Jonas Jerebko vs. Amir Johnson

also Toronto is running team - ok, halfrunning, but still...already here was noted that running game suits to Amir better...

and playing with bosh and bargnani definitely helps.

I would agree with that. A scorer + a garbage man is a much better formula than putting 2 G-Men together.

Good point as well.


Maybe we would be better as a running team. All of our bigs except for Villanueva suck in the half court, but they'd all be high flyers in a running game.

We would definitely be better if we were running. We are a young team now and everybody on our team with the exception of Rip, Tay, Big Ben and Kwame are much better suited to a fast paced game.

Amir has a better chance of winning this poll than the Pistons have winning a first round playoff series.

Is this even a debate? Has Amir ever done the things JJ is doing in his first year??

Does Vegas Summer League count?

Amir did not get to play in his first year. In Amir's first year, he was right out of high school, not even any college ball behind him.

However, even in his first year, if that were today, he would have ran back better on transition D than JJ did.

Amir was totally undisciplined on defense...not even close to JJ. Even he he did get back better on transition D (he didn't) he would have fouled someone before he got past half court.

Maybe we should be looking at Jerebko vs. Daye, since it is a choice that can actually be made.

Per 36...

Stat: JJ/ AD
Pts: 11.2/ 13.1
Reb: 7.1/ 6.6
Ast: 0.8/ 1.0
Stl: 0.8/ 0.7
Blk: 0.4/ 1.3
Tov: 1.6/ 1.9
PF: 3.8/ 4.3
eFG: .502/ .524
TS%: .536/ .544

Shot type frequency (eFG%)-
Jumpers: 69% (.459)/ 36% (.355)
In Paint: 23% (.626)/ 54% (.539)
Dunk/Tip: 8% (.667)/ 11% (.760)


Overall, the stats are pretty close. Austin scores a little more, but mostly because he takes more shots, as their FG%'s are in the same ballpark. Austin is slightly more efficient due to his 3-point shooting. Very close though.

In rebounding, Jerebko has a little edge, but it may not be significant because of how much more he has played the PF position and been in better position for rebs naturally. Daye is surprisingly able to keep up with Jerebko in this stat given his skinny frame. It's possible that Ben Wallace is "stealing" some of Jerebko's rebs though. He certainly seems like the stronger rebounder of these two.

Assists and steals are about the same.

Blocks are surprisingly in Daye's favor by a large margin. The reason is that Jerebko doesn't block very many shots (no idea why) and Daye's freakishly long arms are catching shooters by surprise. Daye's block percentage is so high that he is actually tied with Ben Wallace for 1st on the team. If this doesn't come back down to Earth with more minutes, then that this kid has some serious defensive potential (Tay-like). In Tay's rookie year, he averaged 1.2 block per 36 and it came down over time when he got more discipline.

Turnovers are close, but in JJ's favor. To me, Daye looks like the more turnover prone player, but mostly because he's trying to do more with the ball. He hasn't learned to do the hunch dribble like Tay to protect the ball.

Daye also fouls more, as you'd expect with the high block rate and the 155 lb body.


Despite their similar FG percentages, when you look at their shot charts, you can see that these are 2 totally different players who should probably be playing different positions. Daye is a SF and JJ is a PF. Daye takes mostly jump shots and shoots them at a much higher percentage than Jerebko does, even though JJ is more selective. Jerebko goes in the paint way more often though. He's less efficient in there, but that's because he has to force it more often. He just needs to start hitting rim with that sky hook.

On/off plus minus favors Daye, who is +0.8 per 48, while Jerebko is -3.5 per 48. It's been a crazy year though, so I'm not drawing any conclusions on this aspect yet. Based on observation alone, I would have thought Jerebko would be one of the +/- leaders on the team, along with Ben Wallace. But he's not. It's the sort of thing where you have to see if there is a long term pattern or not.

Since Amir did not play his first year, I wonder why you claim you know a thing about his first year. Just wondering?

Amir did defensive rotation better than anybody we have or have had for the last five years. He is lightyears better than JJ at this. Always has been, and still is.

I see that you really really like Amir, but that the cold hard fact remains that Amir's not that special of a player. Scratch the first two years at Detroit as he's played a grand total of 11 games. Assume that his rookie year was the 07-08 season. That season he averaged:

3.8 boards
0.4 steals
1.3 blocks
3.6 pts

in 12.3 minutes. Getting that many blocks in just 12 minutes of action is impressive. However, you have to take into account that he also committed 2.27 fouls in the same amount of time.

This season, some could argue that it is his best, he is averaging:

4.8 boards
0.6 steals
0.8 blocks
3.2 fouls
4.8 pts

in 16.9 minutes. Not that much better than his rookie (third) season. He isn't getting better. He is what he is. The one stat that is showing a clear trend is his steady decline in his FT%.

Please don't bother citing the per 36 minute or per 48 minute stats. Those just give you an idea of what a player "could" potentially accomplish if they are given more minutes. However, IMO they are only helpful if you are looking at increasing the PT a small percentage. For example, they would be meaningful if you are trying to figure out what someone who averages 12mpg could give you at 16mpg. When you take a 16mpg guy and essentially almost double the stats to see what you get at 36mpg, the results become unrealistic.

Let's look at the individual +/- stats, which is something several people like to point to. Looking at the Raptors this year, Amir leads the team with +28 for the season so far. Then how is it that he isn't in any of the top 3 +/- five men lineups? Actually, here's where the best +/- lineup with Amir ranks for the Raptors:

5-men: 4th
4-men: 8th
3-men: 8th
2-men: 4th
1-man: 1st

So, even though individually he's the team leader in +/- stats, the Raptors do better with 3 other lineups, or 7 other 4-player combos, or 7 other 3-player combos, or 3 other 2-player combos.

No matter how you slice it, everything points to the fact that Amir is an average bench player that hasn't shown much improvement since he entered the league.

I thought Amir would turn out to be much more than he is: a limited role player.

JJ is already a better player than Amir is now. It's really not particularly close. And JJ also has a lot of upside potential.

This marks the 3rd consecutive season where Amir is the top +/- player on his team per minute played. He's done it on a good team, on a terrible team, and now on a mediocre team. He's done it off the bench and as a starter.

I'm not convinced that he sucks yet.

Gee, stats aside, Amir sure shut our water off pretty well twice this season. Especially that first game, where we stayed even until Amir came on challenging every shot we tried. Soon, we were miles behind. Explain that away.

Trivia question: what happened on this play? (I really don't know)

You know I love your stats Tashawn but they only tell part of the story.

Bill Simmons has a great rant about stats in his book The Book of Basketball. He uses Amare Stoudemire as an example:

Great book. The point he is making...that I agree with...is that you can't always measure a players value by the numbers.