Dillon Brooks is the Rockets' Franchise Player

Interesting. You seem to know a lot about this, so can you honestly explain to me how you're taking a seriously a stat that defensively ranks Holiday, Jeff Green and Whitmore ahead of Brooks?

Doesn't team construction and quality of teammates factor in? Do you want to be guarded by Jabari Smith or Dillon Brooks? Who Brooks is guarding must matter right?

I think impact is about context too. A top 4 contender's 5th best player is rarely as good as Brooks. All contenders need a guy who only takes wide open corner 3's and plays good defense on star players.

Suns, Bucks, Sixers, Nuggets would love to have Brooks right now because they can't afford a high impact version and they have the personnel to dramatically minimize the volume of Brooks offensive ineptitude and leave him more open for fewer 3's. Those teams don't need him to be over agressive because their rim protectors don't need that help. On the contrary, those rim protectors will allow Brooks to funnel defenders to them thus reducing the number of possessions he has to shut down the best scorers in the NBA.

I don't buy this notion that Brooks is a mediocre defender. All NBA defense is not a fan vote and if you look at the general quality of people who make those teams, it's no joke.

It also just doesn't make sense that we were a top 8-10 defense and none of Sengun/Green/Brooks/Jabari are excellent defenders. Just not possible imo.

 

He fouls a lot which helps undo his positives on defense, and he doesn’t make plays at all either. Like FVV blocks eight times as many shots as brooks. He also doesn’t rebound, which is part of defense. He’s a good to very good on ball defender, but that’s literally it, everything else he’s a negative which is why all his metrics aren’t that good.

His offensive ratings will always look ok because he starts so all his minutes are with the better offensive players (fvv and sengun here). If you look at someone like aaron gordon, Denver is 7 pts better on offense when he plays. Why? He plays with jokic. So even if gordon is bad to mediocre on offense, his rating will always look great.

 

I like brooks, sorry. He does dirty work, every team needs a guy like him. Good luck.

 

I am just giving out results. Does it matter why his teams have certain level of offense or defense when he's on the court? All it matters is the results are what they are. Put it another way, suppose you tell me a guy is a bum he's not good enough to hold any job except flipping burgers, and he's actually making six figures at a prominent company, then you are wrong. Even if the guy is indeed an idiot and he only got his job cause his uncle owns the company, that doesn't change the fact that he's making six figures.

Dillon Brooks has thousands of minutes and multiple seasons with two different teams of sample size where he's at worst a neutral offensive player in a team context. If you want more depth you'll have to ask someone who watches NBA tape for a living to give you a breakdown. But the Rockets front office was willing to give him $90mil, so I'm guess their breakdown is that he's a good basketball player.

 

Thanks!

The guy in your example makes six figures but what we're trying to establish is: what is the reason the guy makes six figures? Is it performance or is the CEO his dad?

Difficult to apply any logic here because there's no logic or meritocracy apparent in defensive rating. That's what happens when he's on the floor but it seems to have too little to do with how good a defender he is. The players ranked in front of him are flat out not better. You can have a massive sample but if the formula is flawed it won't matter.

I guess if the data is imperfect, luckily the people who watch a lot of tape are called GM's. They voted him into an elite defensive category. He's never had a problem getting a good contract on the market. They do not behave as though this is a terrible offensive and mediocre defensive player. Nor do his coaches. Nor do his teams record.

What does your eye test tell you? Does it say he's a lesser defender than Aaron Holiday?

I think you maybe didn't read the whole post because the data you're using to determine he's good/bad is heavily corrupted.

With all due respect dude, I would ask you about lots of data but not on this one. I find the level of hatred you have for Brooks to be an insurmountable conflict of interest. You're a person who cares about data so you'll understand why that's critical.

 

That's why i look at the data, data doesn't care if i like or hate him. That's why the eye test is so completely worthless unless you're someone who can actually watch every team play 60+ games a season. I was just explaining why the numbers don't really value his defense, because he doesn't make plays at all (indisputable fact, idk how a big forward can average 0.1 blocks per game), and he doesn't rebound, again an indisputable fact.

I will fully admit he's one of my 3-4 least favorite players in the nba though, i hate that he's on the team (mainly b/c his contract is so bad, if he was on a reasonable deal whatever), but it's not like he's draymond or something to me. I don't really apply how much i like or dislike a player into any analysis though, as that's completely pointless.

 

You may like data but I'm a top 1% expert at conflict of interest. You're analyzing raw data and of course your bias can affect your analysis of that data.

For example, all the data can be corrupted but you've assumed that since several corrupted data sets say roughly the same thing, there must be truth to it. That's a made up thing. The reason you're making that up is *surprise* you're conflicted. I don't know if you understand the concept of conflict of interest. A conflicted person is blind to it, they will not be able to recognize it. That's why conflicted people step out of things rather than employ more data.

 

I don't compile any of the data, i didn't create vorp or emp or win shares or any of that. I hate steph more than i could ever hate brooks yet i have no trouble talking about how great he is. Did you think i'm behind the basketballreference website or something? I don't really understand what you're saying

 

Lol these are not counting stats, between the data and your conclusion there's an assessment. That assessment is oddly - and unusually for you - lazy.

It's clear for everyone here to see, you are constantly talking about how you don't understand why others value Brooks higher than you do. What do you think is going on there?

I appreciate you dude but can I please step out of this convo, only a mad man would debate a conflicted person about whether they are conflicted. Suffice to say I don't agree with your analysis of the raw data.

 

haha all good man, people have crazy opinions all the time, like how fans thought derek jeter was an amazing fielder while he was one of, if not the worst every season he played.

 

The post I responded to say he tanks every offense he plays in. Which is incorrect. Memphis clearly isn't exactly the KD Warriors or the Heattles in terms of offensive talent. So you can say Brooks was along for the ride, but you can't say he tanked the offense. Just like the nepo guy in my example above, if the company's doing well with him there, then he clearly isn't tanking the company bottom line. So at most you can accurse him of not being worth his salary, but you can't say he's making the team offense worse. Which, again, if he's really really that bad, do you really believe Udoka and Stone would keep playing him 30mpg just to save face? If so, they're the dumbest front office in the league and all the threads in GARM should be calling for their heads.

 

What site did you use for your numbers?

Looking at nba.coms numbers I see :

2024 : Rockets a had 113.7 offensive rating(20th in the league) and it was a 113.6 offensive rating with Brooks on the floor. Not much change, but at 20th it’s not a good offense.

2023 : Memphis had a 114.7 offensive rating(11th in the league), but it was a 113.4 offensive rating with Brooks on the floor. Dropping them from 11th to 23rd on offense.

Though in 2021 and 2022 with Memphis their offense was actually much better with him on the floor rather than off.

 

I like him, but I like Amen and Tari even more (eventually).

 

Me too, just saying brooks was a good pickup.

 

Just shows that these on/off numbers have a lot of noise. Many factors come into the game when the player is on or off the floor that have nothing to do with the player's impact.

 

Of course, because it doesn't measure when only brooks is subbed, and even it did, it would do it with somebody on the roster not the average player in his position etc. on/off is one of the most meaningless stats in my opinion. it literally measures nothing useful, let alone impact.

 

It’s useful when you’re talking about the players who drive the offense, it’s useless when talking about role players (for the most part). Your offensive engine should be able to drive a really high rating though

 

Ahh we're on the same page then. I can see that (neutral offensive player coupled with very good defense).

I don't think Udoka is easy to please either. Good point there.

 

Good players will have good on/off numbers but in terms of comparison, it is not really useful. And the actual numbers have more information than the on/off comparison in my opinion. The other thing, it is related to the balance of strength between your first unit and second unit. It is more about that balance than the actual strength. That's why I am interested in the actual numbers not the relative ones.

 

Massively underrated opinion.