[SBNation]Harden leads the league in Defensive Win Share

OMG! HAHAHA! So good, thank you for this. I will be posting this link everywhere.

 

With Ariza guarding the other team's best player...

 

But this year the James Anderson's of the world are not looking like Kobe Bryant when Harden guards them.

 

His improvement as a rebounder (and to some extent, a shot-blocker) is mostly driving that. His perimeter D is not massively improved. But it is obvious he's trying and it helps the team out a lot.

 

Anyone notice his defensive rating has improved each year? I thought people said he was a good defender in OKC? The stats say he was much worse there...

 

That's because he didn't get as much minutes as he would before. H'es playing about 38 minutes here. Over there it was closer to 30.

 

People forgot quickly that he was guarding Boozer & Dirk on many positions in the last two games 5-7" differences at least in heights , but he did well

 

Harden is playing defense this year, he's rebounding well, passing great, and scoring big. All he needs to do now is find his shot. Once he does that, everything will skyrocket for him and for the Rockets. I just hope he carries it into the playoffs this time.

 

Which defensive rating?
Something like basketball reference keeps a 'defensive rating' stat (points allowed per 100 possessions). Harden was better in OKC than his first 2 years here, but there wasn't much in it. Anything just over 100 is quite good (this year he is a highly impressive 97).

However, that stat is somewhat tied to overall team D, you'll notice that the better defensive teams have all their players rating higher on that scale than they might otherwise with another team.

They have another stat there called 'defensive box +/-' - which attempts to rate the defensive impact of a player, then weights it against the mean to come up with a standardized number. Again, Harden is having his best season this year (any + number is good) - funnily enough he wasn't all that bad the last 2 years (just had his moments of going to sleep and being embarrassed).

 

The last minute or so of the Dallas game, when he forced Monta Ellis to pass out of a shot (leading to an Ariza steal), and forced Dirk into a terrible, contested 3-point shot, were priceless.

 

He also did his uber post defence thing on Dirk twice (once getting called for a foul). Was quite funny watching Dirk try to back him down - he's like a mini Chuck Hayes on the block!

 

dat huffort doe

 

According to those player tracking stats, whoever Harden was defending shot 6%-8% less then their regular FG%

 

Like anyone will care. The moment Harden has ONE bad play on defense, the national media will just tear his a** up.

 

The interesting thing is that, according to SportsVU data, which is the best metric any fan can get a hold of, D-Mo's defensive assignments are shooting an astonishing 12.8% worse than their season averages.

 

Dmo is a very underrated defender. He was terrible his 1st season, and just suddenly got a lot better 2nd half of last season.

Somehow he wasn't able to get playing time in the playoffs

 

He's gotten very good at positional defense, but he's still not a good rim protector and his rebounding is terrible. He needs to become more physical without using his hands and reaching all the time.

 

Carl Herrera falls in faint

 

Now if Morey can trade for real depth our team can make a run (if healthy)