF 0.712
James Mays, PF 0.643
Dahntay Jones, SG 0.422
Smush Parker, PG 0.367
Mateen Cleaves, PG 0.327
Juwan Howard, PF 0.160

TORONTO QUALITY
Jose Calderon Borrallo, PG 1.015
Roko Ukic, SG 0.817
Andrea Bargnani, C 0.720
Chris Bosh, PF 0.573
Kris Humphries, PF 0.558
Anthony Parker, SG 0.481
Jermaine O'Neal, PF 0.346
Hassan Adams, SF 0.176
Joey Graham, SF 0.142
Jamario Moon, SF 0.122
Jason Kapono, SF 0.084

SCALE FOR RPR (QUALITY) RATINGS FOR A SINGLE GAME
Historic Superstar for this game 1.400 and more
Superstar 1.050 to 1.399
Star 0.800 to 1.050
Outstanding 0.625 to 0.799
Major Role Player 0.525 to 0.624
Role Player 0.450 to 0.524
Minor Role Player 0.400 to 0.449
Very Minor Role Player or Very Important Defender 0.350 to 0.399
Poor Game or Extremely Importand Defender 0.275 to 0.349
Very Poor Game Regardless of Defending 0.200 to 0.274
Disaster Game Regardless of Defending minus infinity to 0.199

****************************************************
REAL PLAYER PRODUCTION
DENVER QUANTITY
J.R. Smith III, SG 35.00
Carmelo Anthony, SF 29.25
Nene Hilario, PF 24.90
Chris Andersen, PF 18.50
Ruben Patterson, SF 16.30
Dahntay Jones, SG 12.65
Nick Fazekas, PF 12.05
Mateen Cleaves, PG 9.15
James Mays, PF 9.00
Smush Parker, PG 4.40
Juwan Howard, PF 2.40

TORONTO QUANTITY
Jose Calderon Borrallo, PG 27.40
Andrea Bargnani, C 18.00
Chris Bosh, PF 17.20
Roko Ukic, SG 17.15
Kris Humphries, PF 14.50
Anthony Parker, SG 12.50
Jermaine O'Neal, PF 4.50
Hassan Adams, SF 3.35
Jamario Moon, SF 2.20
Joey Graham, SF 1.85
Jason Kapono, SF 1.85

SCALE FOR RPP (QUANTITY) RATINGS FOR A SINGLE GAME
FOR STARTING PLAYERS
Happens only a few times a year in the NBA 40.0 and more
Massive and Memorable Game 36.0 to 39.9
Huge Game 32.0 to 35.9
Very Big Game 28.0 to 31.9
Big Game 24.0 to 27.9
Typical Average Game 20.0 to 23.9
Somewhat Below Average Game 16.0 to 19.9
Way Below Average Game 12.0 to 15.9
Bad Game 9.0 to 11.9
Really Bad Game 5.0 to 8.9
Total Disaster minus infinity to 4.9

SCALE FOR RPP (QUANTITY) RATINGS FOR A SINGLE GAME
FOR NON-STARTING PLAYERS
Massive and Memorable Game 30.0 and more
Huge Game 26.0 to 29.9
Very Big Game 22.0 to 25.9
Big Game 18.0 to 21.9
Typical Non-Starter Game 12.0 to 17.9
Below Average Even For a Non-Starter 9.0 to 11.9
Way Below Average Even For a Non-Starter or Limited Minutes 6.0 to 8.9
Bad Game Even for a Non-Starter or Very Limited Minutes 3.0 to 5.9
Disaster: Nothing Much to Report minus infinity to 1.9

THE HIGH QUALITY PLAYERS IN THIS GAME
















RAPTORS OUTSTANDING QUALITY GAMES

Star During Minutes on the Court: Jose Calderon





































NUGGETS OUTSTANDING QUALITY GAMES

Superstar During Minutes on the Court: J.R. Smith





















Superstar During Minutes on the Court: Nene





















Star During Minutes on the Court: Carmelo Anthony





















Star During Minutes on the Court: Nick Fazekas





















Star During Minutes on the Court: Ruben Patterson





















POWER PERFORMERS OF THIS GAME
















RAPTORS POWER PERFORMERS

RAPTORS STARTERS POWER PERFORMERS
Big Game: Jose Calderon





















RAPTORS NON-STARTERS POWER PERFORMERS
Big Game: Andrea Bargnani






































NUGGETS POWER PERFORMERS

NUGGETS STARTERS POWER PERFORMERS

Very Big Game: Carmelo Anthony





















Big Game: Nene





















NUGGETS NON-STARTERS POWER PERFORMERS
Massive and Memorable Game: J.R. Smith





















Big Game: Chris Andersen





















Note: For the rundown of the best players and the power performers, I bump up or bump down, by one category, certain players, due to adjustments for defending, wherever such adjustments are obvious.

COMMENTS
J.R. Smith and Nene led the Nuggets to the victory with a massive game, with good help from Carmelo Anthony. The Raptors played poorly. J.R. Smith answered my call to have a balance between driving to the rim and getting some threes. His game was essentially perfect and brilliant. Thank you very much J.R. Smith. Please continue.

Come on Raptors, you have one of the best PGs in the League, you need to make some shots!

The Nuggets, who have become the hyenas of the NBA, looking for diamonds in the rough among players who have been cast off from other teams, continue to in the preseason play players who have been rarely seen in recent years. For example, who in the heck is James Mays?

Ultimate Game Breakdown: Players For Timberwolves 111 Nuggets 107 in North Dakota on Oct. 19, Preseason Game

This is much of what an Ultimate Game Breakdown-Players (UGB:P) is going to look like for the new season. It's a "just the important facts please, and give them to me quick" type of report.

I will in many cases do a little commentary at the bottom of the UGB:Ps, but most of the game and team commentary will be in the separate "Game and Team Reports." Game and Team articles are, with any luck, going to be produced for 26 Nuggets and for 26 Raptors games this season. Ultimate Game Breakdowns: Players, such as the one here, will be done for the 26 key games, and for other games as well, but not necessarily for all 82 games. I don't really know how all this new editing is going to play out time wise yet!

The games that get the full treatment have been very carefully chosen to be the most important games, which are generally the games against the best teams. Full treatment including the kitchen sink report games have been chosen from among only games where neither team is at a disadvantage due to playing on back to back nights. Other internet basketball "experts" are really wasting their time to some extent when they report on a game where one team was playing on back to back nights and the other team was not, because the great majority of those games are almost automatically won by the team that has more rest. I used to do those stupid games, but I'm not doing them anymore, because I keep trying to get better and better at understanding and teaching basketball, so I make changes such as this.

With an Ultimate Game Breakdown-Players report, you can see very rapidly who was most responsible for the winning or the losing of the game. Then someone like me can easily write a separate game report which explains how things might have worked out better for a team, or why things worked out just about as well as possible, as the case may be.

The Real Player Ratings formula has been very carefully and accurately tweaked again and is currently as follows:

POSITIVE FACTORS
Points 1.00 (at par)
Number of 3-Pt FGs Made 1.00
Number of 2-Pt FGs Made 0.60
Number of FTs Made 0.00

Assists 1.75

Offensive Rebounds 1.15
Defensive Rebounds 1.25
Blocks 1.60
Steals 2.10

NEGATIVE FACTORS
3-Pt FGs Missed -1.00
2-Pt FGs Missed -0.85
FTs Missed -0.85

Turnovers -2.00
Personal Fouls -0.80

ACTUAL COMBINED AWARD OR PENALTY BY TYPE OF SHOT
3-Pointer Made 4.00
2-Pointer Made 2.60
Free Throw Made 1.00
3-Pointer Missed -1.00
2-Pointer Missed -0.85
Free Throw Missed -0.85

ZERO POINTS: PERCENTAGES BELOW WHICH THERE IS A NEGATIVE NET RESULT
3-Pointer 0 score % 0.200
2-Pointer 0 score % 0.246
1-Pointer 0 score % 0.459

ASSISTS VERSUS TURNOVERS ZERO POINT
Assist/Turnover Ratio That Yields 0 Net Points: 1.143

NOTES ON HOW TO USE ULTIMATE GAME BREAKDOWN RPR/RPP REPORTS
RPR game reports show for each player the RPR (Real Player Rating) which tells you how good a player did (the good things minus the bad things) out on the court per unit of time. The RPP (Real Player Production) report tells you how much in total (the sum of the of the good things minus the sum of the bad things) a player did out on the court.

Many and maybe most sports watchers and an unknown but probably disturbingly large number of sports managers make the mistakes of exaggerating the importance of quantity and overlooking to some extent quality. These reports allow you to expand your horizons. These reports put quantity and quality side by side, which is extremely valuable, because both are roughly equally important in explaining accurately why and how the game turned out the way it did.

Players who over many games consistently have higher RPR (quality) but lower RPP (quantity) results are in many cases not getting enough playing time. Players that over many games consistently have lower RPR (quality) but higher RPP (quantity) results are in many cases getting too much playing time.

The exceptional cases are very often going to be players who are either truly outstanding defenders or truly bad defenders. This is because the one and only thing that is not counted, because it is impossible to calculate it, is the number of shots that a player prevents from being scores. Investigation has to date revealed that, apparently, no one has even attempted, for the NBA, rough estimates of the actual value of each player's defending, in terms of number or percentage of scores prevented, or in terms of number or percentage of possessions made worthless.

Over the coming year, I am going to be working to see if it is possible to use some combination of advanced statistics that are tracked on certain internet sites as an accurate proxy for the number of shots and/or for the number of possessions ruined by a defender.

Another exception. where it is really alright when it looks like a player is playing too much, will be if a team has a point guard who has many more turnovers than the average point guard has. Because the point guard is so important, a good coach has to play his best guard who can make plays at the position for a full set of minutes every game, pretty much regardless of how many turnovers that player makes. If you take out your designated point guard due to "too many turnovers," it's most often going to be sort of like cutting your foot off because you have a bad case of athletes foot!

REAL PLAYER RATINGS
DENVER QUALITY
Smush Parker, PG 0.942
Kenyon Martin, PF 0.923
Anthony Carter, PG 0.870
Carmelo Anthony, SF 0.779
J.R. Smith, SG 0.713
Nene Hilario, PF 0.683
Linas Kleiza, SF 0.448
Dahntay Jones, SG 0.342
Renaldo Balkman, SF -0.011
Chris Andersen, PF -0.055


MINNESOTA QUALITY
Randy Foye, PG 1.444
Sebastian Telfair, PG 1.146
Ryan Gomes, PF 1.048
Kevin Ollie, PG 0.931
Mike Miller, SG 0.879
Craig Smith, PF 0.702
Al Jefferson, PF 0.646
Mark Madsen, PF 0.550
Corey Brewer, SF 0.425
Chris Richard, PF 0.200
Rodney Carney, SF 0.150
Kevin Love, F 0.041


SCALE FOR RPR (QUALITY) RATINGS FOR A SINGLE GAME
Historic Superstar for this game 1.400 and more
Superstar 1.050 to 1.399
Star 0.800 to 1.050
Outstanding 0.625 to 0.799
Major Role Player 0.525 to 0.624
Role Player 0.450 to 0.524
Minor Role Player 0.400 to 0.449
Very Minor Role Player or Very Important Defender 0.350 to 0.399
Poor Game or Extremely Importand Defender 0.275 to 0.349
Very Poor Game Regardless of Defending 0.200 to 0.274
Disaster Game Regardless of Defending minus infinity to 0.199

****************************************************
REAL PLAYER PRODUCTION
DENVER QUANTITY
Anthony Carter, PG 30.45
Kenyon Martin, PF 22.15
Carmelo Anthony, SF 21.80
J.R. Smith, SG 16.40
Nene Hilario, PF 16.40
Smush Parker, PG 12.25
Linas Kleiza, SF 12.10
Dahntay Jones, SG 6.15
Renaldo Balkman, SF -0.25
Chris Andersen, PF -1.10


MINNESOTA QUANTITY
Randy Foye, PG 39.00
Ryan Gomes, PF 29.35
Mike Miller, SG 25.50
Craig Smith, PF 19.65
Al Jefferson, PF 17.45
Sebastian Telfair, PG 14.90
Mark Madsen, PF 11.00
Corey Brewer, SF 7.65
Kevin Ollie, PG 7.45
Rodney Carney, SF 2.85
Chris Richard, PF 1.40
Kevin Love, F 0.45


SCALE FOR RPP (QUANTITY) RATINGS FOR A SINGLE GAME
FOR STARTING PLAYERS
Happens only a few times a year in the NBA 40.0 and more
Massive and Memorable Game 36.0 to 39.9
Huge Game 32.0 to 35.9
Very Big Game 28.0 to 31.9
Big Game 24.0 to 27.9
Typical Average Game 20.0 to 23.9
Somewhat Below Average Game 16.0 to 19.9
Way Below Average Game 12.0 to 15.9
Bad Game 9.0 to 11.9
Really Bad Game 5.0 to 8.9
Total Disaster minus infinity to 4.9

SCALE FOR RPP (QUANTITY) RATINGS FOR A SINGLE GAME
FOR NON-STARTING PLAYERS
Massive and Memorable Game 30.0 and more
Huge Game 26.0 to 29.9
Very Big Game 22.0 to 25.9
Big Game 18.0 to 21.9
Typical Non-Starter Game 12.0 to 17.9
Below Average Even For a Non-Starter 9.0 to 11.9
Way Below Average Even For a Non-Starter or Limited Minutes 6.0 to 8.9
Bad Game Even for a Non-Starter or Very Limited Minutes 3.0 to 5.9
Disaster: Nothing Much to Report minus infinity to 1.9

THE HIGH QUALITY PLAYERS IN THIS GAME
















TIMBERWOLVES OUTSTANDING QUALITY GAMES

Historic Superstar During Minutes on the Court: Randy Foye





















Superstar During Minutes on the Court: Sebastian Telfair





















Superstar During Minutes on the Court: Ryan Gomes





















Star During Minutes on the Court: Kevin Ollie





















Star During Minutes on the Court: Mike Miller








































OUTSTANDING QUALITY GAMES FOR THE NUGGETS

Star During Minutes on the Court: Smush Parker





















Star During Minutes on the Court: Kenyon Martin





















Star During Minutes on the Court: Anthony Carter





















POWER PERFORMERS OF THIS GAME

















TIMBERWOLVES POWER PERFORMERS

T-WOLVES STARTERS POWER PERFORMERS
Massive and Memorable Game: Randy Foye





















Very Big Game: Ryan Gomes





















Big Game: Mike Miller





















T-WOLVES NON-STARTERS POWER PERFORMERS
Big Game: Craig Smith






































NUGGETS STARTERS POWER PERFORMERS

Very Big Game: Anthony Carter





















NUGGETS NON-STARTERS POWER PERFORMERS
NONE partly because this was a preseason game and minutes were limited.

Note: For the rundown of the best players and the power performers, I bump up or bump down, by one category, certain players, due to adjustments for defending, wherever such adjustments are obvious.

COMMENTS
Anthony Carter finally has a decent game after doing almost nothing the first four preseason games.

Have you ever noticed that Nene is like a rare bird; you seldom spot him? Here he played 24 minutes, which is a lot of minutes for the Brazilian. Unless Nene is truly ready to play basketball this year, the Nuggets are going to be one of the worst teams in the League at the center position. And with the point guard position in a state of disarray, the Nuggets have big worries at the two most important positions in the game. Therefore, it would seem to be a safe prediction that the Nuggets will be unable to make the playoffs this year, no matter how much Kenyon Martin, JR Smith, Allen Iverson, and Carmelo Anthony try to make it happen.

Minnesota in general and Randy Foye in particular clearly owned this game, though Denver kept it close due to having a deeper team. The Timberwolves are, after all, still in the building mode. The Nuggets are in the tearing down mode, what with Camby and Najera gone and with Iverson rumored to be on his way out at the end of this year when his contract is over with.

Ultimate Game Breakdown: Players For Nuggets 94 Suns 91 in Denver, Preseason Game

This is much of what an Ultimate Game Breakdown-Players (UGB:P) is going to look like for the new season. It's a "just the important facts please, and give them to me quick" type of report.

I will in many cases do a little commentary at the bottom of the UGB:Ps, but most of the game and team commentary will be in the separate "Game and Team Reports." Game and Team articles are, with any luck, going to be produced for 26 Nuggets and for 26 Raptors games this season. Ultimate Game Breakdowns: Players, such as the one here, will be done for the 26 key games, and for other games as well, but not necessarily for all 82 games. I don't really know how all this new editing is going to play out time wise yet!

The games that get the full treatment have been very carefully chosen to be the most important games, which are generally the games against the best teams. Full treatment including the kitchen sink report games have been chosen from among only games where neither team is at a disadvantage due to playing on back to back nights. Other internet basketball "experts" are really wasting their time to some extent when they report on a game where one team was playing on back to back nights and the other team was not, because the great majority of those games are almost automatically won by the team that has more rest. I used to do those stupid games, but I'm not doing them anymore, because I keep trying to get better and better at understanding and teaching basketball, so I make changes such as this.

With an Ultimate Game Breakdown-Players report, you can see very rapidly who was most responsible for the winning or the losing of the game. Then someone like me can easily write a separate game report which explains how things might have worked out better for a team, or why things worked out just about as well as possible, as the case may be.

The Real Player Ratings formula has been very carefully and accurately tweaked again and is currently as follows:

POSITIVE FACTORS
Points 1.00 (at par)
Number of 3-Pt FGs Made 1.00
Number of 2-Pt FGs Made 0.60
Number of FTs Made 0.00

Assists 1.75

Offensive Rebounds 1.15
Defensive Rebounds 1.25
Blocks 1.60
Steals 2.10

NEGATIVE FACTORS
3-Pt FGs Missed -1.00
2-Pt FGs Missed -0.85
FTs Missed -0.85

Turnovers -2.00
Personal Fouls -0.80

ACTUAL COMBINED AWARD OR PENALTY BY TYPE OF SHOT
3-Pointer Made 4.00
2-Pointer Made 2.60
Free Throw Made 1.00
3-Pointer Missed -1.00
2-Pointer Missed -0.85
Free Throw Missed -0.85

ZERO POINTS: PERCENTAGES BELOW WHICH THERE IS A NEGATIVE NET RESULT
3-Pointer 0 score % 0.200
2-Pointer 0 score % 0.246
1-Pointer 0 score % 0.459

ASSISTS VERSUS TURNOVERS ZERO POINT
Assist/Turnover Ratio That Yields 0 Net Points: 1.143

NOTES ON HOW TO USE ULTIMATE GAME BREAKDOWN RPR/RPP REPORTS
RPR game reports show for each player the RPR (Real Player Rating) which tells you how good a player did (the good things minus the bad things) out on the court per unit of time. The RPP (Real Player Production) report tells you how much in total (the sum of the of the good things minus the sum of the bad things) a player did out on the court.

Many and maybe most sports watchers and an unknown but probably disturbingly large number of sports managers make the mistakes of exaggerating the importance of quantity and overlooking to some extent quality. These reports allow you to expand your horizons. These reports put quantity and quality side by side, which is extremely valuable, because both are roughly equally important in explaining accurately why and how the game turned out the way it did.

Players who over many games consistently have higher RPR (quality) but lower RPP (quantity) results are in many cases not getting enough playing time. Players that over many games consistently have lower RPR (quality) but higher RPP (quantity) results are in many cases getting too much playing time.

The exceptional cases are very often going to be players who are either truly outstanding defenders or truly bad defenders. This is because the one and only thing that is not counted, because it is impossible to calculate it, is the number of shots that a player prevents from being scores. Investigation has to date revealed that, apparently, no one has even attempted, for the NBA, rough estimates of the actual value of each player's defending, in terms of number or percentage of scores prevented, or in terms of number or percentage of possessions made worthless.

Over the coming year, I am going to be working to see if it is possible to use some combination of advanced statistics that are tracked on certain internet sites as an accurate proxy for the number of shots and/or for the number of possessions ruined by a defender.

Another exception. where it is really alright when it looks like a player is playing too much, will be if a team has a point guard who has many more turnovers than the average point guard has. Because the point guard is so important, a good coach has to play his best guard who can make plays at the position for a full set of minutes every game, pretty much regardless of how many turnovers that player makes. If you take out your designated point guard due to "too many turnovers," it's most often going to be sort of like cutting your foot off because you have a bad case of athletes foot!

REAL PLAYER RATINGS
PHOENIX QUALITY
Robert Hite, SG 1.233
Raja Bell, SG 0.846
Matt Barnes, SF 0.820
Goran Dragic, PG 0.813
Sean Singletary, PG 0.724
Leandro Barbosa, PG 0.581
Louis Amundson, PF 0.482
Grant Hill, SF 0.370
Boris Diaw, PF 0.290
Robin Lopez, C 0.190
Shaquille O'Neal, C -0.021

DENVER QUALITY
J.R. Smith, SG 1.331
Carmelo Anthony, SF 1.123
Ruben Patterson, SF 1.100
Juwan Howard, PF 0.768
Linas Kleiza, SF 0.593
Chris Andersen, PF 0.577
Nene Hilario, PF 0.456
Dahntay Jones, SG 0.274
Anthony Carter, PG 0.273
Mateen Cleaves, PG 0.045
Allen Iverson, SG -0.069


SCALE FOR RPR (QUALITY) RATINGS FOR A SINGLE GAME
Historic Superstar for this game 1.300 and more
Superstar 1.000 to 1.299
Star 0.800 0.999 to
Outstanding 0.625 to 0.799
Major Role Player 0.525 to 0.624
Role Player 0.450 to 0.524
Minor Role Player 0.400 to 0.449
Very Minor Role Player or Very Important Defender 0.350 to 0.399
Poor Game or Extremely Importand Defender 0.275 to 0.349
Very Poor Game Regardless of Defending 0.200 to 0.274
Disaster Game Regardless of Defending minus infinity to 0.199

****************************************************
REAL PLAYER PRODUCTION
PHOENIX QUANTITY
Goran Dragic, PG 25.20
Matt Barnes, SF 20.50
Raja Bell, SG 19.45
Sean Singletary, PG 12.30
Robert Hite, SG 11.10
Boris Diaw, PF 10.45
Leandro Barbosa, PG 9.30
Grant Hill, SF 8.50
Louis Amundson, PF 8.20
Robin Lopez, C 5.90
Shaquille O'Neal, C -0.25


DENVER QUANTITY
J.R. Smith, SG 31.95
Carmelo Anthony, SF 26.95
Chris Andersen, PF 17.90
Juwan Howard, PF 14.60
Linas Kleiza, SF 12.45
Ruben Patterson, SF 11.00
Nene Hilario, PF 10.95
Anthony Carter, PG 8.75
Dahntay Jones, SG 5.20
Mateen Cleaves, PG 0.45
Allen Iverson, SG -1.85

SCALE FOR RPP (QUANTITY) RATINGS FOR A SINGLE GAME
FOR STARTING PLAYERS
Happens only a few times a year in the NBA 40.0 and more
Massive and Memorable Game 36.0 to 39.9
Huge Game 32.0 to 35.9
Very Big Game 28.0 to 31.9
Big Game 24.0 to 27.9
Typical Average Game 20.0 to 23.9
Somewhat Below Average Game 16.0 to 19.9
Way Below Average Game 12.0 to 15.9
Bad Game 9.0 to 11.9
Really Bad Game 5.0 to 8.9
Total Disaster minus infinity to 4.9

SCALE FOR RPP (QUANTITY) RATINGS FOR A SINGLE GAME
FOR NON-STARTING PLAYERS
Massive and Memorable Game 30.0 and more
Huge Game 26.0 to 29.9
Very Big Game 22.0 to 25.9
Big Game 18.0 to 21.9
Typical Non-Starter Game 12.0 to 17.9
Below Average Even For a Non-Starter 9.0 to 11.9
Way Below Average Even For a Non-Starter or Limited Minutes 6.0 to 8.9
Bad Game Even for a Non-Starter or Very Limited Minutes 3.0 to 5.9
Disaster: Nothing Much to Report minus infinity to 1.9

THE HIGH QUALITY PLAYERS IN THIS GAME

























OUTSTANDING QUALITY GAMES FOR THE SUNS

Superstar During Minutes on the Court: Robert Hite


































Star During Minutes on the Court: Raja Bell





















Star During Minutes on the Court: Matt Barnes





















Star During Minutes on the Court: Goran Dragic






































OUTSTANDING QUALITY GAMES FOR THE NUGGETS

Historic Superstar During Minutes on the Court: J.R. Smith





















Superstar During Minutes on the Court: Carmelo Anthony





















Superstar During Minutes on the Court: Ruben Patterson





















Star During Minutes on the Court: Juwan Howard





















POWER PERFORMERS OF THIS GAME

























SUNS STARTERS POWER PERFORMERS

Big Game: Goran Dragic





















SUNS NON-STARTERS POWER PERFORMERS
NONE, partly because this was a preseason game and minutes were limited.


















NUGGETS STARTERS POWER PERFORMERS
Big Game: Carmelo Anthony





















NUGGETS NON-STARTERS POWER PERFORMERS
Massive and Memorable Game: JR Smith





















Big Game: Chris Andersen





















Note: For the rundown of the best players and the power performers, I bump up or bump down, by one category, certain players, due to adjustments for defending, wherever such adjustments are obvious.

COMMENTS
This was a back to the good old days game: the days when Carmelo Anthony and JR Smith were the leading tandem in the NBA, which was in the fall and early winter of 2006-07 to be exact. Unfortunately, JR Smith is not going to start for the Nuggets until Karl is gone, so this will not be reestablished this year unless both Iverson and Atkins don't play much. (And when has Iverson not played much?)

Even more unfortunately, JR Smith has so much gone to slashing to the rim that he has gone from one extreme to another, and is not attempting enough threes anymore. And since he and Linas Kleiza are about the only dedicated 3-point shooters on the Nuggets, this is a disaster if it's not corrected. The Nuggets seem to be enthusiastic about becoming the worst 3-point shooting team in the NBA, which if true, would not only guarantee that they will not make the playoffs, but also will guarantee that they will lose a whole bunch of games where they actually outplay the other team, except for being buried by threes.