2022-2023 Full Season: Rockets Players Advanced Statistics

I still think RAPTOR really struggles with defense. That's really the fail point for having a good equivalent to baseball's version of WAR, it's just so hard to measure statistically in basketball because so much of it is a team effort and so many of the good defensive actions you can take never directly make any of the stat sheets. In this case I think KPJ and Sengun are both getting overrated defensively, Green looks about right, and Jabari is being severely underrated.

One of the things it's probably having a hard time picking up on is switching and the consequences thereof. When you actually watch the games, Jabari, with his good instincts and vision on D, spends a lot of time scrambling to cover other guys' mistakes and having to make a low-quality contest when nobody else is nearby. Since RAPTOR penalizes players for being the closest defender when an offensive player makes a shot, I suspect he's getting dinged way harder than he deserves here, when the real player to blame for the bad defensive possession is the guy who got blown by on the perimeter in the first place.

This also may be why KPJ and Sengun come out looking so rosy by comparison. They're the players on the team who most often end up not involved in a defensive play at all. Sengun puts in the effort, but there's no doubt he was our slowest-footed rotation player when it comes to getting back and set. KPJ just takes a lot of defensive plays off, period.

So really, I feel like when factoring in defense, Green & KPJ should be neck-in-neck, Jabari should at least be around replacement level, and it's probably right to have Sengun at the top, but maybe not by quite as big of a margin as RAPTOR thinks.

 

My assumption was that RAPTOR already adjusts for position to factor in those kinds of things. I could be wrong about that though.

 

@OremLK , @AroundTheWorld

I went through the methodology of raptor and some other catch it all metrics in the past. Measuring individual defensive impact is almost an impossible task and you should not expect much from these stats. However, they measure what they measure, and raptor seems to be not too bad. A few things:

- box score stats are reflected well, like steals, blocks, rebounds. But for example, if you attempt a steal and don't get it, and the opponent goes past you to score near another defender, the other defender gets negative points while trying to cover for you. For houston, I think the centers take the extra blame for guards bad perimeter defense in that sense.

- perimeter defense is harder to measure

- a defender is penalized when the player he is defending scores. But the advantage the opposing player creates depends on other players as well, on the pick and roll, and other screens, cuts, etc. So contributions, positive or negative, from team defense are not reflected.

@OremLK , you have a point about jabari but i think you are also victim to recency bias. Jabari was pretty bad for a long time and pulled it together lately.

 

oh look . . . never mind

 

Oh look, it's exactly what I've been saying all season long.

 

it's just tedious and tiresome . . . that's all

 

we get it, you like Sengun

 

no, what's pathetic is that this is your thread title:

2022-2023 Full Season: Rockets Players Advanced Statistics

and the thread is really about one player. you know which one.

 

Take it easy you two.

One is vexed with Only Fan stuff.

The other is sensitive.