In Defense of Starling

[Niastri]

Given that JJ almost never immediately went to the basket, the prerequisite for an assistant, it would have been hard for Carlos to rack up all those assists via passes only to Starling. The same guy who kept rack of assists added them up for Starling and Carlos.

Fair enough… I just feel like Carlos passed for a handful of assists all season. To be fair, I was watching most of the games like this:

 

[Niastri]

I'll tread lightly, but he facts are he shot 33% overall from February until the end of the season and had the worst efficiency in conference play of any player outside of Moore and Cuffe. It's difficult to win when your shooting guard can't make anything outside of a layup. I don't use the wrist as an excuse because the best month of shooting for him was right after he returned from injury. We have had more than enough data over three years that suggests this is who he is.

He needs to play defense this year or Red needs to go to other guys. We have 12 guys on the roster which include 2 freshmen with a lot of potential. I really think if Syracuse has a successful season it will be because JJ has bought into not being the focus of the team like he has been. If he's the third leading scorer we probably have had a very good year. If he leads us in scoring again that will be a problem. Freeman needs to be the focal point and Kingz needs shots too.

Our most likely route to success is if four starters and a reserve are in double figures.

I’m penciling in Freeman, Starling, Kingz and George averaging double digits, with Freeman and Starling at 14+ and George and Kingz around 12. That would be 54, and everybody else would total 26 or so, for a team average of right around 80.

My bold prediction is that Betsey comes in as the sixth man and averages 10. I think we score 80+ as a team very frequently. Just too many scoring options.

I added up the career averages for all our returning and portal players, their averages added up to 65 points per game, meaning without any scoring improvement, we would need 15 combined from White, Anthony and Fennell.

 

[atlanticuse]

JJ is a good kid. Doesn’t get in trouble, has been a good teammate.
My biggest concern is defense. Not saying we need a 7-footer, but we’re not an especially tall team. Not sure where we’ll get turnovers and rebounds to support 80 points a night.
I hope I’m wrong.

 

[JaySU22]

Next year is a put up or shut up year for JJ. No more excuses, as he should have the supporting cast to be his best self. I am hoping to see his assists and D continue to improve. You would think he would get more dimes off his explosiveness.

All the non-basketball stuff with JJ is great and I am happy he’s back as a core piece. But the cold, hard truth is that career to date he’s had a poor ROI for a Mickey D’s AA.

 

[althea]

If JJ could shoot like he did in high school we wouldn't be talking about this. I hope he went to a shot doctor.

 

[SU94]

I have been increasingly frustrated by certain posters who are constantly downplaying JJ Starling in this board. I found myself ranting about it in a recruiting thread, so decided to move it here instead.

JJ Starling was stuck as the only viable offensive threat last season on a team decimated by injuries and lack of talent. Red’s best, sometimes only, offensive play call was Starling Isolation. There was nothing else.

On top of that, Starling was our de facto point guard, playing away from his strengths.

JJ Starling was put in am extremely difficult position last season, and all he did was score 18 points, pull pull down 4 rebounds and dish out 3 assists per game, while maintaining a positive assist to turnover ratio. His scoring wasn’t as efficient as you would like, mostly because he was dribbling into the teeth of the defense every possession with nobody to pass to, and he shot too many threes at the end of the shot clock. But he shot 48% on two point shots on the season, despite being the guy that every team knew they had to stop.

Even Starling’s defense isn’t as bad as his detractors suggest. He has improved each year, and this past season, Starling was a -.4 DBPM… Win Shares had him a positive dWS, also by a hair, this time positive. A hair under average, by those two rate stats that break out defense. All while playing a blistering 35 minutes a game as the team’s only offensive threat. If Starling had gotten a rest, even by not having to bring up the ball, do you think he might have been a little quicker in stopping defensive penetration? Probably. Oh, by the way, starling was second in steals and fourth in blocks on last years endemic defensive squad. The kid busts his butt, playing for his hometown team.

Can we stop complaining about Starling? The dude could have gone anywhere, and probably made more money doing it. Yet he’s here, a McDonald’s All American that is going to finish his career in Syracuse! Somehow half the posters here act like we are saddled with him.

I’m thrilled Starling chose to stick around, and I think he’s going to be great.

Edit: I’m going to cross post this, because I just spent a few minutes researching a rant, and it isn’t even in the right thread. Dang it.

JJ Starling was stuck as the only viable offensive threat last season on a team decimated by injuries and lack of talent. Red’s best, sometimes only, offensive play call was Starling Isolation. There was nothing else.

On top of that, Starling was our de facto point guard, playing away from his strengths.

JJ Starling was put in am extremely difficult position last season, and all he did was score 28 points, pull pull down 4 rebounds and dish out 3 assists per game, while maintaining a positive assist to turnover ratio. His scoring wasn’t as efficient as you would like, mostly because he was dribbling into the teeth of the defense every possession with nobody to pass to, and he shot too many threes at the end of the shot clock. But he shot.480 on two point shots on the season, despite being the guy that every team knew they had to stop.

Even Starling’s defense isn’t as bad as his detractors suggest. He has improved each year, and this past season, Starling was a -.4 DBPM… Win Shares had him a positive dWS, also by a hair, this time positive. A hair under average, by those two rate stats that break out defense. All while playing a blistering 35 minutes a game as the team’s only offensive threat. If Starling had gotten a rest, even by not having to bring up the ball, do you think he might have been a little quicker in stopping defensive penetration? Probably. Oh, by the way, starling was second in steals and fourth in blocks on last years endemic defensive squad. The kid busts his butt, playing for his hometown team.

Can we stop complaining about Starling? The dude could have gone anywhere, and probably made more money doing it. Yet he’s here, a McDonald’s All American that is going to finish his career in Syracuse!

Somehow half the posters here act like we are saddled with him. It makes me a little angry.

JJ Starling College Stats | College Basketball at Sports-Reference.com

JJ Starling - Stats, Game Logs, Splits, and much more

www.sports-reference.com

I endorse this post (twice even) and I am glad this was broached here.

JJ is a way better player than most here will ever give him credit for. For those lamenting his game, his stats, his third-degree metrics, ... be careful what you wish for. This kid competes and he can put the ball in the basket. We need more like him, not less. I wish he had another year or two of eligibility to be honest.

 

[tptcuse]

I endorse this post (twice even) and I am glad this was broached here.

JJ is a way better player than most here will ever give him credit for. For those lamenting his game, his stats, his third-degree metrics, ... be careful what you wish for. This kid competes and he can put the ball in the basket. We need more like him, not less. I wish he had another year or two of eligibility to be honest.

I agree with you, but you have to admit his defense is baffling given his athleticism.

 

[MSOrange]

I endorse this post (twice even) and I am glad this was broached here.

JJ is a way better player than most here will ever give him credit for. For those lamenting his game, his stats, his third-degree metrics, ... be careful what you wish for. This kid competes and he can put the ball in the basket. We need more like him, not less. I wish he had another year or two of eligibility to be honest.

I appreciate your post, but I'm not sure how you want us to evaulate him and not have some concerns about his stats and metrics.

 

[Orangezoo]

His defense is not good. Granted, this team executed defense like they just found out about it at tip off, so maybe he can gain some grace there, but he's also not a first year player.

His TS% was under 50% and he took 16 FGA last year. His TS% for his career is right at 50%. He's below 43% FG% and 30% 3PT% for his career.

When healthy, Donnie and Eddie were both viable offensive threats, I would argue.

He is, at his peak, what I would consider an average player. But because of the lack of talent, the lack of coaching and the injuries we got hit with he took on a role that he is not suited for. However, I think he was going to be a volume shooter and high usage guy, no matter what.

He has now had two injuries in his career during two separate years.

If he is shooting 16 FGA/game next year, we will not be a good team. On offense, we have to get much more efficient.

On defense, we literally just need to be functional.

I don't dislike JJ and I'm glad he's coming back. Veteran players, even if average, are still valuable. He has an ability to attack downhill and get lift and understands angles to score from five or six feet or in really well. I would argue if he plays with guys that can hit threes and a center that can set a high screen and roll hard to the rim and catch a lob, he'd have more opportunity, just like anyone that has his attributes.

But in terms of JJ just being given the keys to shoot as much as he did, that can't happen. Efficiency is the name of the game and if JJ were really good, he would lift the players around him.

I'll root like all get out for him. I like him. I like that he's a local guy that is sticking around. But we have some other options on the team heading into the upcoming year and I think it would be wise of Red to explore all avenues at his disposal.

In a successful season - JJs numbers should overall have him 3rd or 4th leading scorer with big games with higher usage and efficiency wrapped around games where he plays 20-25 mins tops with 6/7 attempts and hitting the boards and a few assists. When he is a mismatch because of his pace and gets to the rim at will he can be an offensive weapon all the same if he can beat his man and the mid range is dropping.

Unless his shot gets fixed he shouldn’t be putting up more than 2 max 3 3pt attempts per game. All of this still with him focusing on being a better defender. Simply by just playing better defense he will have opportunities in transition where he doesn’t have to think just simply fill his lane and attack.

I wish he would watch hours of tape on a guy like Keith Langford to see how to be effective as an all around 2G without needing to rely on the perimeter shot. The game has changed since then so a guy like Langford is more of a 12-13 ppg scorer at best but that’s how he could still be a leader for this team and doing the dirty work and just using the tools he has. Nothing wrong with being limited in what you can do just work to excel at it and give way to teammates to handle the rest.

 

[pearl31]

did jj's uncle start this thread

 

[Charbroil]

I have been increasingly frustrated by certain posters who are constantly downplaying JJ Starling in this board. I found myself ranting about it in a recruiting thread, so decided to move it here instead.

JJ Starling was stuck as the only viable offensive threat last season on a team decimated by injuries and lack of talent. Red’s best, sometimes only, offensive play call was Starling Isolation. There was nothing else.

On top of that, Starling was our de facto point guard, playing away from his strengths.

JJ Starling was put in am extremely difficult position last season, and all he did was score 18 points, pull pull down 4 rebounds and dish out 3 assists per game, while maintaining a positive assist to turnover ratio. His scoring wasn’t as efficient as you would like, mostly because he was dribbling into the teeth of the defense every possession with nobody to pass to, and he shot too many threes at the end of the shot clock. But he shot 48% on two point shots on the season, despite being the guy that every team knew they had to stop.

Even Starling’s defense isn’t as bad as his detractors suggest. He has improved each year, and this past season, Starling was a -.4 DBPM… Win Shares had him a positive dWS, also by a hair, this time positive. A hair under average, by those two rate stats that break out defense. All while playing a blistering 35 minutes a game as the team’s only offensive threat. If Starling had gotten a rest, even by not having to bring up the ball, do you think he might have been a little quicker in stopping defensive penetration? Probably. Oh, by the way, starling was second in steals and fourth in blocks on last years endemic defensive squad. The kid busts his butt, playing for his hometown team.

Can we stop complaining about Starling? The dude could have gone anywhere, and probably made more money doing it. Yet he’s here, a McDonald’s All American that is going to finish his career in Syracuse! Somehow half the posters here act like we are saddled with him.

I’m thrilled Starling chose to stick around, and I think he’s going to be great.

Edit: I’m going to cross post this, because I just spent a few minutes researching a rant, and it isn’t even in the right thread. Dang it.

JJ Starling was stuck as the only viable offensive threat last season on a team decimated by injuries and lack of talent. Red’s best, sometimes only, offensive play call was Starling Isolation. There was nothing else.

On top of that, Starling was our de facto point guard, playing away from his strengths.

JJ Starling was put in am extremely difficult position last season, and all he did was score 28 points, pull pull down 4 rebounds and dish out 3 assists per game, while maintaining a positive assist to turnover ratio. His scoring wasn’t as efficient as you would like, mostly because he was dribbling into the teeth of the defense every possession with nobody to pass to, and he shot too many threes at the end of the shot clock. But he shot.480 on two point shots on the season, despite being the guy that every team knew they had to stop.

Even Starling’s defense isn’t as bad as his detractors suggest. He has improved each year, and this past season, Starling was a -.4 DBPM… Win Shares had him a positive dWS, also by a hair, this time positive. A hair under average, by those two rate stats that break out defense. All while playing a blistering 35 minutes a game as the team’s only offensive threat. If Starling had gotten a rest, even by not having to bring up the ball, do you think he might have been a little quicker in stopping defensive penetration? Probably. Oh, by the way, starling was second in steals and fourth in blocks on last years endemic defensive squad. The kid busts his butt, playing for his hometown team.

Can we stop complaining about Starling? The dude could have gone anywhere, and probably made more money doing it. Yet he’s here, a McDonald’s All American that is going to finish his career in Syracuse!

Somehow half the posters here act like we are saddled with him. It makes me a little angry.

JJ Starling College Stats | College Basketball at Sports-Reference.com

JJ Starling - Stats, Game Logs, Splits, and much more

www.sports-reference.com

You certainly put in a quality effort in your defense of Starling. If only JJ put in that same effort for his defense.

 

[Niastri]

Red called plays?

View attachment 252052

If you prefer, in the absence of play calling, Starling Isolation was the offense.

 

[Niastri]

JJ is a good kid. Doesn’t get in trouble, has been a good teammate.
My biggest concern is defense. Not saying we need a 7-footer, but we’re not an especially tall team. Not sure where we’ll get turnovers and rebounds to support 80 points a night.
I hope I’m wrong.

I’ve been thinking a lot about the bold point. After decades of JB teams that almost always had a true big man, mostly for defensive purposes, my mind rebels against playing only forwards. But it seems to be a growing trend across the sport. But another thought about the choices the staff made seems apparent to me.

Right now, our forwards are Kyle, Freeman, White, Betsey and Souare.

They have a lot of similarities between them. Similar height, big “enough” for college ball, athletic and long limbed. The standing reach of the group is substantial, and seemed to be a critical criteria in selecting them to be recruited.

But another similarity, overlooked by most, is that most of them are entering their second year of power conference basketball. White is the exception, being a freshman. Kyle barely played last year, but has two years of starting experience at a low major.

The other three, though, played enough minutes on major conference teams to get the freshman jitters out, and gain the experience of a year playing in college.

They are all primed to experience their sophomore leap next year.

It’s highly likely that the whole group doesn’t reach their potential simultaneously, but I think the coaching staff prioritized the transfers based on the strong possibility they really get better next year.

So, a bunch of athletic, long limbed forwards might, by defensive committee, be able to get the job done.

The coaching staff is betting on it, but guys like Kyle, White, Souare and Betsey are scouting bets… They don’t have the track record of production to justify the coaches faith in them. But they have athletic characteristics and enough film that the coaches think they will be good enough next year.

 

[SU94]

I appreciate your post, but I'm not sure how you want us to evaulate him and not have some concerns about his stats and metrics.

Choose your own path. Rely on numbers that you don’t likely cannot explain. Measure in hundredths of decimals. Or watch the game and realize that nearly every players has strengths and weaknesses, and there are precious few complete players. Ask yourself, who had to take more shots than were advisable, often at the end of the shot clock because no one else could create space to get the shot off? And did it while injured, and not just the left hand. Then ponder, who had to often guard the opponents’ top backcourt scorer? The 5-8 PG was not. Cuffe and Taylor combined barely played more minutes than JJ (who missed 7 games), so they were not. Context matters. The guy covering the opposing “dude” was JJ.

Is JJ a plus defender? No. A front runner for a slot on the ACC’s defensive first team? Nope. Which guard from our program, however, has fit that profile? Jason Hart. Yes. Thirty years ago in the BE. Maybe Triche? A decade+ ago in another conference. It’s not who we are.

You know who else were sub-par defenders: Devo, Pearl, Lazarus (only played hard the last five minutes of games in his one season of playing time), Edelin, Waiters, DeShawn. There are more. Allen Griffen started to play defense as a senior. Gerry was gritty, but slower (and he was never 6-2). So many here should stop acting like JJ is a unicorn of defensive futility just because you found a nifty new statistic that attempts to measure chaos.

And in the end, Alex Kline runs analytics/numbers too, the caliber of which dwarf yours. And he (and Red) invited JJ back with open arms.

 

[Domedog84]

Choose your own path. Rely on numbers that you don’t likely cannot explain. Measure in hundredths of decimals. Or watch the game and realize that nearly every players has strengths and weaknesses, and there are precious few complete players. Ask yourself, who had to take more shots than were advisable, often at the end of the shot clock because no one else could create space to get the shot off? And did it while injured, and not just the left hand. Then ponder, who had to often guard the opponents’ top backcourt scorer? The 5-8 PG was not. Cuffe and Taylor combined barely played more minutes than JJ (who missed 7 games), so they were not. Context matters. The guy covering the opposing “dude” was JJ.

Is JJ a plus defender? No. A front runner for a slot on the ACC’s defensive first team? Nope. Which guard from our program, however, has fit that profile? Jason Hart. Yes. Thirty years ago in the BE. Maybe Triche? A decade+ ago in another conference. It’s not who we are.

You know who else were sub-par defenders: Devo, Pearl, Lazarus (only played hard the last five minutes of games in his one season of playing time), Edelin, Waiters, DeShawn. There are more. Allen Griffen started to play defense as a senior. Gerry was gritty, but slower (and he was never 6-2). So many here should stop acting like JJ is a unicorn of defensive futility just because you found a nifty new statistic that attempts to measure chaos.

And in the end, Alex Kline runs analytics/numbers too, the caliber of which dwarf yours. And he (and Red) invited JJ back with open arms.

You sold me. We just aren’t good defenders here at Cuse and so we should not have any tools to measure that, just acceptance.

 

[Niastri]

Choose your own path. Rely on numbers that you don’t likely cannot explain. Measure in hundredths of decimals. Or watch the game and realize that nearly every players has strengths and weaknesses, and there are precious few complete players. Ask yourself, who had to take more shots than were advisable, often at the end of the shot clock because no one else could create space to get the shot off? And did it while injured, and not just the left hand. Then ponder, who had to often guard the opponents’ top backcourt scorer? The 5-8 PG was not. Cuffe and Taylor combined barely played more minutes than JJ (who missed 7 games), so they were not. Context matters. The guy covering the opposing “dude” was JJ.

Is JJ a plus defender? No. A front runner for a slot on the ACC’s defensive first team? Nope. Which guard from our program, however, has fit that profile? Jason Hart. Yes. Thirty years ago in the BE. Maybe Triche? A decade+ ago in another conference. It’s not who we are.

You know who else were sub-par defenders: Devo, Pearl, Lazarus (only played hard the last five minutes of games in his one season of playing time), Edelin, Waiters, DeShawn. There are more. Allen Griffen started to play defense as a senior. Gerry was gritty, but slower (and he was never 6-2). So many here should stop acting like JJ is a unicorn of defensive futility just because you found a nifty new statistic that attempts to measure chaos.

And in the end, Alex Kline runs analytics/numbers too, the caliber of which dwarf yours. And he (and Red) invited JJ back with open arms.

I appreciate your long, nuanced post about, among other things, the difficulty of quantifying defensive contributions. Even in baseball, where the new technology allows tracking of velocity, angle, and spin rates, the ability of defensive metrics to predict future ability is nebulous.

Determining who is good or bad on defense in the chaos of a basketball game seems even more difficult.

In the other hand, defensive metrics often are a pretty good indicator of relative values, even if exact values aren’t completely accurate.

The Win Shares defensive statistic gave Starling a slight positive rating. The DBPM gave him a slight negative rating. The eye test says he’s negative, but who knows exactly what the team was trying to do, and how well Starling was doing as instructed?

My gut feeling is Starling isn’t good defensively, but that his defensive woes are overstated because he doesn’t fill the stat sheet on defense.

 

[MSOrange]

Choose your own path. Rely on numbers that you don’t likely cannot explain. Measure in hundredths of decimals. Or watch the game and realize that nearly every players has strengths and weaknesses, and there are precious few complete players. Ask yourself, who had to take more shots than were advisable, often at the end of the shot clock because no one else could create space to get the shot off? And did it while injured, and not just the left hand. Then ponder, who had to often guard the opponents’ top backcourt scorer? The 5-8 PG was not. Cuffe and Taylor combined barely played more minutes than JJ (who missed 7 games), so they were not. Context matters. The guy covering the opposing “dude” was JJ.

Is JJ a plus defender? No. A front runner for a slot on the ACC’s defensive first team? Nope. Which guard from our program, however, has fit that profile? Jason Hart. Yes. Thirty years ago in the BE. Maybe Triche? A decade+ ago in another conference. It’s not who we are.

You know who else were sub-par defenders: Devo, Pearl, Lazarus (only played hard the last five minutes of games in his one season of playing time), Edelin, Waiters, DeShawn. There are more. Allen Griffen started to play defense as a senior. Gerry was gritty, but slower (and he was never 6-2). So many here should stop acting like JJ is a unicorn of defensive futility just because you found a nifty new statistic that attempts to measure chaos.

And in the end, Alex Kline runs analytics/numbers too, the caliber of which dwarf yours. And he (and Red) invited JJ back with open arms.

Personally I don't mind learning more about the analytics if they give us a better picture of why we haven't had SU basketball to watch in March lately and why last season was the worst in 60 years. I'm not saying JJ was the main reason for last year's debacle. I love him as person -everything I've read is he is a great student and I love how he conducts himself in interviews after both wins and losses. But I just agree what others have posted that if he is our leading scorer this season, it won't be good news. But he definitely can be a key cog, just not the main cog.

 

[bnoro]

The stats cannot measure laziness and switching off mentally. He is not a winning player because he is not locked in 100% of the time, especially on the defensive end.

I didn't think it was possible to have a worse defending guard than JGIII but JJ did that last year. We can't hide him just like the Lakers can't hide Luka.

The amount of missed layups, free throws, and bad shot selection limit his ceiling greatly. If he is anything more than our #3 option on offense next year we are not making the tournament.

 

[Trueblue25]

The team was horrendous, the culture non existent, and the coaching inept.

Teams could have half their defense key in on Starling and really only have to worry about Lampkin.

Im not going to blame the kid for mentally checking out occasionally when we exist on a board with people who got upset when Bell announced he was transferring lol

Starlings not Hughes or Battle. You can’t ask him to bail out the team on a nightly basis. We saw what happened when we relied on him to do that. He’s a good scorer but the team was disastrously pieced together

Excited to see him this year with a team of pieces that actually makes sense around him.

 

[Niastri]

I just thought I would drop this here…

 

[SUforme]

I just thought I would drop this here…

Yeah highlights...

 

[bnoro]

I just thought I would drop this here…

If they let each highlight run a little longer you could see him not get back on defense or let his man blow by him.

 

[pearl31]

Yeah, it's been plainly visible how poorly he defends. (And how inefficient he's been offensively when the #1 scoring option--in SU's worst season in 50 years).
Here's to hoping he figures something out on the D side and is much more effective on O with firepower around him

 

[Niastri]

Yeah highlights...

But he went left!

In seriousness, I was actually surprised at his passing out of the pick and roll. I was having trouble visualizing him getting those types of passes off. I literally couldn’t remember one this season.

It was nice to see him with a handful of nice passes. He’s going to be better when he isn’t asked to be a primary ball handler. I think he’s going to be a lot more in his comfort zone playing beside George and with better offensive talent around him in general.

Plus, some of his best dimes in the highlight are to Freeman. I am looking forward to that combination next year.

I had kind of forgotten how much of this past season I watched with only half an eye, because it was hard to watch at times.

 

[hoopsupstate]

But he went left!

In seriousness, I was actually surprised at his passing out of the pick and roll. I was having trouble visualizing him getting those types of passes off. I literally couldn’t remember one this season.

It was nice to see him with a handful of nice passes. He’s going to be better when he isn’t asked to be a primary ball handler. I think he’s going to be a lot more in his comfort zone playing beside George and with better offensive talent around him in general.

Plus, some of his best dimes in the highlight are to Freeman. I am looking forward to that combination next year.

I had kind of forgotten how much of this past season I watched with only half an eye, because it was hard to watch at times.

His passing caught me off guard too. Just picture JJ with all the options he will have next year. We could be very tough to defend.