I've been searching for a word all afternoon as I've been following this thread. The only thing I can come up with is "expendable" . . . but I'm not sure that word means what I think it means.
And I've shown that you can't look at DRtg for an individual in a nutshell, just like ORtg. Both are driven by factors out of the individual's control...especially role players. Bev i= 121 ORtg and 110 DRtg Rox = 113 ORtg and 110 DRtg Only two Rockets have lower DRtgs. Ariza at 108 and Capela at 106. Coaches routinely say boxscore stats provide little proof of individual defense. They don't use boxscore stats for defense. And video analysis does provide them with defensive stats, anyhow. It's just like how scouts for the team will score a player per possession based on assignments. Video Analysis makes that easier. I'm pretty sure they pay the Sports-VU data companies to chart defensive plays specific to their needs. It's not boxscore stats. That's what makes it Advanced. But using your stats, Bev was ranked #4 last year, yet you feel like you can call him a Fraud. And again, Avery Bradley is ranked #77 right now. Something is flawed with your boxscore stats, if you are going to call Bradley a Fraud, too. We can keep going around in circles if you want. I don't put much value in those stats (neither do coaches and voters of NBA All Defense) and you do. And it's not subjective to watch video and see whether an opponents' score had something to with a missed assignment or defensive breakdown by Bev or not.
Opponents do seem to have a higher ORTG while he is on; I don't know why there's a discrepancy there (117 vs. 110, see below). http://www.basketball-reference.com/players/b/beverpa01/on-off/2017 He's still a +5.6 overall. He's also been OK next to Gordon. I think it's worthwhile taking a deep breath until we have more data.
We are talking about who starts, and who plays the most minutes and getting off to a good start in games. As you yourself just said, the best teams in the league stagger significant amount of minutes without their best players all together while one or the other sits for a good amount of time. Do you see GSW trying to find a way to put either Curry, Klay, Durant, or Green on the 2nd team to balance out their best offensive players? No, the coach simply has a game plan and rotation to do this, while still starting all of them. Do you see the Cavs doing this? No, Irving, Love and Lebron all start together, but the coach figures out a way to stagger their minutes to still keep important pieces on the floor with the back ups. Gordon is our SECOND BEST PLAYER on the team. It makes no sense to not start him in the name of staggering minutes, when this is done all the time by "even the best team....with their best players".
That's just incorrect. Beverley has the worst on/off numbers defensively. 117.1 DRtg when he is on the court 108.1 DRtg when he is off the court http://www.basketball-reference.com/players/b/beverpa01/on-off/2017 Don't straw man my argument, DRtg or DRPM are not mere box score stats. Also, out of the three line-ups that played 50 minutes together, the one that includes Beverley has by far the worst DRtg. These things are not just coincidences. At the very least it suggests Beverley is disrupting our team chemistry even when he plays passable individual defense as you seem to imply, which is not the case at all. Yes, Beverley's defense has been relatively better last year and Avery Bradley's defense is not as good this year, what is so perplexing about that? CP3's defense has been stellar this season, unlike the past few years. Is that not possible? At least Bradley has the excuse of having to carry increased offensive load this season, what is Beverley's? You seem to suggest that players' abilities stay constant throughout their whole career and any fluctuation is due to forces out of their own control. If everything about defense goes back to executing as a team and being a cohesive unit - which I kinda agree - then why single out a player as good or bad defender in the first place? So, you're basically saying when Harden is being a negative on defense we can single him out, but when players like Beverley is doing the exact same thing we can't call him out on it because his reputation says he's a good defender? Since you like videos so much, I've already linked videos of games where Beverley played poor defense (vs SAC and POR.) This doesn't prove anything IMO, but if you agree that Beverley played poor defense in those games, then you should have nothing to say.
One possible explanation is this. Here's a guy that puts up decent box score numbers for defensive stats (steals, blocks). However, the TEAM defense has been awful with him on the court (117 isn't worth writing home about). This may be also a byproduct of the people he plays next to - he's had a lot of time with Harden off the court. So on one hand, you have possible overinflation of defensive value as he gives you box score numbers but team defense sucks with him on the court. On the other hand, you may have possible underestimation of defensive value as he plays next to bonafide awful defenders, so the deficit in team defense can't all be his fault. This is why defensive metrics are such a headache.
Read the section on difference between team and individual DRTG, it does offer explanations as to why there is such a wide discrepancy. I've offered some cursory thoughts above but the biggest thing is that you can't make a ton out of a few games, and he is coming off knee surgery so he needs some time. http://www.basketball-reference.com/about/ratings.html
if you're talking about starts then why are you making this a big deal when the rockets offense is off to their best start in years and top across the league. You're sitting here trying to complain about something that's not even a problem. Lol look at this Houston rockets team. Now take a look at the caliber players you just used as examples. And please think long and hard what you're actually trying to say here.
Look again. Beverley's Ortg and Drtg are 121 and 110. I would think the On/Off's would match that, but they don't. Maybe you can explain the difference between On/Off and the more standard Stat in my link below. I'm going to guess one is not normalized to account for Pace. I do know that the Off measure counts all the games he was injured -- fwiw. It's not just the Off when he's playing. Here is his ORtg and DRtg ... under Per 100 Possessions ... which, for certain, is correctly normalized to account for Pace http://www.basketball-reference.com/players/b/beverpa01.html#per_poss::none
This just assumes all of Beverley's shortcomings in defensive stats is due to other players, when it could just be that he's overrated as a defender. The topic of discussion here is where or not Beverley's defense is overrated, you can't just presume that he's a good defender in the first place.
possession stats used by basketball-reference is an estimate figure, therefore highly inaccurate. nba.com provides much more accurate rating and it is adjusted for pace. http://stats.nba.com/defensivehub/#!/ "Measures a team's points allowed per 100 possessions while the player is on court. This statistic is also more exact than typical player "possession-based" calculations because we calculate rather than estimate players' possessions on the court." Beverley still has the worst DRtg among all of our players http://stats.nba.com/team/#!/1610612745/players-advanced/?sort=DEF_RATING&dir=1
To me, you are only making my point clearer. But first, we are not only talking about starts. We are talking about starts, minutes, rotations and defense. The Rockets were off to great starts in games, mostly when Gordon was starting. Harden, Gordon, Ariza, Anderson and Capela was the second highest rated 5 man rotation behind only the Clippers at that time. Gordon on the court with the starters opens the court up just as much and just as importantly, if not more, than does Anderson in his role with the starters. I gave you those examples, because we DON'T have those caliber of players, so what makes us think we have the luxury to put on 2nd BEST PLAYER on the bench? That makes ZERO sense. Then we are doing it 'supposedly" for a better defender to guard the other teams' PG, when in actuality we end up putting Ariza on them, because at least it's clear to the coaches that Bev can't handle them. Maybe our defensive coach doesn't agree with MDA to some degree. But again, if those teams with multiple better players are not sending them to the 2nd unit instead of starting to balance out and stagger the minutes, why are the Rockets doing this when we have less talent? Harden, Gordon, Ariza, Anderson and Capela should all be playing 36 minutes a game due to lack of talent on this team. That would give Bev 24 minutes max on this team backing up Harden and Gordon, and even less when you consider some of those minutes should be given to KJ at the SG, who is a better defender and offensive player than Bev. Dekker should be taking all of he backup 3 minutes and Corey Sewer shouldn't see the inside of the stadium, let alone the court. Bottom line, I like Bev as a backup. As a starter, we will never go anywhere with him. His limit for effective impact on a team to me is about 14 to 18 minutes MAX. His intagibles are nice, but he is limited as a skilled player. I wouldn't hesitate to trade him in a package for an upgrade. I wouldn't trade Gordon or Anderson unless it was in a package for a Superstar, Bev can go just for an upgrade somewhere.
Nobody's arguing that, the point is our team defense has utterly descended into the gutter since Bev came back.
and to me this is just another example of a different philosophy which is fine. I'm not adding to the point you're trying to make. I just don't agree with it. Which is why I said agree to disagree. You gave me those examples but I can just come right back and say someone like Manu who was clearly a stud/star in his prime still came off the bench. Every single team is different. You go with what is best for yourself and not base off what anyone else is doing.
That doesn't mean it's Beverley's fault. There are a lot of factors. The main factor being that we don't know where are legs our. They are lost.
I Agree that possession stats are problematic with small sample size and a cloudy definition of possession vs. play etc... Even if you say NBA stats are more accurate, it's not a big difference to go from 110 to 113. Neither is particularly great. I just want to point out that the stats you posted don't fit the eye test. For example, they suggest Beverley is our best offensive player per minute. They also suggest he has the highest impact on point differential. They also suggest that Gordon and Anderson, two awful defenders, are better than Beverley. They also suggest that Capela is one of our worst defenders. Knee jerk reactions make for good discussion but they don't shed any light here because 1) it's not clear that this is the Beverley we are going to get all season, 2) Beverley was a good defender in 13-14 and 15-16 when healthy, and 3) there are some really bizarro stats that will likely regress to the mean as the season goes on.
There are a lot of issues with defense - I don't think anyone here will argue that Beverley has been a defensive maven - but I think there is a legitimate concern when we allow 120 points and are middle of the pack with pace. This team is very much a work in progress.
