http://www.mysynergysports.com/?lid=corpSite Synergy Sports is now offering a service to fans. Over at the APBRMetrics board, someone posted some stats on post defense for centers which he got using the Synergy service. I wanted to share some of those results here. Here are post defense stats for all centers who played at least 1500 minutes last year (29 of them): Rk Player G Min Plays PPP FG% %SF %TO 1 Al Horford 81 2845 284 0.69 36.1 7.7 13.7 2 Mehmet Okur 73 2149 233 0.71 34.7 10.3 15.5 3 Dwight Howard 82 2843 212 0.71 34.2 9.4 13.7 4 Ben Wallace 69 1975 208 0.73 39.1 5.8 12.5 5 Kendrick Perkins 78 2154 226 0.75 37.4 6.2 10.2 6 Jermaine O'Neal 70 1991 233 0.76 40.1 11.2 12 7 Andrew Bynum 65 1977 175 0.76 38.2 6.3 10.9 8 Nene Hilario 82 2755 293 0.77 42.5 9.9 17.1 9 Tim Duncan 78 2438 219 0.79 42.5 4.1 10.5 10 Andrea Bargnani 80 2799 284 0.8 42.2 7.7 11.6 11 Channing Frye 81 2190 262 0.81 41.9 6.5 11.5 12 Brendan Haywood 77 2355 244 0.82 43.7 7.7 11.8 13 Brook Lopez 82 3027 261 0.83 46.2 4.2 13 14 Marcus Camby 74 2314 172 0.83 42 8.1 12.8 15 Roy Hibbert 81 2035 205 0.84 41.7 15.6 13.7 16 Nenad Krstic 76 1741 222 0.87 44.4 9.5 8.6 17 Samuel Dalembert 82 2124 206 0.87 43.7 10.7 13.6 18 Joakim Noah 64 1925 185 0.87 44.8 9.7 11.4 19 Pau Gasol 65 2403 176 0.87 43.3 8 10.2 20 Emeka Okafor 82 2370 263 0.89 46.1 6.5 8.7 21 Andrew Bogut 69 2229 175 0.89 48.4 9.7 16.6 22 Anderson Varejao 76 2166 128 0.9 45.1 13.3 14.8 23 Marc Gasol 69 2469 184 0.91 50 8.7 15.8 <font style="background-color:yellow">24 Chuck Hayes 82 1773 287 0.92 48 7.3 14.3</font> 25 Al Jefferson 76 2463 212 0.92 49.7 8.5 15.1 26 Chris Kaman 76 2608 263 0.94 48.8 9.9 10.3 27 Chris Andersen 76 1692 132 0.95 53.3 3.8 12.9 28 Spencer Hawes 72 1904 219 0.97 48.4 6.4 7.8 29 David Lee 81 3019 320 1.02 51.2 10 8.8 PPP refers to points allowed per post up possession faced. I assume that these exclude possessions results in double team pass outs. So, this is one-on-one post defense. These results are interesting to me, though not particularly surprising. Chuck ranks: Minutes played: 27/29 Post-ups faced per minute (single-team): 1/29 (by a wide margin) Points allowed per post-up: 24/29 Limiting FG% against post-ups: 22/29 Turnovers forced per post-up: 7/29 Limiting shooting fouls committed per post-up: 10/29 So, do we conclude that Chuck Hayes is a bad post defender? I would not say that, though I think this puts in question the notion that he is an elite post defender when asked to play center along-side another undersized big. Chuck has rarely been paired with a competent post defender this season, and as a result (1) he's had to face more post ups, (2) he's always guarding the more potent post player. We should also consider that he played all 82 games despite noticeably laboring physically in the second half of the season. I think he pushed himself to his physical limits, and I admire him for that even if the results were not so great. I have not signed up for Synergy yet, so I don't know how often Chuck has received double team help compared to some of these other centers. That would also be something to factor in.
How about Mehmet Okur? We all remember his post defense against Yao years back. I guess that performance wasn't a fluke. And Dwight Howard looks to be well-deserving of his DPOY award. Elite rebounder, shot-blocker, and post-defender (only 34% shooting against him in the post).
i believe his height hurts him most. he can't change the shots when the opposite shoots over him in close range to the rim. but his strength is he can hold his position and he has quick hands to strip the ball so if the opposites try to take him to the hoop by dribbling, most likely they won't be success. his another strength is to defend jump shooting pf around 15+ feet bcoz he puts his body on his opponents to disrupt their balance. when yao's back, he will be moved back to his role as a defense specialist. he will be used when other teams' pfs have a hot hand.
He's the shortest guy in the entire list... That's saying something, right? I still think he's the best post defender under 7 ft.
He's actually shorter by at least 4 inches to everyone on that list isn't he? Another factor.. he's always guarding the best post player.. not necessarily the center... so part of those points scored by the opposing center are all on Scola or Landry Edit: maybe I should have asked.. is this head to head plays?? I guess I need more info on the data.
6-6 and starting center. No miracles. I think the Chuck we've seen this season is not the same Chuck we knew so far. First, because he has been playing as center, not PF. 2nd, because the secured starting role -no matter what happens- has often led him to relax and not play with 100% of intensity, something that considering his size he absolutely needs to be moderately succesful.
Expected output should be included somewhere. If Hayes stops Shaq 2/5 Possessions that should be worth more than say Kurt Thomas stopping Noah at the same rate. Aside from that synergy is awesome, you could always scout the post up possessions and track all sorts of things yourself, but they run the app off silverlight and its pretty slow
Surprising Chris Andersen at 27th, Okur at 2nd, and Bargnani at 10th. We have to consider also that some of those players are not always defending the better offensive player, something that Chuck has done every night in all his minutes.
Interesting stuff, thanks for posting. APBRmetrics: bookmarked. If only we could get our hands on the metrics used by Morey's staff of analysts... I wonder how a "post up" is defined in this case. Does it only refer to when they iso a big guy with his back to the basket? What if he faces up? Or what if the opponent is looking for a shot after an offensive rebound? What if he passes out of single coverage because the defender didn't allow good positioning on the block? Maybe I need to sign up for SynergySports. All of these statistics are cool to see, though I still don't think they paint a complete picture of how good a post defender is. It seems quite tricky to quantify pick and roll defense, or how much value a defender adds to the system (yes, I think of defense as a system) through vocal leadership, like calling out screens for his perimeter defenders. Chuck seems like he is good at moving into position when picking up a penetrating offensive player who beat his man and taking a charge instead of drawing a foul. I could go on forever. If it were easy to determine which numbers are important to pay attention to and blend that with the story your eyes tell you, then the Rockets wouldn't need guys like Daryl Morey. I'm fascinated by the concept that teams have certain statistical measurements that are kept confidential from the public and other teams.
I think we all saw that Chuck's defense was considerably downgraded this year versus years past, primarily due to wear-and-tear and no Yao. I'd like to see similar number from years past. I also think his rate of turnovers forced isn't being factored in by some people here. When guys can get their shots off against him, they experience a good success rate, but he does stop a lot of those shots from going up. This also fails to take into account denying an offensive player position. Chuck has always been particularly adept at this. Maybe another stat showing ALL one-on-one post plays and the end results, namely the offensive player passing back out. Long story short, I think the best way to adequately gauge a player's defensive prowess will never be summarized in a number. Sometimes you just have to watch the guy play.
A couple of thoughts: 1. Chuck seems to have a very high number of "plays" per minute compared to the others. One thing may be that other teams try to take advantage of the height difference, but that's not the whole story. Why don't people post up, for example, David Lee or Spencer Hawes at a rate they post up Hayes? I think the reasons are (a) Hayes usually plays against the better post offensive player (and the more-frequent post-upper) when on the court because it's better him than Scola or Landry defending the guy, (b) the Rockets tend not to help on Chuck too often, and if passing out of double doesn't count as a play, then this would result in more "plays" for Chuck than someone who receive frequent help. 2. I think the way you determine how good a post defender someone is has to be more detailed than these stats. More specifically, at the very least we need to know who was posting up Hayes in those 287 plays and what their overall PPP is for the season. For example, if, on a weighted average basis, the guys on the 287 plays have an PPP of .98, and the PPP is .92 against Chuck, then Chuck is doing pretty well, no? 3. Another thing we need to consider is the effect of double team vs. no double team. Not doubling when Chuck defends may hurt his numbers on this chart, but, at the same time, it means less opportunity for the opposing team to get an open 3 or even an open layup. 4. Overall, I think the data is useful, but needs more context and refinement.
To me Chucks biggest strength is to keep plays from happening all together by muscling his opponent out of thier comfort zone. That wouldnt be reflected in the PPP numbers.
That is why this service is so good. Because they provide video for every one of these plays. So if you actually want to see the context of the stats, you can just pull up the video.
Its head to head plays. Synergy goes beyond even the play-by-play data to track who is guarding who, single or double coverage, what type of move a player makes to try to score, etc.
