Getting Inside the Jrue Holiday Trade by the Sixers

GETTING BEHIND AND INSIDE THE JRUE HOLIDAY TRADE FOR NERLENS NOEL - THE STATS BEHIND IT

NERLENS NOEL IS ONE OF THE TOP DEFENSIVE PLAYERS EVER TO PLAY COLLEGE HOOPS - HE IS A REBOUNDING, SHOT-BLOCKING, DEFENSIVE MACHINE

Getting inside the numbers on this trade is not as hard as it might seem.

Some fans might think that Jrue Holiday was a pretty good player. After all, he was an NBA all-star.  However, the only categories he really was among the league leaders in was turnovers, in which he ranked 2d at 292 (that's very bad), FG attempts (10th), which means he was sort of like Iverson, and he ranked 3d overall in assists and 4th in Assists per Game (APG) with 8, which is pretty good.  That's his best stat.  

But when you sum it all up, Jrue Holiday is actually not a winning player.  His win shares have been in free fall for the last three years.  His win shares the past three seasons go 5.7, 4.2 and 3.3, which means he's been steadily declining, rather than improving.  His win shares per 48 minutes the prior two seasons, playing with Iguodala and Brand, were .094 and .092, whereas this past season he dropped off to .055.  

He has had one bright spot, and that is in the playoffs the season before, when the Sixers made their run in 2011-12, Holiday's win shares per 48 minutes were .148, which is an impressive number, and he played very well indeed as the Sixers beat the Bulls and took a very good Celtics team to seven games.  The other good point about Holiday is he plays a lot of minutes, and is quite durable.  He's among the top ten or fifteen in the league in minutes played and minutes per game played.  That's a good thing.

But he's a 6 foot 3 guard who ranks very low in effective field goal percentage, and has a poor turnover to assist ratio.  for an explanation of all this, we refer you to a sister site:

https://www.numberfire.com/nba/news/945/why-the-sixers-are-better-without-jrue-holiday

Quoting from this site:

Here is the public perception on Jrue Holiday: He's a playmaker. He can take control of a game. He holds a varied skill set. He's not Evan Turner. He quickly became the fan favorite in Philly, partially because any distraction from the Andrew Bynum Pro Bowling League was a welcome one.

However, those people clearly haven't looked at the numbers. Let's do a fun "Player A, Player B" breakdown. It's not particularly useful because you don't receive a larger context for a player, but man, it's so much fun when you can come up with comparisons like this.

Player A: .466 eFG%, 36.5 AST%, 17.3 TOV%, 99 ORtg, 107 DRtg
Player B: .493 eFG%, 32.2 AST%, 19.3 TOV%, 112 ORtg, 109 DRtg

Yeah, slightly more turnovers are a problem, but that extra 0.13 points per possession would sure be nice in Philadelphia when the offense sputters worse than a 1967 Oldsmobile. Oh, what's that? Player A is Jrue Holiday and Player B is Andre Miller, the now-37 year old point guard the Sixers pushed out four years ago in favor of young guys like Holiday and Lou Williams? Well then.

If that isn't enough for you, how about this context: according to stats.nba.com, among the 145 players that played at least 75 games last season, Holiday's .466 effective field goal percentage (eFG%) was 112th. His assist/turnover ratio, supposedly one of the best parts of his game, was only 31st behind such vaunted PGs as Kemba Walker, Darren Collison, andLuke Ridnour.

This was supposed to be Holiday's breakout All-Star season? Please.

So basically you have a good, not great point guard, who heaves the ball up a lot, and whose win shares are in free fall. 

Essentially, Jrue Holiday is like a bad version of Allen Iversion.  

Who doesn't score as much.  Most of Holiday's win share value is on the defensive end, but at six foot three, Holiday can't guard the taller players in the league.  His offensive win shares are low, and he is not an efficient point guard.  

On top of this, he was due for a salary bump to nearly $10 million a year the next three years.  Since he was only producing 3.3 win shares a year, that would be costing the Sixers nearly 3.3 million dollars a win.  That's expensive.  

Thaddeus Young, Dorrell Wright and Spencer Hawes all had more win shares last season than Jrue Holiday, with 7.4, 4.9 and 4.5 respectively.  Holiday's 3.3 was a distant fourth.  

In terms of win shares per 48 minutes, Holiday was even worst--his .055 win shares per 48 minutes was only 11th best on the Sixers, and one of the worst figures in the league.  The leaders on the Sixers were Arnett Moultrie, Thad Young and Dorrell Wright, all well over .130.  

Nerlens Noel

Now let's take a look at Nerlens Noel.  We only have one year of college data, but what amazing data it is.  

http://www.basketball-reference.com/players/n/noelne01.html

http://www.sports-reference.com/cbb/players/nerlens-noel-1.html

Nerlens Noel averaged .209 win shares per 40 minutes played.  That .251 win shares per 48 minutes played.  This is the list of win share leaders per 48 minutes played in the NBA last year:

Win Shares Per 48 Minutes

1.	LeBron James-MIA	.322
2.	Kevin Durant-OKC	.291
3.	Chris Paul-LAC	.287
4.	Tyson Chandler-NYK	.207
5.	Tony Parker-SAS	.206
6.	James Harden-HOU	.206
7.	Marc Gasol-MEM	.197
8.	Tiago Splitter-SAS	.197
9.	Blake Griffin-LAC	.196
10.	Russell Westbrook-OKC	.195
11.	Dwyane Wade-MIA	.192
12.	Tim Duncan-SAS	.191
13.	Brook Lopez-BRK	.191
14.	Carmelo Anthony-NYK	.184
15.	Deron Williams-BRK	.184
16.	Serge Ibaka-OKC	.181
17.	Stephen Curry-GSW	.180
18.	David West-IND	.179
19.	George Hill-IND	.177
20.	Chris Bosh-MIA	.175

Even assuming that Nerlens Noel only plays at some percentage of his college capacity, he would be among the top 20 NBA players in terms of win shares per 48 minutes played.  If he played at the level he played in college in the NBA, he would be among the top five players in the NBA, 4th actually, right after Chris Paul.  It would be LeBron James, Keven Durant, Chris Paul, and then Nerlens Noel in terms of win shares per 48 minutes.  

Wow.  

That's what I said.  Wow.  

Nerlens Noel's PER rating last year was 27.3.  Wow.

His defensive rating relative to 100 was 81.3, while his offensive rating relative to 100 was 112.9.  He was 32 points better than average, taking into account his superior offensive skills and superior defensive skills.

A team of five Nerlens Noels would hold a team that normally scored 100 points to 81.3 every night.  While scoring 112.9.  Every night would be a cake walk. 

In just 24 games played, he accumulated 4 win shares.  An NBA season is 82 games.  That means that in an NBA season, he would have something like 13 win shares plus.  

These were the leaders in win shares in the NBA last year:

Win Shares

1.	LeBron James-MIA	19.3
2.	Kevin Durant-OKC	18.9
3.	Chris Paul-LAC	13.9
4.	James Harden-HOU	12.8
5.	Russell Westbrook-OKC	11.6
6.	Marc Gasol-MEM	11.5
7.	Stephen Curry-GSW	11.2
8.	Kobe Bryant-LAL	10.9
9.	Deron Williams-BRK	10.9
10.	Blake Griffin-LAC	10.6
11.	Mike Conley-MEM	9.9
12.	George Hill-IND	9.7
13.	Dwyane Wade-MIA	9.6
14.	Carmelo Anthony-NYK	9.5
15.	Serge Ibaka-OKC	9.4
16.	Tony Parker-SAS	9.3
17.	Tyson Chandler-NYK	9.3
18.	David Lee-GSW	9.1
19.	David West-IND	9.1
20.	Paul George-IND	9.0

Wow.  If Nerlens Noel even played at a fraction of his potential from college, he'd be among the top twenty players in the NBA in win shares.  Only LeBron James, Kevin Durant and Chris Paul would be better than Nerlens Noel.  

Some other numbers:  He rebounded nearly 10 boards per game, blocked 4.5 shots per game, had an effective FG% of .590, averaged 1.6 APG and even averaged 2.1 steals per game.  

The NBA leader in blocks per game last year, Serge Ibaka, averaged 3 blocks per game.  

The mind boggles at the possibilities.  

Noel utterly, totally dominated the SEC last year.  

Michael Carter-Williams

The 6 foot 6 point guard that was drafted #11 by the Sixers to replace Jrue Holiday has some fancy numbers also.

He was #2 in the NCAA last year in defensive win shares.

He led the NCAA last year in minutes played.  

He lead the NCAA last year in Assists.

Take at look for yourself:

  http://www.sports-reference.com/cbb/seasons/2013.html

http://www.sports-reference.com/cbb/players/michael-carter-williams-1.html

Overall, from the numbers, it's pretty clear that Carter-Williams projects out to be a far better point guard both offensively and defensively than Jrue Holiday, at least from the stats.

And, of course, he is six foot six, and played in the Big East at Syracuse.  

Summing It All Up

You have to like this trade and this draft.  The Sixers end up dropping payroll.

The Sixers get younger.

The Sixers get better in the long run.  Not this coming year, but definitely in a couple of years.

They get a big man with huge upside potential, and not with attitude problems like Andrew Bynum.

They pick up a known quantity in Michael Carter-Williams who has two years of college ball under his belt who can play point guard and who led the nation in assists and defense at that position.  

And on top of this all, the Sixers picked up extra draft picks in the first and second rounds for next years draft, which is supposed to full of great college players, so the Sixers will have 4-5 picks in the top two rounds next year to re-stock the franchise.  

Right there, you feel as if the Sixers have already taken a huge step to undo the awful Andrew Bynum trade.

New Sixers GM Sam Hinkie has scored a slam dunk on draft night with this complex series of deals, and shown he understands modern basketball stats.  

Now if we can just get him to manage our stock portfolios....

Unionizing Work Study

Most Jobs on Todays Campuses are Limited to Work Study Students Only - Should Work Study Students Unionize and Organize for Higher Wages?  They are Paid Very Little

Unionizing Centralized Work-Study Programs on University Campuses

A number of campuses have recently within the past ten years of so, on the pretext of assigning jobs to the "most needy," instituted systems of centralizing all campus jobs and all campus job assignment through their centralized work study offices, and requiring that in order to work on campus at an on campus job, that the student be work-study eligible.

On the one hand, this is clearly violative of 14th amendment law, because it violates the right of an employer and employee to freely enter into a contract.  Even without substantive due process, there remains a liberty to enter into contract, and the right to enter into contracts freely continues to exist.  

On the other hand, and perhaps more significantly, the creation of such centralized labor pools as the "Centralized Work Study Student Labor Pool at Such and Such University" invites labor organization and the creation of a union.

Certainly graduate students have been organized and are now unionized at many universities now--including notably Yale and Temple Universities.

If work-study jobs are handed out to undergrads on a centralized basis, and the number of undergrads pooled together as a work-study class are as many as five to ten thousand, then the creation of a labor union consisting of work-study eligible workers--99% of whom perform the duties of, and supplant the work of, otherwise eligible full-time employees--are therefore class-certifiable to have union elections and be represented in collective bargaining.

There may be pre-emption issues qua work study and federal laws regarding financial aid, but a low paying job is no substitute for a grant, and if eligible to organize into a union, then certainly students so situated should do so, and labor organizers should assist them to do so.

In a way, this is just as bad as the noxious system of unpaid internships which has sprung up the past ten years around us.  

Workers of the world unite, you have nothing to lose but your chains.

THOUSANDS OF GREEKS PROTEST AS GREEK GOVERNMENT SHUTS DOWN ERT THE GREEK NATIONAL BROADCASTING SYSTEM

Imagine if the British shut down BBC?  Or if the US cancelled Sesame Street and PBS?  Something like this has happened in Greece, where the Greek Government has shut down ERT, the Greek National Broadcasting TV Station, which was exceedingly popular not just in Greece, but all over the world with Greek expats and Hellenes and PhilHellenes all over the world, from England to the USA to Australia.  ERT would broadcast the news, Greek music and cultural events, and perhaps most importantly, the very latest sporting results from the various Greek Soccer and Basketball Leagues, and Euro League competitions.  ERT is one of the most popular TV choices among Greeks Abroad as well as among Greeks in Greece--it is, quite literally, the voice of Greece and of Greek identity.  

Closing it has to be about as stupid--well, as stupid as the Turkish Prime Minister trying to ban alcohol at night in Constantinople/Istanbul, when the only time anyone is awake, is late at night in that town.

And people wonder why there are protests in places like Greece and Turkey all the time.  Consulting the Oracle of Delphi, the priestess was said to utter, "Beware the Ides of March, and don't ban alcohol in Constantinople or Shut Down Greek ERT TV!"

Thousands protest in Greece over ERT shutdown

via Reuters Thompson Europe

More than 10,000 protesters have rallied outside Greece's public broadcasting headquarters in Athens in support of staff who were fired earlier this week.

Former workers at Hellenic Broadcasting Corp, or ERT have occupied the building to continue broadcasts in defiance of the government.

Greece's two largest unions have staged a general strike against the broadcaster's closure.

The protest disrupted public transport and left state hospitals running on skeleton staff, while flights were grounded for two hours.

Rallies were held around Greece, including Thessaloniki, the country's second largest city, where 7,500 gathered, according to police estimates.

The move to close the broadcaster has divided the fragile coalition government.

It has also raised the possibility of early elections that could endanger the country's bailout programme.

Conservative Prime Minister Antonis Samaras has called a meeting next week with centre-left coalition partners who are demanding that ERT be reopened.

"We are totally against seeing television screens going dark and we side with the overwhelming majority of the Greek people," Evangelos Venizelos, leader of the Socialist Pasok party and coalition partner, told parliament.

"The country does not need an election, but Pasok does not fear elections ... To think it does would be a major mistake."

The government pulled ERT off the air late Tuesday, axing all 2,656 jobs as part of its cost-cutting drive demanded by international creditors.

Bailout lenders have provided about €200bn in emergency funding to Greece since 2010.

Mr Samaras insisted the broadcaster will remain closed before a new public broadcaster opens at the end of the summer.

But Pasok and Democratic Left, the other junior partner, submitted legislation to parliament to cancel ERT's closure.

The conservative party, which holds most of the government posts, defended the decision to shut down the broadcaster.

"There have been more strikes at ERT in recent months that anywhere else ... They are acting in a socially irresponsible way," conservative lawmaker Adonis Georgiadis said.

"We are not ending public television. We are making it better."

The crisis is the worst in Mr Samaras' year-old government, which is credited with rescuing Greece's euro membership by imposing harsh austerity and reform measures demanded by the country's international creditors.

Cooperation between Mr Samaras' conservatives and his partners has come under increased strain this year as unemployment continues to worsen.

Unemployment swelled to 27.4% in the first quarter of the year, the state statistics agency reported today.

• Keywords: 
• greece, 
• ert

http://www.rte.ie/news/2013/0613/456312-greece-strike-austerity/

UNPAID INTERNSHIPS HELD ILLEGAL BY US DISTRICT COURT FOR THE SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF NEW YORK

ERIC GLATT WINS UNPAID INTERN LAWSUIT AGAINST FOX SEARCHLIGHT PICTURES BECAUSE THE FILM "BLACK SWAN" MADE HIM AN UNPAID INTERN AND THEN MADE HIM PERFORM ALL THE DUTIES OF A PAID EMPLOYEE (AND HE NEVER GOT TO MEET NATALIE PORTMAN EITHER)

VIA NPR NEWS.  

http://www.npr.org/2013/06/13/191365440/unpaid-no-more-interns-win-major-court-battle

A federal court in New York has ruled that a group of interns at Fox Searchlight Pictures should have been paid for their work on the movie Black Swan. The decision may have broad implications for students looking for their first job.

Eric Glatt filed the federal lawsuit against Fox. He says everyone always told him taking an unpaid internship was the way to get his foot in the door in the film industry.

At Fox, he worked as an unpaid accounting clerk, he says — filing, getting signatures, running checks and handling petty cash — but he was working for nothing.

"All these employers who think if they slap the title intern on the job description, suddenly they don't have to pay for it," he says.

Glatt says this week's court ruling finally bursts what he calls the myth that employers are all offering interns great educational opportunities. "Businesses are not running free schools on their work sites," he says. "What they're doing is getting people to do work that their businesses need done."

Tightening Up Regulation

The Department of Labor has set rules for when internships can be unpaid. Other courts have interpreted them to mean that unpaid interns need to be getting more from the company than the company gets from them.

But this week's ruling goes even further, saying that unpaid internships must have an actual educational component independent of school credits or the job experience.

Juno Turner, Glatt's attorney, says the ruling leaves little wiggle room. "I think that many, many internships fall into the category of wage theft and I think that this decision is a blow to that practice."

Fearing A Negative Impact

Northeastern University law professor Roger Abrams calls the decision "extraordinary." It means the good news for young people is that if you are lucky enough to get an internship, now you are also likely to get paid.

But businesses might decide that interns are not worth the expense. "I think it may have a negative impact on this entranceway into a variety of professions and that's what I would be worried about," Abrams says.

It's a worry shared by 19-year-old Juliana Rordorf, a New York University sophomore interning at a small consulting startup this summer. She says it is exactly the type of workplace that might not bother to hire interns if it had to pay; she says the company doesn't need her as much as she needs them.

"I'm getting great connections, I'm able to actually take on real tasks," Rordorf says. "Even being somewhere on time and having a real responsibility ... and I would be concerned that this would take those opportunities away from other kids, or from me in the future."

Besides, Rordorf says, she's also had bad internships but it's easy to quit an unpaid job.

Promoting Equality In The Workplace

Boston University law professor Michael Harper says the idea is not only to stop the exploitation of young people but also to address the unfair advantage that goes to those who can't afford to work for nothing.

"If you were poor you wouldn't have had that opportunity, so another thing these laws do is provide more equality in the workplace," he says.

Fox declined to comment but released a written statement that says the company is disappointed and plans to appeal a court decision it calls "erroneous."

Mark Jaffe of the New York Chamber of Commerce says the decision is already starting to make waves in the business community. "We know there's a lot of businesses out there taking advantage of the internship situation — free labor — but the gig is up. You can't get away with it anymore; somebody's watching and you cannot abuse certain situations," he says.

For his part, former intern Glatt is hoping to move on to see what he'll get in back pay and damages. Glatt could use the money. He has given up on the movie industry and is now in law school.

TURKEYS DANGEROUS SITUATION

VIOLENCE IN CONSTANTINOPLE/ISTANBUL
PROTESTERS AGAINST ERDOGAN AND THE AK PARTY
PROTESTERS SEEK A WESTERN SECULAR TURKEY
PROTESTERS DO NOT WANT AN ISLAMIC TURKEY

[The Arab Spring has come to Asia Minor and Turkey.  What we saw in Cairo, Iraq, Syria we now see in Constantinople/Istanbul/Byantium.  The riots of Justinian in the 6th century AD are now visited upon the would-be remaker of the Secular Constitution of Kemal Attaturk, whose bedrock principle was the separation of Church and State.  Prime Minister Erdogan, who like a modern day Hitler, rules with an iron hand, would remake Turkey into an ISLAMIC STATE, rewrite the Constitution of Attaturk, require women to dress in islamic style, and repudiate all that Attaturk stood for, including Democracy and Western Style education.  Perhaps Erdogan will soon re-institute the Arabic script.  The triggering point for this latest round of protests was his proposal to ban liquor from Istanbul--a city, which like Greece or Italy, has a restaurant every five feet, where people have siesta, go to dinner, and drink until 3 or 4 am each and every night.  These proposals, in addition to being ridiculous the way Prohibition was silly in the United States, would have put the tourism and restaurant businesses in Turkey and in Constantinople/Istanbul out of business.  The Young People said NOT HERE YOU DON'T!!!

Raki (the national drink of Turkey) was favored by Kemal Attaturk, who loved Turkish Coffee with Raki.   In Turkey, when you bury a loved one such as your father, you pour Raki on his grave and drink from the bottle.  Drinking is Turkey is as Turkish as Wrestling or eating Fish by the Bosporus.  The Prophet himself could never had endorsed this, and Kemal Attaturk, if he were alive, would be on the side of the protesters!!!!  Down with Erdogan!!!!  Up with the Protesters!!!  

By Daren Butler and Humeyra Pamuk

ISTANBUL/ANKARA | Thu Jun 13, 2013 6:47pm EDT

(Reuters) - Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan and the governor of Istanbul made what appeared to be final efforts to end two weeks of anti-government unrest by negotiation on Friday, meeting opponents of controversial plans to redevelop a city park.

Erdogan met a delegation mostly made up of actors and artists but also including two members of the umbrella protest group Taksim Solidarity, hours after saying his patience had run out and warning protesters occupying Gezi Park to leave.

Separately, Istanbul Governor Huseyin Avni Mutlu offered to meet demonstrators from Taksim Square, the epicenter of the protests, at a cafe by the Bosphorus waterway to discuss their demands that the government abandon plans to build a replica Ottoman-era barracks on the park, which adjoins Taksim.

"For those who want to talk face to face tonight, from midnight we will talk in groups, if necessary until morning," Mutlu said on his Twitter account.

A police crackdown on the park nearly two weeks ago triggered an unprecedented wave of protest against Erdogan and his AK Party - an association of centrists and conservative religious elements - drawing in secularists, nationalists, professionals, unionists and students.

Erdogan has already discussed the plans to build over the park with various people who support the protesters, but had refused until Thursday to meet with the Taksim Solidarity group at the heart of the campaign to protect it.

Late on Thursday, he appeared to suggest that hundreds of protesters, camped out in a ramshackle settlement of tents in Gezi Park, could be forcibly evicted, although Mutlu said later there were no such immediate plans.

"Our patience is at an end. I am making my warning for the last time. I say to the mothers and fathers, please take your children in hand and bring them out ... Gezi Park does not belong to occupying forces but to the people," Erdogan said.

Taksim, where police fired teargas and sent thousands scurrying into side streets two nights ago, was crowded but calm overnight. Some of the assembled masses chanted and danced, while others listened to a concert pianist who has taken up residence amid the protesters.

Riot police guarded a statue of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, founder of the modern Turkish republic, on one side of the square and the Ataturk Cultural Center on the other, both of them targets for protesters to hang flags in recent days.

Police fired teargas and water cannon day after day in cities including Ankara last week, while youths threw stones and petrol bombs in Turkey's worst unrest for years. Three people, including a policeman, died and about 5,000 people were injured, according to the Turkish Medical Association.

SCEPTICAL

Erdogan met an earlier group of academics, artists and students who support the Gezi Park protests on Wednesday and AK Party Deputy Chairman Huseyin Celik said they discussed the possibility of a referendum on the plans to build on the park.

The offer is one of the only concessions the authorities have publicly floated after days of firm rhetoric from Erdogan refusing to back down. Celik gave few details of how a referendum would be carried out, saying it could either be held across Istanbul, or just in the district near Taksim.

The protesters in Gezi Park were skeptical following that first meeting, saying the delegation was unrepresentative and rejecting the idea of a referendum, saying their demands - primarily that the construction plans be halted - were already clear and did not require a vote.

It was not clear whether Thursday night's talks would be met with the same skepticism.

Erdogan's tough political style has endeared him to voters - who have handed him an increasing share of the vote over the past three elections - but his opponents say he has poured fuel on the flames with his robust response to the protests.

The United States has voiced concern about reports of excessive use of police force, while the European Parliament on Thursday warned the government against the use of "harsh measures" against peaceful protestors and urged Erdogan to take a "unifying and conciliatory" stance.

The comments were not welcomed by Ankara.

"Turkey is not a nation that needs to be taught a lesson in any way on these topics by any country or by any group of countries," Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said.

Erdogan, who has accused foreign forces, international media and market speculators of stoking unrest and trying to undermine the economy, said he would "share with the nation" on Friday details of what he called a "game being played with Turkey."

"It is as if the whole of Turkey is on fire, as if the whole of Turkey is collapsing," he said of some media coverage, describing it as "deceptive and unethical."

(Additional reporting by Ece Toksabay in Istanbul and Jonathon Burch in Ankara; Writing by Nick Tattersall; Editing by Peter Cooney)

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/06/13/us-turkey-protests-idUSBRE9590QA20130613

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