KPJ, Green, and Nix deserve most of the player blame for our D this season. It was a trifecta of traffic cones on the perimeter by them on most possessions.
Sengun is one of the worst defensive players in the league at one of the most important positions. We don't have to make things up to put forth the pros and cons of a player.
I don't think he's quite as bad as his main detractors think he is but I don't think he's as solid as his fans think either. Advanced defensive stats are not good, but they're not entirely worthless, and they suggest he's mediocre overall right now. Going by the eye test, he's a mediocre but not godawful rim protector in drop coverage against drives, and he's a pretty bad post defender against stronger players. I expect as he matures physically and stays in NBA weight training programs, he'll can add enough muscle to get better at defending in the post. On the perimeter, I think he's just a little below average. His mobility isn't quite as bad as it's been made out to be. He obviously gets torched by fast guards/wings, but there aren't too many centers who are great at guarding 1-3. I don't think he'll ever be a positive contributor on the defensive end but it's possible he'll be able to become roughly average, or just a bit below average. I do think it's possible to build around a poor defensive center, and we already have a guy who projects to be the right type of player to do it (Jabari). We're going to need more long, athletic perimeter players if we want Sengun to be the long-term answer at the 5.
Not to be that guy, I'm a Sengun fan after all, but aren't defensive stat numbers unreliable since it's hard to measure defense in general.
As a whole, yes. Sengun is no defensive presence but to say that he was one of the worst is nincompoop levels of stupidity, especially given how terrible our guards (entire team really) were. Sengun would have looked a LOT better if Green and KPJ weren’t letting opposing guards in like an open door.
For the "Data" Folks, Raptor is made of two buckets blended together to estimate the players defensive impact. As most know, center is the most impactful defensive position, so they will always be measured as the most impactful defenders relative to other positions. The first raptor metric "box", rewards things that tall players inherently do more often like rebound (among many other things). As such you, comparing box among different types of positions, doesn't tell you much. I don't really love box, because I don't think counting stats are all that important, especially when you gamble frequently. It also only penalizes you for opponent's positional FG made, so no red marks for not contesting opposing drives from guards for instance. Conversely, the on/off is a much better statistic, because it ignores the positional differences and counting nonsense. And as predicted by the eye test, Sengun is among the worst on the team in on/off (default minute requirement) And when you compare him to all Centers (default minute requirement) unsurprisingly, 53rd out of 55th. (although he does do well on box) So.... - We have on/off says he is one of the worst on the team. - We have on/off saying he is one of the worst in the league among centers - We have Clutch relaying in Rocketswatch that the Rockets view him as the worst pick and roll defender in the league. - We have Ben Taylor, of thinking basketball, one of the most respected commentators in the field predicting he is unplayable in the playoffs. The Sengun nuts can try to cry this into existence, but he just isn't viable defensively as a Starting Center. This does not mean he cannot be an impactful and contributing player, on a contending team, but like it or not, its probably go to be off the bench.
Here is the diff% between the actual dfg% for each player they defend against and their season average fg%. It's just another metric. No one defensive metric is a totality and every one has covariance and context to understand.
I don’t agree with everything you say, but you seem to be very honest person. Your opinions never seem biased or anything, and you make great points. Respect, my guy.
Yes. It means your opponent has a fg% above their season average against you. Still not a good metric to use alone because fg% doesn't tell you how often you foul an opponent or what type of shots you are giving up. And it doesn't say how the calculation handles things like switches. If a offensive player switches on a defender and scores, does that drg% count towards the original defender or the defender that got switched on?
This is a bunch of horseshit. First of all, whatever pictures you were trying to post doesn't seem to have uploaded properly (unless it's my connection in Morocco). Secondly, "tall players" - the Sengun haters keep pointing out that Jabari Smith is taller supposedly, however, his raptor defensive stats are much worse. All your non-sensical rambling doesn't explain the fact that Sengun and Tari do not only perform best on the Raptor stats, but also on defensive win shares and defensive box plus/minus on Stathead (I posted the stats). What are the source links of the stats you claim? Edit: I was able to see the images after using a VPN. So Jabari Smith was worse than Sengun in every aspect: In your favourite category (because it is the one that would theoretically make Sengun look bad), Jabari Smith was 53/55 offensively and 55/55 defensively. Sengun was 6/55 offensively and 53/55 defensively. You cherry-pick what you want to see.
Go back and watch the Lillard 60 point game. Those guys are not great on defense, sure, they suck, but if there's ever an example of how Sengun hurts the Rockets on defense it's that game. Can't switch, can't drop, gets mauled in the post by bigger players - what are you supposed to do with that as your big defensive anchor?
It's not just "the Rockets" who view him this way its the entire league. Sure, 7 game playoff series, teams hunt for mismatches, but, lol, every time an A list guard is on the floor they dial up Sengun up high like it's game 7 of the WCFs
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/how-our-raptor-metric-works/ Here is the explanation on how the raptor metrics work: This ignores, on many levels, that the Center is the victim when the perimeter defenders just let people pass them at will. No wonder Jabari and Sengun both get punished by this stat. There is literally no perimeter defense, then the offensive player moves in, shoots, and boom, the poor guy who is "the nearest defender" at that point gets punished by this stat. And even if the player makes an effort and blocks shots, it doesn't get rewarded. Dumbass stat.
