Ultimate Game Breakdown: Players: Jazz 120 Pistons 114, 2 OT in Detroit Dec. 19, 2008

REAL PLAYER RATINGS (QUALITY) FOR THIS GAME
UTAH JAZZ QUALITY
Deron Williams, PG 0.972
Ronnie Brewer, SG 0.878
Paul Millsap, PF 0.864
Mehmet Okur, C 0.810
Matt Harpring, SF 0.417
Andrei Kirilenko, SF 0.351
C.J. Miles, SF 0.235
Kyle Korver, SG 0.036
Ronnie Price, PG -0.064
Brevin Knight, PG -0.225

DETROIT PISTONS QUALITY
Allen Iverson, SG 0.900
Richard Hamilton, SG 0.764
Rasheed Wallace, C 0.757
Tayshaun Prince, SF 0.602
Rodney Stuckey, PG 0.528
Jason Maxiell, PF 0.513
Antonio McDyess, PF 0.222
Arron Afflalo, SG 0.200

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
Very Good 0.650 to 0.799
Major Role Player 0.525 to 0.649
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 (QUANTITY) IN THIS GAME
UTAH JAZZ QUANTITY
Deron Williams, PG 44.70
Paul Millsap, PF 44.05
Mehmet Okur, C 38.90
Ronnie Brewer, SG 20.20
Andrei Kirilenko, SF 13.00
C.J. Miles, SF 4.00
Matt Harpring, SF 3.75
Kyle Korver, SG 1.25
Ronnie Price, PG -0.45
Brevin Knight, PG -2.70

DETROIT PISTONS QUANTITY
Allen Iverson, SG 48.60
Richard Hamilton, SG 35.90
Rasheed Wallace, C 26.50
Tayshaun Prince, SF 25.30
Rodney Stuckey, PG 16.90
Jason Maxiell, PF 8.20
Antonio McDyess, PF 7.55
Arron Afflalo, SG 3.60

SCALE FOR RPP (QUANTITY) RATINGS FOR A SINGLE GAME
FOR STARTING PLAYERS
Only Some Players Can Ever Fly This High, but Not Very Often! 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
Only Some Non-Starters Can Ever Fly This High, but Not Very Often! 33.0 and more
Massive and Memorable Game 29.0 to 32.9
Huge Game 25.0 to 28.9
Very Big Game 21.0 to 24.9
Big Game 17.0 to 20.9
Typical Non-Starter Game 12.0 to 16.9
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 HIGHEST QUALITY PLAYERS IN THIS GAME







UTAH JAZZ OUTSTANDING QUALITY GAMES
Star during minutes on the court: Deron Williams
Star during minutes on the court: Ronnie Brewer
Star during minutes on the court: Paul Milsap
Star during minutes on the court: Mehmet Okur








DETROIT PISTONS OUTSTANDING QUALITY GAMES
Star during minutes on the court: Allen Iverson
Star during minutes on the court: Rasheed Wallace
Very Good during minutes on the court: Richard Hamilton
Very Good during minutes on the court: Tayshaun Prince

THE GREATEST POWER PERFORMERS OF THIS GAME







UTAH JAZZ POWER PERFORMERS
Only Some Players can Ever Fly This High, and Not Very Often: Deron Williams
Only Some Players can Ever Fly This High, and Not Very Often: Paul Milsap
Only Some Players can Ever Fly This High, and Not Very Often: Mehmet Okur








DETROIT PISTONS POWER PERFORMERS
Only Some Players can Ever Fly This High, and Not Very Often: Allen Iverson
Huge Game: Richard Hamilton
Very Big Game: Rasheed Wallace
Big Game: Tayshaun Prince

USER GUIDE FOR THIS TYPE OF REPORT(Last updated December 8 2008)
EDITING AND PUBLISHING PLAN-MAIN DETAILS
This is a "just the important facts please, and give them to me quick" type of report. I will in some cases do a very limited amount of commentary at the bottom of this type of report, but it will really be just notes for commentary that will be elsewhere in the near future. In some cases there will be no comments at all.

Most of the commentaries I do are in "Game/Team/League Reports" and in Fast Breaks". Game/Team/League reports are, with any luck, going to be produced for about 20 Nuggets and for about 20 Pistons games this season. Ultimate Game Breakdowns: Players, such as the one here, will be done for those same games. Plus there will be about 10 more Nuggets and 10 more Pistons Game Breakdowns for games for which there will be no article report. There will be a few other "wildcard" Game Breakdowns.

So in total, at least 70 of these relatively easy to produce but very informative Ultimate Game Breakdown-Players reports are scheduled for the regular season. At least 40 Game/Team/League Reports are planned.

Ultimate Game Breakdown-Coaching reports are done for every game that has a Game/Team/League Report.

More of every type of report will come out during playoffs season; I won't bore you with those details.

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.

ULTIMATE GAME BREAKDOWN--PLAYERS REPORT EXPLAINED
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 2.15

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)-AN 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!

Ultimate Game Breakdown: Players: Nuggets 98 Mavericks 88 in Dallas Dec. 15, 2008

REAL PLAYER RATINGS (QUALITY) FOR THIS GAME
DENVER NUGGETS QUALITY
J.R. Smith, SG 1.375
Chauncey Billups, PG 0.884
Nene, C 0.693
Kenyon Martin, PF 0.670
Carmelo Anthony, SF 0.549
Linas Kleiza, SF 0.456
Anthony Carter, PG 0.450
Dahntay Jones, SG 0.297
Chris Andersen, PF 0.181

DALLAS MAVERICKS QUALITY
Erick Dampier, C 0.728
Devean George, SF 0.722
Dirk Nowitzki, PF 0.694
Jose Juan Barea, PG 0.693
Jason Terry, PG 0.655
Josh Howard, SF 0.482
Brandon Bass, PF 0.350
Jason Kidd, PG 0.307
DeSagana Diop, C 0.075

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
Very Good 0.650 to 0.799
Major Role Player 0.525 to 0.649
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 (QUANTITY) IN THIS GAME
DENVER NUGGETS QUANTITY
J.R. Smith, SG 33.00
Chauncey Billups, PG 30.95
Kenyon Martin, PF 25.45
Nene, C 24.25
Carmelo Anthony, SF 18.65
Anthony Carter, PG 9.90
Linas Kleiza, SF 8.20
Dahntay Jones, SG 4.75
Chris Andersen, PF 3.25

DALLAS MAVERICKS QUANTITY
Dirk Nowitzki, PF 28.45
Jose Juan Barea, PG 23.55
Erick Dampier, C 21.10
Jason Terry, PG 20.30
Devean George, SF 19.50
Jason Kidd, PG 11.05
Josh Howard, SF 6.75
Brandon Bass, PF 6.30
DeSagana Diop, C 0.60

SCALE FOR RPP (QUANTITY) RATINGS FOR A SINGLE GAME
FOR STARTING PLAYERS
Only Some Players Can Ever Fly This High, but Not Very Often! 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
Only Some Non-Starters Can Ever Fly This High, but Not Very Often! 33.0 and more
Massive and Memorable Game 29.0 to 32.9
Huge Game 25.0 to 28.9
Very Big Game 21.0 to 24.9
Big Game 17.0 to 20.9
Typical Non-Starter Game 12.0 to 16.9
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 HIGHEST QUALITY PLAYERS IN THIS GAME









DENVER NUGGETS OUTSTANDING QUALITY GAMES
Superstar during minutes on the court: J.R. Smith
Star during minutes on the court: Chauncey Billups
Very Good during minutes on the court: Nene
Very Good during minutes on the court: Kenyon Martin








MAVERICKS OUTSTANDING QUALITY GAMES
Very Good during minutes on the court: Erick Dampier
Very Good during minutes on the court: Devean George
Very Good during minutes on the court: Dirk Nowitzki
Very Good during minutes on the court: Jose Juan Berea

THE GREATEST POWER PERFORMERS OF THIS GAME









DENVER NUGGETS POWER PERFORMERS
Only Some Players can Ever Fly This High: J.R. Smith
Massive and Memorable Game: Chauncey Billups
Big Game: Kenyon Martin
Big Game: Nene








DALLAS MAVERICKS POWER PERFORMERS
Very Big Game: Dirk Nowitzki

USER GUIDE FOR THIS TYPE OF REPORT(Last updated December 8 2008)
EDITING AND PUBLISHING PLAN-MAIN DETAILS
This is a "just the important facts please, and give them to me quick" type of report. I will in some cases do a very limited amount of commentary at the bottom of this type of report, but it will really be just notes for commentary that will be elsewhere in the near future. In some cases there will be no comments at all.

Most of the commentaries I do are in "Game/Team/League Reports" and in Fast Breaks". Game/Team/League reports are, with any luck, going to be produced for about 20 Nuggets and for about 20 Pistons games this season. Ultimate Game Breakdowns: Players, such as the one here, will be done for those same games. Plus there will be about 10 more Nuggets and 10 more Pistons Game Breakdowns for games for which there will be no article report. There will be a few other "wildcard" Game Breakdowns.

So in total, at least 70 of these relatively easy to produce but very informative Ultimate Game Breakdown-Players reports are scheduled for the regular season. At least 40 Game/Team/League Reports are planned.

Ultimate Game Breakdown-Coaching reports are done for every game that has a Game/Team/League Report.

More of every type of report will come out during playoffs season; I won't bore you with those details.

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.

ULTIMATE GAME BREAKDOWN--PLAYERS REPORT EXPLAINED
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 2.15

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)-AN 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!

The Nuggets are Regular Season Beasts, But Can They Win in the Playoffs Doing What They are Doing?

The Spurs dominated from start to finish and defeated the Nuggets in Denver 108-91 on December 4. It was a relatively rare loss for the team that has thus far fooled literally everyone as far as number of wins. The Nuggets have been eating alive every non-contending team that is forced to play them. And they have been winning some games against the longstanding powerhouses as well, something which has most basketball analysts scratching their heads (and mostly trying to ignore the spectacle and hoping it goes away if the truth were told).

But the Spurs game was like a temporary throw-back to the old universe, the one where the Nuggets are not on a par with teams like the Spurs. Tim Duncan had a massive game, Manu Ginobili was huge, and Tony Parker, a point guard who is regarded as one of the best in the NBA yet gets no more assists than does Allen Iverson, was big. So the Spurs won with the pure, classic Spurs formula, the one that you would have to pay a lot of money for if it was bottled up and for sale at the store.

But these days, in the new universe, which may be only temporary of course, if you check the standings, the Nuggets are on a par with not only the Spurs, but with every other top team of the West too except for the Lakers, which no one and nothing other than a huge injury problem for them is going to stop from going to the Championship next Spring.

So for all those who can not stand the Nuggets, due to their ridiculous allegiance to George Karl, due to their gross inconsistencies from last year to this, due to their kicking to the curb of Marcus Camby and Allen Iverson, due to their winning after everyone predicted they would be losing, and due to other things too numerous to mention, you can at the very least console yourself with the reality that the Lakers have done so many of the very important things needed in the Quest for the Ring, and that they have done them so well, and that they have done them so much better than any other team has, that it really doesn’t matter a whole heap how many games anybody wins in either the regular season or in the playoffs. The Lakers this year, for all practical purposes, are invincible in the West. Whether they will win the Championship is really the only thing left to be decided that will be historically important, as far as the West Conference is concerned.

THE REGULAR SEASON IS CHECKERS AND THE PLAYOFFS ARE CHESS
In the NBA, the regular season is just the prelude to what really matters, the playoffs. The number one objective in the regular season is not to win as many games as possible; that is the number two objective. The number one objective is to get as prepared as possible to do battle in the playoffs, when all teams ramp up their defensive effort and intensity, when most coaches bring out their best strategies and tactics, the ones that they tested out thoroughly during the regular, and when real contenders cut back on the offensive free lancing and rely more on the tried and true.

Arguably, there has never in history been a coach who puts as much emphasis on the regular season and as little emphasis on the playoffs as the Head Coach of the Nuggets, George Karl. Karl openly admitted in his post April/May 2008 Lakers series press conference that he and the Nuggets as a whole have to “discover” how to win in the playoffs. It is also common knowledge that his 2007-08 point guard policy, although good enough to scrounge up 50 regular season wins, was hopelessly inadequate for the playoffs. Historically, he is one of just two coaches to have while coaching a top seeded team out of 8 conference playoff contenders to have lost the playoff series against the 8th seed. And while coaching the packed to the rafters powerful Sonics roster he was completely outclassed by Phil Jackson of the Chicago Bulls in his only finals appearance, although arguably Karl gets off the hook for this (as he seems to so often get off the hook for everything) because the Bulls had Michael Jordan, Scottie Pippen, and Dennis Rodman and capable role players that year to go up against Karl’s Gary Payton, Shawn Kemp, Detlef Schrempf, Sam Perkins, and numerous good role players.

Indisputably Karl is able to think up and implement what would best be called Mid-Level strategies and tactics, but unfortunately he is unable and/or unwilling to direct any high level strategies and tactics. It is beyond a shadow of a doubt that this is true even though, and I am being perhaps foolishly honest here, I do not yet know all of the mid level and high level strategies and tactics that exist in professional basketball. But I do know many of them, and I can tell the difference between them. Here is a partial list:

Examples of Some Mid-Level Strategies and Tactics
These are good enough to win many games in the regular season if they are operated very proficiently, but not sufficient to insure success in the playoffs. In other words, these strategies and tactics are less powerful and less rewarding in real NBA playoff games than are the High Level strategies and tactics.
1. The Defensive Fast Break Offense: trying to generate and execute correctly as many fast breaks as possible, especially off defensive stops and turnovers. The fast break offense can work in one of two ways. It can work if a team has natural fast break players, which of course would be fast, quick players who can pass, catch, and race dribble down the floor well. Or it can work if a team is getting a lot of defensive stops and often catches the opposing team looking for the offensive rebound instead of immediately getting back on defense. The former should be called the “Offensive Fast Break Offense” while the latter should be called the “Defensive Fast Break Offense.” The Nuggets were sort of running the Offensive Fast Break Offense last year while this year they are obviously and aggressively running the Defensive Fast Break Offense.
2. Allowing a quality, veteran point guard to decide what to do (what play to run) on virtually every possession, with virtually no direction from the coaches.
3. Overweighting the importance of driving to the hoop and depending on the lower defensive intensity in the regular season and on the referees (to call fouls) to make this profitable.
4. On offense, using players, whose skills are mostly defensive, to often position themselves near the hoop so as to get as many offensive rebounds as possible off missed shots, including layups and dunks that were missed due to uncalled fouls.
5. On defense, not worrying much about individual players who get into foul trouble. Instead, have a roster overloaded with players who are basically defensive only and rotate them in and out as necessary if there is foul trouble.

Examples of Some High Level Strategies and Tactics
1. Plays that are run a few times every game that allow top offensive players to get the shots they are most skilled at making. By position, centers and power forwards are maximized the most if your team does this. But if you have a great small forward such as Carmelo Anthony, you can put more emphasis on the small forward getting a few set plays every game than you would otherwise.
2. The three point shot: Making sure that a minimum number of such shots are taken every game and, of course, making sure that the roster and the game rotations have enough good three point shooters to make sure the team gets enough three point scores. The one and only totally sure way to partly or even completely counter the increased defensive intensity in the playoffs is to be able to reliably hit a certain minimum number of three point shots. Neither the referees nor even a quality, intense defense can stop a team determined to succeed from beyond the arc from getting the relative goldmine of three point scoring.
3. Making sure the roster is loaded with players who are factors on both offense and defense; avoiding having more than one or at the very most two players who are mostly all offense or all defense. Most players who are balanced between offense and defense are more expensive than players who are not balanced, so your franchise must be able to successfully manage basketball economics to achieve this high quality roster.
4. Establishing and maintaining a “Playmaking Identity.” This is done by making sure that the point guards are and know that they are more responsible than other players for getting assists. The two top assisting guards should get at least half of the assists in as many games as possible. When the assists are spread out amongst all the players, the offense is amateur and easier to defend than when there is a playmaking identity. When there is no identity, forwards and centers with huge in the paint offensive potential can be left making way too many passes and not enough scoring attempts.
5. The Offensive Fast Break Offense: a description was previously given.
6. Knowing when to zone and when to man up on defense.
7. Knowing who to double cover and when in the game, under what scoreboard circumstances, and under what lineups on the floor to do so. For example, the best teams of the West should right now be calculating under what circumstances they will be double covering Chauncey Billups in the event that they have to play the Nuggets in the playoffs next April. Since Billups alone is essentially running the Nuggets offense these days, Denver is totally vulnerable when teams finally get around to doubling Billups at the appropriate times.

When I did the list of examples of Mid-Level Strategies and Tactics, all I had to do was list many of the things the Nuggets are doing this season. The Nuggets are doing all five of those examples, and they are doing every one of them either very well, extremely well, or incredibly well. So by all means, give them all the credit you want for that, because few teams ever do as many strategies and tactics as well as the Nuggets are simultaneously. And these five fit together so well, and the Nuggets are running them so well, that a case could be made that there is a remote chance that the Nuggets could win a playoff series 4 games to 3 with these humble but aggressive ways of playing basketball.

The Nuggets have spent most of their practice time on defense and they have produced an almost unbelievably strong and scrappy defense that has actually totally shut down almost all non-contenders, and has even hamstrung the likes of the Mavericks in Dallas and the Celtics in Boston! It is even possible that no team in about the last 5-10 years has done so well defensively with mostly players who were not wanted by most other teams. To say that the Nuggets have made the best of a bad situation, the one they were in after basically giving away Camby and Najera and after striking out on Iverson, is probably an understatement at this point. They have pulled several rabbits out of several hats and they have pulled off a little miracle here.

If I were a naïve and uncritical person, I would still be a traditional Nuggets fan and I would be very happy right now. But the Nuggets in general and George Karl in particular have ticked me off and fooled me and many, many others way too many times for me to be a fan of what has proven to be a cheap, inept organization or, at the very least, an organization that does not live by the mantra: “When the going gets tough, the tough get going.” Because when the going got tough on the Nuggets, they threw the babies out with the bathwater, pretended that they did nothing wrong, lied to the public about some things, and then amazingly were lucky enough to start winning a lot of games with ultimately limited but very aggressively run strategies. In my next report, I will have the top ten reasons why you should not be fooled and why you should not be a fan of the Denver Nuggets.

But the Nuggets miracle is only a little miracle because that is all that is possible with what they are doing. They have gone to town with the Mid-Level Strategies and Tactics but the team is nowhere to be found at the High Level. Think of the regular season as checkers and the playoffs as chess. It is relatively easy to become very good at checkers quickly, but becoming good at chess can take an annoyingly long time. Becoming good at chess requires you to be smarter about how you go about your business than becoming good at checkers does. High Level strategies are not at all like instant rice whereas Mid Level strategies can be not far from instant if everyone is enthusiastic about getting them implemented and everyone works hard to keep executing them game after game.

The Nuggets are very enthusiastic these days and they are working very hard, but they are only playing checkers: they are only doing things which can be profitable in the regular season but they are sorely lacking when it comes to things which can be profitable in the playoffs. This is the same old George Karl type situation, though admittedly it's like a Karl situation on steroids.

The Pistons are playing chess while the Nuggets are playing checkers. Regardless of how many games the Nuggets win during the regular season and regardless of how many games the Pistons do not win in the regular season (as long as they win enough for hopefully at least 5th seed in the East) the Pistons will have better playoff prospects than will the Nuggets, as long as, of course, the Pistons make headway in learning how to play chess (playoff basketball).

This year General Manager Joe Dumars of the Pistons realized that his team, which won the 2004 Quest for the Ring, was never going to in 2009 get by Boston, and might not get by Cleveland or Orlando for that matter, by continuing the same old overweighting of the importance of defense and the same old “Chauncey Billups and the Shooting Gallery Simple Offense” to get it done. It was obvious it was not going to be enough. A wild card factor was needed. An extra spark was needed. A more complicated, unpredictable offense was needed.

But this is a Nuggets report, so I will stop right there and invite you to my next Pistons Full Report, which quite honestly will be my first.

Ultimate Game Breakdown: Players: 76'ers 96 Pistons 91 in Detroit Dec. 5, 2008

REAL PLAYER RATINGS (QUALITY) FOR THIS GAME
PHILADELPHIA 76'ERS QUALITY
Lou Williams, SG 1.041
Andre Miller, PG 0.828
Donyell Marshall, PF 0.814
Andre Iguodala, SG 0.711
Theo Ratliff, C 0.675
Reggie Evans, PF 0.531
Willie Green, SG 0.450
Thaddeus Young, SF 0.414
Marreese Speights, PF 0.387
Samuel Dalembert, C 0.321

DETROIT PISTONS QUALITY
Rodney Stuckey, PG 1.058
Kwame Brown, C 0.718
Richard Hamilton, SG 0.699
Allen Iverson, SG 0.550
Amir Johnson, PF 0.503
Rasheed Wallace, C 0.445
Jason Maxiell, PF 0.444
Tayshaun Prince, SF 0.276
Arron Afflalo, SG 0.194

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
Very Good 0.650 to 0.799
Major Role Player 0.525 to 0.649
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 (QUANTITY) IN THIS GAME
PHILADELPHIA 76'ERS QUANTITY
Andre Miller, PG 29.80
Andre Iguodala, SG 26.30
Lou Williams, SG 22.90
Thaddeus Young, SF 13.25
Theo Ratliff, C 12.15
Donyell Marshall, PF 11.40
Willie Green, SG 10.35
Marreese Speights, PF 8.90
Reggie Evans, PF 6.90
Samuel Dalembert, C 6.10

DETROIT PISTONS QUANTITY
Rodney Stuckey, PG 27.50
Richard Hamilton, SG 25.15
Allen Iverson, SG 22.00
Rasheed Wallace, C 14.70
Kwame Brown, C 14.35
Tayshaun Prince, SF 9.65
Amir Johnson, PF 8.05
Jason Maxiell, PF 7.10
Arron Afflalo, SG 3.50

SCALE FOR RPP (QUANTITY) RATINGS FOR A SINGLE GAME
FOR STARTING PLAYERS
Only Some Players Can Ever Fly This High, but Not Very Often! 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
Only Some Non-Starters Can Ever Fly This High, but Not Very Often! 33.0 and more
Massive and Memorable Game 29.0 to 32.9
Huge Game 25.0 to 28.9
Very Big Game 21.0 to 24.9
Big Game 17.0 to 20.9
Typical Non-Starter Game 12.0 to 16.9
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 HIGHEST QUALITY PLAYERS IN THIS GAME







PHILADELPHIA 76'ERS OUTSTANDING QUALITY GAMES
Star during minutes on the court: Lou Williams
Star during minutes on the court: Andre Miller
Star during minutes on the court: Donyell Marshall
Very Good minutes on the court: Andre Iguodala
Very Good during minutes on the court: Theo Ratliff








DETROIT PISTONS OUTSTANDING QUALITY GAMES
Superstar during minutes on the court: Rodney Stuckey
Star during minutes on the court: Kwame Brown
Very Good during minutes on the court: Richard Hamilton

THE GREATEST POWER PERFORMERS OF THIS GAME







PHILADELPHIA 76'ERS POWER PERFORMERS
Very Big Game: Andre Miller
Big Game: Andre Iguodala








DETROIT PISTONS POWER PERFORMERS
Huge Game: Rodney Stuckey
Very Big Game: Richard Hamilton

USER GUIDE FOR THIS TYPE OF REPORT(Last updated December 8 2008)
EDITING AND PUBLISHING PLAN-MAIN DETAILS
This is a "just the important facts please, and give them to me quick" type of report. I will in some cases do a very limited amount of commentary at the bottom of this type of report, but it will really be just notes for commentary that will be elsewhere in the near future. In some cases there will be no comments at all.

Most of the commentaries I do are in "Game/Team/League Reports" and in Fast Breaks". Game/Team/League reports are, with any luck, going to be produced for about 20 Nuggets and for about 20 Pistons games this season. Ultimate Game Breakdowns: Players, such as the one here, will be done for those same games. Plus there will be about 10 more Nuggets and 10 more Pistons Game Breakdowns for games for which there will be no article report. There will be a few other "wildcard" Game Breakdowns.

So in total, at least 70 of these relatively easy to produce but very informative Ultimate Game Breakdown-Players reports are scheduled for the regular season. At least 40 Game/Team/League Reports are planned.

Ultimate Game Breakdown-Coaching reports are done for every game that has a Game/Team/League Report.

More of every type of report will come out during playoffs season; I won't bore you with those details.

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.

ULTIMATE GAME BREAKDOWN--PLAYERS REPORT EXPLAINED
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 2.15

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)-AN 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!

Ultimate Game Breakdown: Players: Spurs 108 Nuggets 91 in Denver Dec. 4, 2008

REAL PLAYER RATINGS (QUALITY) FOR THIS GAME
SAN ANTONIO SPURS QUALITY
Tim Duncan, PF 1.282
Manu Ginobili, SG 0.973
Fabricio Oberto, C 0.950
Matt Bonner, C 0.897
George Hill, PG 0.653
Tony Parker, PG 0.518
Roger Mason, SG 0.448
Michael Finley, SG 0.336
Bruce Bowen, SF 0.291

DENVER NUGGETS QUALITY
Chris Andersen, PF 1.921
J.R. Smith, SG 0.981
Kenyon Martin, PF 0.603
Linas Kleiza, SF 0.548
Nene, C 0.384
Chauncey Billups, PG 0.369
Dahntay Jones, SG 0.318
Carmelo Anthony, SF 0.315
Anthony Carter, PG 0.198

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
Very Good 0.650 to 0.799
Major Role Player 0.525 to 0.649
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 (QUANTITY) IN THIS GAME
SAN ANTONIO SPURS QUANTITY
Tim Duncan, PF 50.00
Manu Ginobili, SG 29.20
Matt Bonner, C 26.00
Tony Parker, PG 18.65
Roger Mason, SG 13.00
George Hill, PG 12.40
Fabricio Oberto, C 11.40
Bruce Bowen, SF 9.30
Michael Finley, SG 4.70

DENVER NUGGETS QUANTITY
J.R. Smith, SG 26.50
Kenyon Martin, PF 18.70
Chauncey Billups, PG 14.75
Linas Kleiza, SF 13.70
Nene, C 13.45
Chris Andersen, PF 13.45
Carmelo Anthony, SF 12.90
Dahntay Jones, SG 4.45
Anthony Carter, PG 4.15

SCALE FOR RPP (QUANTITY) RATINGS FOR A SINGLE GAME
FOR STARTING PLAYERS
Only Some Players Can Ever Fly This High, but Not Very Often! 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
Only Some Non-Starters Can Ever Fly This High, but Not Very Often! 33.0 and more
Massive and Memorable Game 29.0 to 32.9
Huge Game 25.0 to 28.9
Very Big Game 21.0 to 24.9
Big Game 17.0 to 20.9
Typical Non-Starter Game 12.0 to 16.9
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 HIGHEST QUALITY PLAYERS IN THIS GAME







SPURS OUTSTANDING QUALITY GAMES
Superstar during minutes on the court: Tim Duncan
Star during minutes on the court: Manu Ginobili
Star during minutes on the court: Fabricio Oberto
Star during minutes on the court: Matt Bonner
Very Good during minutes on the court: George Hill










NUGGETS OUTSTANDING QUALITY GAMES
Historic Superstar during minutes on the court: Chris Andersen
Star during minutes on the court: J.R. Smith
Very Good during minutes on the court: Kenyon Martin

THE GREATEST POWER PERFORMERS OF THIS GAME







SAN ANTONIO SPURS POWER PERFORMERS
Only Some Players Can Ever Fly This High: Tim Duncan
Very Big Game: Manu Ginobili
Big Game: Matt Bonner









DENVER NUGGETS POWER PERFORMERS
Huge Game: J.R. Smith
Very Big Game: Kenyon Martin

USER GUIDE FOR THIS TYPE OF REPORT(Last updated December 8 2008)
EDITING AND PUBLISHING PLAN-MAIN DETAILS
This is a "just the important facts please, and give them to me quick" type of report. I will in some cases do a very limited amount of commentary at the bottom of this type of report, but it will really be just notes for commentary that will be elsewhere in the near future. In some cases there will be no comments at all.

Most of the commentaries I do are in "Game/Team/League Reports" and in Fast Breaks". Game/Team/League reports are, with any luck, going to be produced for about 20 Nuggets and for about 20 Pistons games this season. Ultimate Game Breakdowns: Players, such as the one here, will be done for those same games. Plus there will be about 10 more Nuggets and 10 more Pistons Game Breakdowns for games for which there will be no article report. There will be a few other "wildcard" Game Breakdowns.

So in total, at least 70 of these relatively easy to produce but very informative Ultimate Game Breakdown-Players reports are scheduled for the regular season. At least 40 Game/Team/League Reports are planned.

Ultimate Game Breakdown-Coaching reports are done for every game that has a Game/Team/League Report.

More of every type of report will come out during playoffs season; I won't bore you with those details.

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.

ULTIMATE GAME BREAKDOWN--PLAYERS REPORT EXPLAINED
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 2.15

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)-AN 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!