2020 is a strange place for a variety of reasons, but among them is brand Twitter accounts taking on a very specific voice and firing off strong takes on all manner of things from politics to sports. Sometimes that means that the Steak-Umms Twitter account brings you a painful dose of reality. Sometimes that means Velveeta’s Twitter account decides to fire off some incredibly strong takes on the usefulness and application of analytics in evaluating basketball players.
The latter of those things happened on Monday when Velveeta decided to respond to a tweet asking about an underrated player and fired off a Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf answer that stunned folks.
mahmoud abdul-rauf
— Velveeta (@EatLiquidGold) November 2, 2020
When asked about Abdul-Rauf’s historically bad career +/-, Velveeta then brought some heat in response to using that and on/off numbers as a metric to judge individual players.
IF THATS TRUE ITS PROB MORE A COMMENTARY ON THE VALUE OF +/- AS CONSTRUCTIVE METRIC THEN
— Velveeta (@EatLiquidGold) November 2, 2020
THERE’S TOO MUCH PARITY RIGHT NOW- LIKE DOES COLLIN SEXTON’S UNADJUSTED ON-OFF TELL YOU SOMETHING COMPARED TO GARY TRENT’S? IT’S ALMOST LIKE COMPARING ERAS? WHAT U THINK
— Velveeta (@EatLiquidGold) November 2, 2020
They were not done there, launching a #TrustTheProcessed hashtag that was very clever and bringing some extremely solid takes on analytics, the issues with the GOAT debate, and more.
VORP IS A SLIPPERY SLOPE BC THE FORMULA FOR REPLACEMENT PLAYER FEELS ARBITRARY AND ULTIMATELY UNSATISFYING- LIKE COMPARING A KNOWN AGAINST AN HYPOTHETICAL, WIN SHARES ARE HELPFUL BUT DISREGARDS A PLAYER’S CONTEXT WHICH IS TOO IMPORTANT TO DISMISS – U?
— Velveeta (@EatLiquidGold) November 2, 2020
OVERALL I THINK WE FORGET ANALYTICS IS GREAT FOR FINDING SMALL DIFFERENCES BETWEEN PLAYERS BUT USING IT SOLELY FOR PLAYER EVALUATION IS AGAINST ITS INTENDED USE- PIPM RELIES TOO MUCH ON BOX SCORE AND WE HAVEN’T WEIGHTED BOX SCORES CORRECTLY IN TERMS OF IMPACT ON A GAME
— Velveeta (@EatLiquidGold) November 2, 2020
I THINK ITS LIKE ALL LIFE EVALUATIONS, SOME STATS, SOME WATCHING, SOME PREFERENCE. THE GOAT COACH/GM’S DON’T GO ONE WAY RILES DID SHOW TIME THEN THE KNICKS TEAMS THEN THE HEAT AND THEY WERE ALL VERY DIFFERENT TEAMS
— Velveeta (@EatLiquidGold) November 2, 2020
WE DON’T FIND THE GOAT CONVO CONSTRUCTIVE ITS BASICALLY JUST PEOPLE SAYING THEIR FAVORITE COLOR- ITS PROB MJ BUT PEOPLE FORGET ABOUT KAREEM
— Velveeta (@EatLiquidGold) November 2, 2020
HONESTLY PER TAKEN IN THE CONTEXT OF W/L CAN GIVE YOU A TIERED VIEW OF PLAYERS- STEALS IS THE WORST STAT ITS USELESS
— Velveeta (@EatLiquidGold) November 2, 2020
SIMILAR ANSWER TO GOAT PLAYER ALTHOUGH ITS A BETTER CONVO BC THEY CAN COACH MANY DIFFERENT TEAMS LIKE PHIL DID- ITS PROBABLY MORE CONSTRUCTIVE TO DO A TIERED SYSTEM AND HAVE RED, PHIL, POP UP THERE? OUR FAV IS NELLIE
— Velveeta (@EatLiquidGold) November 2, 2020
OH STATS ARE IMPORTANT AND VORP CAN BE SUPER HELPFUL ITS JUST THAT WE HAVE PUT A PREMIUM ON QUANTIFYING THE QUALITATIVE EVEN WHEN WE DON’T HAVE TO
— Velveeta (@EatLiquidGold) November 2, 2020
WE ARE BULLISH ON RUDY BUT WE LOVE RIM PROTECTION- PEOPLE THINK THE 3 IS THE QUEEN RIGHT NOW BUT ITS 3’S AND SHOTS ON THE RIM. A SOLID RIM PROTECTOR WHO ISN’T A TURNOVER/FT LIABILITY HELPS WINS GAMES
— Velveeta (@EatLiquidGold) November 2, 2020
THATS TRUE WE ARE CHEESE BUT NUMBERS IN HOOPS IS TOUGH THERES TOO MUCH CONTEXT- WE AREN’T ANTI NUMBERS
— Velveeta (@EatLiquidGold) November 2, 2020
It all made for an excellent afternoon on Basketball Twitter, but the best idea/take Velveeta had was this.
THERE SHOULD BE A 3 SECONDS FOR CORNER THREES
— Velveeta (@EatLiquidGold) November 2, 2020
Make Velveeta’s social media manager commissioner of the NBA or at the very least put them on the competition committee.