Sims/Mulkey compared to Simmons/Warlick - ?? for stats folks

[cabbie191]

Does it seem to anyone else that there is an interesting parallel between Sims and Simmons this year, in that 1) both are taking an unusually high percentage of their teams shots and 2) at least part of their respective fan bases are blaming their teams' disappointing losses on them? My observation comes from visiting baylorfans.com and volnation.

I'm wondering if our stats experts could do a comparison of Sims and Simmons seasons to date. I recognize Sims is playing with a younger team, etc., but I still think a statistical comparison would be interesting.

A final observation - Baylor fans seem to be more patient with Mulkey than LV fans with Warlick.

 

[Jim]

A final observation - Baylor fans seem to be more patient with Mulkey than LV fans with Warlick.

LV fans got accustomed to winning before Warlick became head coach. Baylor wasn't winning before Mulkey. She's earned their patience.

 

[Vowelguy]

Anyone comparing Sims to Simmons should have his/her head examined.

 

[huskybill]

Anyone comparing Sims to Simmons should have his/her head examined.

They'll probably remove your post for being too rational. OTOH both have Sims in their names.

 

[easttexastrash]

Just imagine if Simmons had actually chose Baylor over Tennessee.

 

[easttexastrash]

Does it seem to anyone else that there is an interesting parallel between Sims and Simmons this year, in that 1) both are taking an unusually high percentage of their teams shots and 2) at least part of their respective fan bases are blaming their teams' disappointing losses on them? My observation comes from visiting baylorfans.com and volnation.

I'm wondering if our stats experts could do a comparison of Sims and Simmons seasons to date. I recognize Sims is playing with a younger team, etc., but I still think a statistical comparison would be interesting.

A final observation - Baylor fans seem to be more patient with Mulkey than LV fans with Warlick.

I agree that Sims is out of control. However, this has only been an issue with Sims the last two games, not an entire career. Kim needs to pull her aside an rip her a bit. Some of the shots that she is taking are absolutely horrendous. There were a few times in the Griner years that she did the same thing but she had BG there to clean it all up.

 

[Phil]

Sims is one of the best players in the country, who lost her mind last week, and will get it back.

Simmons is one of the best players in the country in her mind.

No stats needed.

 

[UcMiami]

I actually think that Simmons is doing less of that this year than in previous years - probably playing fewer minutes and the minutes she is playing she isn't dominating the ball quite as much as in previous years. Doesn't mean she cannot shoot her team out of a game in a shorter segment of time, just that she isn't getting quite the number of opportunities she got in previous years.
On Stats:
Simmons - 25.1 minutes per game, 201 FGA, .398, 98 3FGA, .306, 13.3 scoring average taking 18.1% of TN shots vs. 31.7 min, .418, .365, 16.8 last year taking 23.5% of the shots. (YTD she also has 38 assists, 48 TOs, 48 rebounds, 18 steals)

Sims - 31.3 minutes per game, 374 FGA, .476, 118 3FGA, .432, 31.1 scoring average taking 30.1% of Baylor's shots. (She also has 73 assists and 40 TOs and 78 rebounds, and 33 steals)

So ... Sims is statistically performing much better - you would be basically happy on any team to have your guard shooting 47% from the field and 43% from three, racking up 4 assist and a 2-1 A/TO ratio and grabbing 4 rebounds and 2 steals a game. You wouldn't be as happy with them shooting 30% of your FGAs. She has also shot 147 free throws vs. Simmons 47 and that is a lot of fouls drawn on your opponents which is also a positive. Really the only negative with Sims is the amount of offense she represents and that is more coaching than player I think. Now the last two games where the shooting percentage drops below 30% her game becomes a larger problem and a disturbing trend.

In comparison Simmons is not doing a lot to help her team - shooting a low percentage, not getting many assists and having an A/TO of under 1.0, and being average on rebounds and steals for a guard.

NB - TN has played a significantly more robust schedule to date than Baylor has. Sims racked up a lot of those numbers against really inferior competition.

 

[Vowelguy]

You wouldn't be as happy with them shooting 30% of your FGAs.

Why not?

She's making 47% of her shots and 43% of her 3s.

 

[DobbsRover2]

Statistically, I don't see the number of shots Sims took last week to be at all different from what she did earlier in the big games. Yes, if you count all of those Nicholls State type games, you can come up with all sorts of nice OS as a limited shot-taker and big-assister player ideas. But look instead at the two important games prior to last week (KY and WVU) and then the last two games. She took 46% of the Baylor shots in the earlier two games, including more than 50% in the one of those 4 games that Baylor won. She took 45% of the shots in the games this week.

The difference is probably in other areas. The assists were down substantially from a 6.5 average in the earlier games to 3.0 for the last two. She also shot at a 49.5% rate in the earlier games and she shot 27% last week. Is the terrible shooting simply because she was either playing against a great defense or one that figured out a way to stop her after the Jayhawks watched clips from the UConn game, or is it that Sims decided to take a lot of wild shots last week? Or is it both? Don't know, but the aberration last week was in her FG%, not in any real change in the way she dominates the Baylor offense.

 

[easttexastrash]

Why not?

She's making 47% of her shots and 43% of her 3s.

Shoot away, Sims! Shoot away!

But I do see evidence of other players just sitting back and watching Sims instead of getting involved. And yesterday, Johnson was bringing the ball dow the court and didn't throw it to Sims and Sims kind of threw her hands in the air as if to say "why didn't you throw me the ball?" I don't care for that and that type of action is a message to her teammates that they are incapable of doing anything without her being involved. However, Kim has instructed her to dominate the offense. This is a monster of Kim's making.

Brings back memories of Kim standing on the sidelines yelling "throw it to Griner!"

 

[DobbsRover2]

Why not?

She's making 47% of her shots and 43% of her 3s.

Absolutely, if that can continue, and I'm sure Delaware was happy to let EDD take roughly that 30% percentage in the 30 of the 36 Blue Hen games she played in last year. But as noted above, Sims is taking a much higher percentage of Baylor's shots (about 46%) while she is playing in the big games, and the question is can she continue to shoot 47% as the better defenses give her more attention, or will her average get closer to the 27% she shot last week? That remains to be seen.

 

[easttexastrash]

Does it seem to anyone else that there is an interesting parallel between Sims and Simmons this year, in that 1) both are taking an unusually high percentage of their teams shots and 2) at least part of their respective fan bases are blaming their teams' disappointing losses on them? My observation comes from visiting baylorfans.com and volnation.

I'm wondering if our stats experts could do a comparison of Sims and Simmons seasons to date. I recognize Sims is playing with a younger team, etc., but I still think a statistical comparison would be interesting.

A final observation - Baylor fans seem to be more patient with Mulkey than LV fans with Warlick.

Does this qualify as a parallel? I would say that Sims is MUCH more productive so any comparison to Simmons is just a chance to take a jab at Sims.
Simmons - 25.1 minutes per game, 201 FGA, .398, 98 3FGA, .306, 13.3 scoring average taking 18.1% of TN shots (48 rebounds, 18 steals)
Sims - 31.3 minutes per game, 374 FGA, .476, 118 3FGA, .432, 31.1 scoring average taking 30.1% of Baylor's shots. (She also has 73 assists and 40 TOs and 78 rebounds, and 33 steals)

 

[DobbsRover2]

Does this qualify as a parallel? I would say that Sims is MUCH more productive so any comparison to Simmons is just a chance to take a jab at Sims.
Simmons - 25.1 minutes per game, 201 FGA, .398, 98 3FGA, .306, 13.3 scoring average taking 18.1% of TN shots (48 rebounds, 18 steals)
Sims - 31.3 minutes per game, 374 FGA, .476, 118 3FGA, .432, 31.1 scoring average taking 30.1% of Baylor's shots. (She also has 73 assists and 40 TOs and 78 rebounds, and 33 steals)

Agree that comparing Sims to Simmons is misguided except that they are both on the lists of candidates for the NPOY and first team AA awards (rightly or wrongly) and because of the eerily similar first three letters of their last names. However, except for the fact that Baylor has played the #1 team in the US, Simmons and UTenn has played a much difficult schedule with the Vols facing anywhere from the 2nd to 8th toughest slate in the rating services, while Baylor's schedule is still at #155 in Sagarin. Now that Baylor is getting into the meat of the action, we'll see what happens, but last week Sims would have loved to switch her 27% FG% for Simmon's 39.8% season average.

 

[UcMiami]

Why not?

She's making 47% of her shots and 43% of her 3s.

I think ideally you don't want any player to be dominating the shot taking for your team - a typical team wants to balance shooting between 5 starters and a bench - a team with a long bench probably wants the bench to count as '2' and a shorter bench as '1' so you are dividing your shooting between 6 or 7 entities - truly balanced would be 16.7% for each starter and for the bench as a group or 14.1% for each starter and the bench as two of the group. No team except maybe the USA Olympic team is that balanced, but if you have a starter taking 25% of your shots then you are starting to become more predictable as an offensive team - if it gets above 30% other teammates are being left out and may become more spectators than participants on the offensive end.
As others have pointed out Sims is nearing 50% of the shots in some games and that is getting is really way too much. I would also say that when it is a guard that is taking 30+% it is worse than with a post since the post is doing that presumably because the ball is being passed to them so there is some offensive direction. With a guard, they are not only dominating the shooting, but also dominating the ball possession.

 

[easttexastrash]

I think ideally you don't want any player to be dominating the shot taking for your team - a typical team wants to balance shooting between 5 starters and a bench - a team with a long bench probably wants the bench to count as '2' and a shorter bench as '1' so you are dividing your shooting between 6 or 7 entities - truly balanced would be 16.7% for each starter and for the bench as a group or 14.1% for each starter and the bench as two of the group. No team except maybe the USA Olympic team is that balanced, but if you have a starter taking 25% of your shots then you are starting to become more predictable as an offensive team - if it gets above 30% other teammates are being left out and may become more spectators than participants on the offensive end.
As others have pointed out Sims is nearing 50% of the shots in some games and that is getting is really way too much. I would also say that when it is a guard that is taking 30+% it is worse than with a post since the post is doing that presumably because the ball is being passed to them so there is some offensive direction. With a guard, they are not only dominating the shooting, but also dominating the ball possession.

Didn't EDD dominate UD's percentage of shots last year? I don't recall anyone taking issue with that. Sims is taking 22 shots per game and EDD took an average of 18.5 shots per game. Hardly a huge difference.

Sims is shooting 47.6% from the field and EDD shot 48.7 from the floor. Sims is shooting 43.2% from BTA and EDD shot 45.2%. Sims is shooting 8.65 FTs a game and EDD shot 6.67. EDD had an average of 1.86 assists per game and Sims averages 4.6. Sims has more steals (33) through 17 games than EDD had (27) in 30 games. The only category that EDD had a clear advantage in was blocks per game (69-0).

 

[UcMiami]

Didn't EDD dominate UD's percentage of shots last year? I don't recall anyone taking issue with that. Sims is taking 22 shots per game and EDD took an average of 18.5 shots per game. Hardly a huge difference.

Sims is shooting 47.6% from the field and EDD shot 48.7 from the floor. Sims is shooting 43.2% from BTA and EDD shot 45.2%. Sims is shooting 8.65 FTs a game and EDD shot 6.67. EDD had an average of 1.86 assists per game and Sims averages 4.6. Sims has more steals (33) through 17 games than EDD had (27) in 30 games. The only category that EDD had a clear advantage in was blocks per game (69-0).

I am not knocking Sims and my stat post I thought was pretty definite in saying the comparison with Simmons all comes down on Sims side of the ledger. It is Kim's choice how dominant Sims is on the court and she appears to be happy with it, but I think it does make Baylor easier to defend being so Sims centric.
EDD was a top three player in the country on a pleasant little team at UD that really had nothing but bench players as the other starting players so you sort of ride that player. It is similar to the typical HS team that has a single D1 caliber player who leads the team in most if not all stats. But Baylor has some nice players starting and coming off the bench so ideally you would hope they would be more involved. They are young, but this is now mid-season and they should be more integrated into the offense.