You know that the NBA tracks and publishes these numbers, right? Wembamyama Brooks - 4 games, matched up with him for a total of 16.47 minutes or 78.3 partial possessions. Wemby scored 8 pts and the Spurs scored 53 teams points while Brooks guarded him. Wemby had 4 ast, 5 tov, shot 3-13 (23.1 FG%) and 0-6 ( 0% 3pt%) when guarded by Brooks Smith - 4 games, matched up whith him for a total of 12.54 minutes or 63 partial possessions. Wemby scored 17 pts and the Spurs scored 64 team points while Smith guarded him. Wemby had 3 ast, 5 tov, shot 6-19 (31.6 FG%) and 1-6 (16.7% 3pt%) when guarded by Smith. Both did a good job. Brooks guarded him the most and had more success in every category except assists and the difference there was 1. The biggest difference is that Brooks didn't allow Wembanyama to get off very many shots. Holmgren Brooks - 4 games, matched up for 5:11 minutes or 28.6 partial possessions. Holmgren scored 8 pts and the Thunder scored 32 team points while Brooks guarded Chet. Chet had 1 ast,1 tov, shot 3-8 (37.5 fg%) and 2-5 (40% 3pt %) Smith - 4 games, matched up for 17:51 or 91.6 partial possessions. Holmgren scored 24 pts and the Thunder scored 91 team points while Smith guarded Holmgren. Chet had 3 ast, 0 tov , shot 9-13 (69% fg%) and 2-4 ( 50% 3pt%) I'll also point out that Sengun matched up with Holmgren the 2nd most often though he played against him for one fewer game. Sengun - 3 games, 7:18 matchup minutes or 44.7 partial possessions. Holmgren scored 17 pts and the Thunder scored 50 team points while Sengun guarded Holmgren. Chet had 4 ast, 2 tov, shot 7-15 (53 fg%) and 2-5 (40% 3pt%). So, Smith guarded Chet more than Brooks. Brooks was much more effective though in much fewer minutes. Sengun was also more effective than Jabari though also in fewer minutes. Overall, Smith struggled against Chet ( 69% fg% and 50% 3pt%).
Pretty sure that Brooks was on Wemby in that game where Alpi torched Wemby. Edit: Just saw @aelliott's post.
Guess I don’t know anything about bball as Smith was not an “excellent” 2nd year player. He gets abused down low and misses clutch free throws. Needs to gain muscle mass. He even interviewed Tatum and himself admits he’s been a disappointment. Give me a break with “excellent”. “Ok” would be the better word.
exactly, he brings nothing…he is definitely not a key contributor..I’ve said this before on here, but even in college I was not impressed at all…
Jabari Smith is still improving and it may take him a year or two longer than some other guys. Smith isn’t just battling being young - he also has a body that is still growing and getting stronger. I don’t see him ever being a superstar - but I do believe he can become a pretty good defender that can hit perimeter shots and battle for rebounds. That’s close to an all star and in high demand.
Here's Jabari's stats on each player he's guarded. https://www.nba.com/stats/player/1631095/head-to-head?SeasonType=Regular Season&dir=D&sort=SECONDS
Thanks - also, yes, it's not surprising that Jabari Smith gets the Holmgren assignment - became Brooks is trying to check Shai Gilgeous Alexander and Jalen Williams Whatever one thinks of Brooks- it's hardly a controversial statement that he's carved out a rep as a top level man defender in the NBA and obviously - the first choice wing stopper on the Rockets last year - no matter what @Hemingway says otherwise
Yes. Especially in demand with a C like Alperen. A low-dimensional SF like DB might not be a great fit with those two, though.
I think your recollection is faulty here. This is easy to look up though. The nba has stats for this. Edit: just saw the post by @aelliott
Against Holmgren, it looks like Udoka utilized Smith as the main defender, more than doubling the minutes of Brooks or Sengun. It's not an exact science but calculated on a per minute basis, Smith gave up 1.34 points per minute, while Brooks and Sengun would have given up 1.54 points and 2.33 points, respectively. So, I'd say all three had a problem containing Holgrem, but Smith gave up slightly fewer points on average. And given that Holmgren's field goal percentage against Smith was the highest, I'd guess Brooks and Sengun might have fouled him more.
Bottom line is that individual matchups don't matter. What matters is the team production. If I guard Lebron and he is hitting guys for layups every possession, his shooting stats when guarded by me may look good but as a team we are getting killed. Look at the points the opponents scored during these matchups. Suns - 1.19 ppp when Smith guarded Durant 0.9 ppp when Brooks guarded Durant OKC - .99 ppp when Smith guarded Durant 1.12 when Brooks guarded him. Spurs - 1.01 when Smith guarded Wemby 0 .68 when Brooks guarded him. LAL - 1.15 when Smith guarded Lebron. 0.95 when Brooks guarded him. So when Smith was guarding Durant, we got annihilated on defense (1.19). When Smith guarded Lebron we also got torched on defense (1.15). Same when Brooks was on Holmgren, OKC was scoring a bunch (1.12). It's not just individual matchup though. You're trying to win the war, not a single battle. As Sam Fisher pointed out, if you put Brooks on Holmgren, OKC's 3rd option, then you've likely hurt your overall defense because you are going to have difficulty guarding their top two options. The flip side is the Wemby's stats when guarded by Smith look bad for him, but the Spurs were scoring well (1.01 ppp) when Smith was guarding Wemby. Then when Brooks guarded Wemby, the Spurs offense completely cratered (0.68 ppp). The difference? In that case, Brooks denied the ball. Wemby couldn't get shots off which doesn't show up in the shooting stats. That's a long way of saying that Individual numbers don't always tell the story of who's the better defender since you don't always put the best defender on every player. The original discussion was about "who was the primary defender on particular players". These numbers clearly show that. As for effectiveness, that's based on the team and we, the public, don't have as much data available to see those things.
Am I reading this correctly that Doncic scored 38 points on him in 4:24 minutes? How is that even possible?
this is really well said. Can’t underestimate the need for patience with bigs, and especially bigs that were drafted at 19 and still growing into their body. To me Bari doesn’t have the athleticism to be a creator, but the term “role-player” is often misused. You can be a role-player and still be all-star caliber. I honestly believe that’s where Bari will end up. he’s only 21, he took a nice leap last yr on both sides of the ball. No one is doubting the shooting anymore. No one ever doubted the work ethic. And did you notice he looked swoll at media day? I think Bari wil learn to shoot over guys in the mid-range without putting the ball on the floor much; that one-motion move he’s been practicing the past two offseasons. I think he’ll shoot the 3 with good efficiency (high 30’s). I think he’ll get stronger and hold up better in the front court, switching a lot more at the 5. And I think he’ll end up a good, switchable defensive player with real length. he won’t be on Paolo, Chet, or J Will’s level, but I think he’ll end up the 4th best player from that class.
Those numbers are from the camera system in the arena. It tracts actual time guarding the player, not the entire time of the possession. So If you get switched on to a player and they immediately score on you, it would only be counted as the few seconds that you were guarding the player. Let's do the math. 4:24 is 264 seconds. That covered 20.9 possessions which each averaged 12.6 seconds/ possession. In those 20.9 possessions, Doncic went 13-17 from the floor and 7 for 8 on 3s and 5-5 from the line. That's 5 two point shots = 10 pts + 7 3pt shots = 21 pts + 5 ft = 5 pts for 38 total points. When you shoot 76.5% from the floor including 87.5% on a high volume of threes, it adds up quickly. 13 makes with 7 threes over 20 possessions is uber efficient.
Maybe he’s added a little mass to his arms and shoulders but it’s hard to tell. Kind of disappointing. Maybe his strength has improved I guess we will see soon. Hopefully his mental game has improved. He could be a deadly shooting threat from all over the court if he gets his mind right.
Thanks - I looked up some of Alpi's numbers (defense and offense). Alpi vs. Jokic 65-77 Alpi vs. Valanciunas 46-55 Alpi vs. Anthony Davis 35-36 Alpi vs. Sabonis 29-27 Alpi vs. Jaren Jackson Jr. 19-35 Alpi vs. Holmgren 39-17 Alpi vs. Wemby 36-9 Alpi vs. Zach Collins 33-7 Alpi vs. Nic Claxton 26-14 Alpi vs. Gobert 24-23 Alpi vs. Myles Turner 24-20 Alpi vs. Duren 24-17 Alpi vs. Lebron 14-9 Alpi vs. Zion 6-20 Looks like the only ones giving him some trouble are the "bulky ones" like Valanciunas, Zion, Jaren Jackson, etc. (and Jokic, but I would argue he held his own against the best player in the world). That might be why he focused on strength training a lot this summer? Having Adams to help wear those guys down should help A LOT. P.S.: Zach Collins Alpi's favourite victim CONFIRMED .
Draft gods were definitely not our side, all these high draft picks and never ended up with the best player in the draft…So much great talent we missed out on!! Here’s hoping we finally get lucky with ReedS but I doubt it…
As @aelliott pointed out earlier, there isn't any publicly available stat that fully captures individual defensive impact. Individual defense is highly dependent on situations that the player has limited control. That includes strategies of both teams and what all 10 guys on the floor are doing. being scored on the few second you get switched on the offensive player makes you look bad on that metric, and vice versa. Or an opposing player you aren't guarding goes off on a hot streak makes the team number look bad but may not be totally your fault. This makes discussion of individual defense very difficult. A lot of it depends on the eye test, which is by nature subjective and prone to confirmation bias.
