10/23/09
by: Scott
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In the weeks leading up to the 2009-10 season, I'm going to profile the 11 Raptors who should receive most of the playing time this season. Today, we turn the RaptorBlog spotlight on Hedo Turkoglu.
2008-09 numbers: 77 games, 36.6 MPG, 16.8 PPG, 5.3 RPG, 4.9 APG, 0.2 BPG, 0.8 SPG, .413 FG%, .356 3P%, .807 FT%
Before we begin, here are my posts from the summer when I listed the Raptors' small forward options in the free agent market and then I shared my thoughts about the Turkoglu signing a week later. I read those posts over first because I don't want to repeat myself here. Not for nothing, but I was dead on in that first post with my prediction of what Turkoglu would sign for: "Five years, $50-55 million"
If you're a basketball junkie like me, I can't recommend The Pro Basketball Prospectus 2009-10 book enough. I was honored that Bradford Doolittle and Kevin Pelton picked me to contribute my thoughts to the Raptors section. This publication has been my bible in preparing for the upcoming season, and I'm going to use their Turkoglu profile as the basis for this post. Here's the key passage:
"Turkoglu's (offensive) efficiency is only average for his usage rate. Where Turkoglu is a special offensive player is as a distributor from the wing, posting assist rates that would be acceptable for a point guard. The Raptors would be wise to make sure Turkoglu and Jose Calderon rest opposite each other so that Turkoglu can help Jarrett Jack run the offense when Calderon is on the bench. Defensively, Turkoglu's size can make him an asset. He did a good job when matched against LeBron James at times in the Eastern Conference Finals. Ideally, however, he would not have to defend the opposing team's best wing scorer, a role handled by Courtney Lee and Mickael Pietrus last year in Orlando. His subpar rebounding is also masked by his minutes totals.
That seems like a fairly accurate description, don't you think? One of my main concerns with Turkoglu is that, for somebody who is lauded as a top offensive player, he's not a particularly efficient scorer. His field goal and three-point percentages last season and for his career (.428 FG% and .385 3P%) are nothing special. He could return to his 2007-08 percentages of .456 and .400 (when he won the NBA's Most Improved Player award) — but as a 30-year-old, history shows that to be an unlikely occurrences.
One of the most interesting discussion pieces in the Prospectus is the "most similar to" list for each player. The authors have generated similarity scores for every NBA player in comparison to other players throughout recent history at a similar age. The similarity scores are based on 13 statistical categories, standardized for league norms: height, weight, a "shooting" rating (based on 3P%, 3PM/Min and FT%), two-point percentage, "inside" rating (FTA-3PA)/possessions, usage rate, rebound percentage, assist percentage, steal percentage, block percentage, turnover percentage and player winning percentage, the per-minute component of the WARP (Wins Above Replacement Player) system. (For some context on WARP, Bosh was rated to be worth 12.9 wins, Calderon earned 9.2 wins, Turkoglu was worth 4.9 wins while Bargnani was measured to be worth 1.6 wins.)
If your eyes haven't glazed over too much from that last paragraph, here are Turkoglu's four most comparable players: Steve Smith (98.1% similar), Stephen Jackson, Jalen Rose and Reggie Theus. Reggie Theus was a little before my time but I remember Steve Smith and Jalen Rose. Of course, we all know StackJack. These seem like pretty apt comparisons in terms of skillsets.
Smith and Theus both experienced steady statistical declines after they turned 30. Jalen Rose also declined in his 30s, but he spiked upward in 2004-05 (with the Raptors) at the age of 32 before resuming his decline and retiring two seasons later. Jackson is a year older than Turkoglu, so both players are probably at or near their peak right now.
In looking at the "after-30" careers of Smith, Theus and Rose, what strikes me is the way their Usage Rates (their ability to create shots) and Rebound Rates (percentage of available rebounds grabbed) declined. For all the talk that Turkoglu should be fine well into his 30s because he's not much of an athlete right now, people are missing the fact that you can be comparatively unathletic at a particular age and still have that athleticism decline over the years. Turkoglu is unquestionably one of the savvier players in the NBA, but this is a league of athletes more than ever and I have little faith that Hedo's inevitably fading athleticism won't hurt several areas of his game.
With this in mind, there is a strong possibility we're not going to get more than two more years of "prime Turkoglu" before his five-year, $53 million contract is going to start to look pretty damn ugly. So the question is: Just how good is Turkoglu right now? I don't actually put that much stock in that WARP system that rates Calderon so much higher than Turkoglu. Their value to this team is probably comparable and, if forced to choose, I would give Turkoglu the edge.
Is a player slightly more valuable than Calderon (an opinion I know many of you disagree with) really that much of a difference-maker on this team for the next two seasons? Not really. He brings some fantastic things to the table, but he's also not so hot at others. He'll help make the Raptors' offence as fun to watch as any non-VC team we've had, but he'll also likely contribute to the seemingly inevitable defensive and rebounding woes this team will face.
If you believe the stories I've heard that Bryan Colangelo made legitimate efforts to sign Trevor Ariza or Shawn Marion before "settling" on Turkoglu, then maybe we can't really blame our fearless leader if this gamble doesn't pay off. Even his biggest detractors can't deny that Turkoglu has been a significant contributor to winning teams throughout the 2000s — he played in an impressive 82 playoff games over that period, averaging 30.7 minutes in those games.
So it could be that there's just something about this guy's presence that leads to team success. That's the story that some people are sticking with, and I'm trying my best to buy into that on my more optimistic days, hoping that this will be the guy who thumbs his nose at the recent history of comparable players "hitting the wall" at right around this point in their careers. That's the "fan" in me believing that. The more objective side of me suspects that Raptors fans expecting Hedo Turkoglu to be the Raptors' savior are in for a grave disappointment. 
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