Matt Bonner unaware of his own awesomeness

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There is a proper recap in the works (and I submitted a piece for tomorrow’s Daily Dime), but I wanted to lighten the mood after a tough loss.

In the postgame locker room I asked Matt Bonner what it felt like to live the life of an adjusted plus/minus poster child?

“Wait, adjusted what?” And then Bonner greeted me with the most blank-faced born and brazed on New Hampshire sandwiches stare I’ve ever witnessed, and I’ve seen my share.

For a moment he thought of faking his way through an answer, but finally fessed up. “Wait, what is it, really? I have no idea.”

I rattled off a quick summation in cool sounding stat-boy spiel.

“Really, who keeps track of that?”

But before I could answer, he gave his final word.

“I’m sure it has everything to do with the other guys on the floor. I just try to make my shots.”

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  • Joe

    If we have the big 3 available come playoff time (assuming we still make the playoffs), you can’t compare what Bonner did last year to what you can expect him to do this year. Wayne Winston specifically advised the Mavs to try to shut him down in our match-up last post-season:

    http://www.48minutesofhell.com/2010/03/03/matt-bonner-mia/
    “Wayne Winston recently told me that prior to last year’s playoffs he advised the Mavericks that stopping Matt Bonner was a high priority against the Spurs, one of the most important things for their coaches to key on during the series.”

    It seems like their strategy was to let Tony get his points but to shut down our 3rd options, which they did very effectively. If all 3 of our big 3 are available to play, teams will have a much more difficult time capitalizing on that strategy, and Bonner will not have to do more than produce in the role that he’s well-suited for. I see no reason why he shouldn’t continue to be a very productive role-player in the playoffs this year as long as that’s all we’re asking him to do.

  • TradeTP

    Colin- no but the OP is talking about a completely illogical +/- stat to insinuate Bonner being better than he really is.

  • bduran

    Completely illogical? Really? It makes no sense to you to try to evaluate how a team performs with a player on the court vs. when he’s not? Of course this is someone who thinks logic is referencing RPI (a team stat that the NCAA uses) to say that individual player statistics are worthless without actually making an argument.

    Also, I didn’t just quote one stat, I quoted 3 different stats, two of which are based on what happens in the box score (PER and WP48). I didn’t stop with statistics either. I pointed out that Pop also seems to think Bonner has value to the team. So, taking all these things together (and not just summing things up with +- like you suggested I did), and then listening to your oh so thoughtful arguments, I’m going have to go with the NBA championship coach and the mathematicians.

  • Colin

    Trade TP

    Damn Bro, I was only commenting on the fact that Bonner and TD both finished the game with 5 rebs apiece which was mainly to point out the fact that TD under-performed that game. Nothing in my posts did I mention a thing about +/- stats (which I don’t subscribe to) or to start a freakin’ discussion about how you don’t like Bonner. Only box scores dude.

  • http://projectspurs.com Robby

    Tim,

    Great post as always. Go Matty! Go Spurs!

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