Just some musings on a topic that comes up often in football and basketball player interviews (among other sports).
Will often hear a player say "My goal is to be more consistent". (or something similar)
And this is fine, no problem, just kind of irritates me a little as seems a too-easy overused expression.
As in, do you mean "consistently mediocre?" (of course not!)
But in thinking about it further, this is what I think and hope they really mean by it.
To make far more good or great plays, than mistakes.
Because no one is ever mistake free.
But you want to make those mistakes fewer in number and really pale in comparison to how many good or great plays made.
Kind of like the assists/turnover ratio in basketball.
But for all plays, for all mistakes, for the whole game.
A Plays/Mistakes ratio. Or P/M for short.
The really skilled and more experienced players are building up a better Plays/Mistakes ratio.
A less experienced player might be really talented, but might also make a lot of mistakes.
So they may be really good, but their P/M is still too low because of all the mistakes, and they need to improve that to better help the team.
Example in point, and just from subjective watching (not going to the stats sheets).
Maxime Raynaud is having a great P/M season.
He's making plays like sinking shots, grabbing rebounds, dishing off assists, laying off of dumb fouls, blocking shots, etc. so much more than mistakes, like a turnover, a mistaken switch off leaving a guy wide open, forgetting to block out a rebounder, taking a badly forced (low percentage) shot, etc.
So in my mind now, when I hear a player say "I want to be more consistent",
I translate this in my head to mean "a better P/M ratio",
and it makes more sense to me.
Will often hear a player say "My goal is to be more consistent". (or something similar)
And this is fine, no problem, just kind of irritates me a little as seems a too-easy overused expression.
As in, do you mean "consistently mediocre?" (of course not!)
But in thinking about it further, this is what I think and hope they really mean by it.
To make far more good or great plays, than mistakes.
Because no one is ever mistake free.
But you want to make those mistakes fewer in number and really pale in comparison to how many good or great plays made.
Kind of like the assists/turnover ratio in basketball.
But for all plays, for all mistakes, for the whole game.
A Plays/Mistakes ratio. Or P/M for short.
The really skilled and more experienced players are building up a better Plays/Mistakes ratio.
A less experienced player might be really talented, but might also make a lot of mistakes.
So they may be really good, but their P/M is still too low because of all the mistakes, and they need to improve that to better help the team.
Example in point, and just from subjective watching (not going to the stats sheets).
Maxime Raynaud is having a great P/M season.
He's making plays like sinking shots, grabbing rebounds, dishing off assists, laying off of dumb fouls, blocking shots, etc. so much more than mistakes, like a turnover, a mistaken switch off leaving a guy wide open, forgetting to block out a rebounder, taking a badly forced (low percentage) shot, etc.
So in my mind now, when I hear a player say "I want to be more consistent",
I translate this in my head to mean "a better P/M ratio",
and it makes more sense to me.
