I'm continually amused at the way many on this board bash 2 players (in particular) for their lack of ability on the defensive end, all the while praising other players for their 'defensive ability'. Season being over, I decided to check out the numbers to see how our team ranks (and how those 2 in particular rank). The 2 players who get bashed (in particular) are James Harden and Terrence Jones. Some posters are very, very, very clever and manage to spell Harden without a 'd'. Now I'm certainly not here to make a push for these guys to be in the defensive hall of fame, or make the all-defensive team, or even to be in the top half of defenders in the NBA. As a team we have certainly had some defensive issues (magnified by the fact we play at a high pace). What I am here to suggest is that these guys are far from our worst defenders. Lapses First of all, both guys clearly suffer from defensive lapses. They miss a play, forget to rotate, or (from my observation) get 'stuck' ball watching and waiting to help while their man sneaks backdoor for a layup. Regular season Both of these guys rank amongst our top players as 'regular season' defenders. According to basketball reference, Howard leads the Rockets defensively (shock horror), when he is on the court, his opponents score 101 (points per 100 possessions). Lin is our worst, at 109 Jones actually ranks 4th on the team (105), and Harden 7th (107). Not wonderful numbers, but surprisingly, of the 482 players ranked, it lands them both in the top half of the NBA. Important to understand this number: it is not simply the number of points per possession that the opposition team scores. Rather it is an individual ranking. The number is definitely impacted by the teams overall defensive ability, that is used as a baseline, and then 'stops' by individual players, opponents FG%, shot blocking/ steals etc are all fed through the formulae to bring about the individual ranking, which is then referenced back to the overall team score. If you did a better job on your man, no matter how many or few possessions, it will reflect you being better or worse than team average Playoffs This is where Harden and Jones really sucked big time right? I mean, Aldridge torched Jones, and Harden just stood around watching right? Not according to the advanced stats. Or, should I say, yes they did suck, but a bit less than some others. The advanced stats show a massive drop-off for our team: Howard at 109 Asik at 113 Jones 113 Harden 115 Parsons 116 Daniels 117 Lin 118 Beverley 119 I must admit to being quite surprised. Beverley was much worse than I thought he would be on defence (regular season was poor for him also). I realize it is individual stats, and 'defensive stoppers' might expect to be matched up against the beset offensive player on a regular basis, but a defensive stopper who doesn't stop seems like something of a misnomer.. Tony Allen (first one who popped into my head) was a 101 regular season, and managed to rank a 106 guarding Durant. Obviously against elite players in the playoffs one will rank a little worse, but Beverley being the worst on our team in that regard was a little head scratching. It made me think a bit, and he does tend to give away some really dumb fouls that lead to FTs from high % FT shooters - so I guess that is something he could stand to cut out? All in all, it is hard to pin the series loss on the Defence of Jones or Harden. They were hardly shining lights of awfulness out there. Offensively, Howard ranked a 158 (!) and Jones a 126, both of which are quite ridiculously good numbers. Harden a 112. Harden's season average offensively was a 120, make of that what you will ((he wasn't quite the worst, but I don't want to derail this thread) - but this thread is more to talk about defence, and possibly unfair criticism of certain people on that front. I think it's possible that both Harden and Jones (with the right defensive coach) could improve dramatically on that front. Look at someone like Steph Curry, who was a woeful defender until last season, when he started making strides under a defensive minded coach. This season he was actually top 20 in the NBA for defensive win shares. Wow. TL/DR?? Neither Harden nor Jones are our worst defenders. While both have issues they need to address, with the right coaching, both could become parts of a very solid defensive team. They certainly have the physical tools, they just need to be better shown how to use them. Disclaimer: I have used basketball reference and their 'Defensive rating' as the baseline for this thread. If there is a better system there, then it wasn't immediately obvious or easy for me to find. If there are other ranking methods to bring to the 'data party' then by all means do so!
This is clearly a case were stats don't tell the entire story, Jones and Harden ARE very bad on D. You don't need stats to tell you that.
Iggy can guard point guards as well as play PG. Bogut being healthy enough to play 67 games this season is another huge factor.
Many advanced stats have flaws or in some cases are taken in the wrong context. PG is arguably the hardest position in the NBA to defend, with offensive and guard friendly rules handicapping a defender and it's also the #1 position to have an increased or inflated advanced stat offensive rating (which of course hurts opposing defender's ratings). Defensive schemes (coaching), who plays in those lineups still affect's stat weightings, what positions get more blocks and steals etc. can all create an inaccurate picture. Those stats don't account for level of competition. For example, Harden guarded Mattews who primarily focused on defense, versus Bev and Lin who had to guard Lillard while Lillard didn't have to expend much energy on defense. I could provide a lot of evidence of advanced stat flaws if you like, I'm short on time at the moment but can type later. For example, search Bruce Bowen's advanced defensive stats. You're also taking ratings from a tiny 6 game playoff sample.
Of course. Because a youtube compilation of Harden's lapses, each one played 3-4 times in slow motion, can highlight something that statistical analysis (of what actually happens every minute he is on the court) cannot. If there is any data to back your assertion, then go ahead?
Agreed - a tiny 6 game sample. Which sees them ranked in similar positions in their team to the entire regular season (82 games more of sample size). I took your Bruce Bowen challenge, here it is: http://www.basketball-reference.com/players/b/bowenbr01.html He ranks wonderfully on the metrics, very similar to Tony Allen. I can provide a lot of evidence of 'perception' flaws if you like, I'm short on time at the moment and probably won't later, but take Pavlov's dog as something of an indicator? Because everyone keeps saying these guys suck at D (ringing the bell), you start to notice their lapses (salivating) rather than the good plays they make on that end.
This. If stats told you the sky was green, would you believe that? Did you watch the GD playoff series?!?! Jones was humiliated by Aldridge. Like you, though, I pine for good statistics to quantify a player's defensive performance. I was looking around at some free agents' stats to see how good they were defensively compared to our players. I tried using this statistic you are using along with defensive win shares. Man, the numbers were all over the place from year to year and really didn't provide a strong narrative of what kind of defense most of the players play. I really look forward to some insights on the topic in this thread though.
I had thought about getting some of those Synergy stats that show opposing players' FG% on different types of plays, but I couldn't justify paying for it.
Sigh, alright. Here's Bowen during his first team all defensive team year in comparison to the rest of the Spurs: http://www.basketball-reference.com/teams/SAS/2004.html Manu, Hedo Turkoglu and other wing players have a better Drtg. Why? Likely because they played in a defensive system with Duncan and Bowen likely had less steals, blocks etc than other weighted stats that create inaccuracies in Drtg. How about next year when they won the championship? And Bowen was still all nba defense? http://www.basketball-reference.com/teams/SAS/2005.html Tony Parker, Manu and others like Rasho Nesterovic are rated has better defenders in the regular season. This is the tip of the iceberg I can show you, Drtg and advanced stats have flaws. The Perception argument you made was a stawman. I never said that. Advanced stats have use, but only when taken in context and you know their flaws (especially defensive ones), just like box score stats have flaws.
Defense is a team sport, you can't use stats for individual player. Bring some 5 player line up stats then we talk.
From Basketball-reference.com glossary: The nba.com Rockets 2013-2014 advanced player stats are not estimates: Team DefRtg during season was 103.1 Jones 105.8 Parsons 104.0 Harden 103.1 Garcia 102.6 Howard 102.2 Asik 102.1 Lin 102.0 Beverley 101.8
Not the right metrics to use if you want to judge individual defense. This has been discussed over and over in this forum. Not sure why ppl still bring up this stat to prove individual defense
Sabermetrics at its finest. Morey get on this and hire him as your new assistant. He clearly gets it.
That NBA.com Drtg is better, but focus on where it says At the end of the day, it's a team based stat used to measure individual player performance. There are many variables unaccounted for that can still create inaccuracies. But some are improvements over others and can be more useful imo. Here are some excerpts of a paper from the Sloan Analytics Conference a while ago (Ironically involving Dwight Howard): Ala, context that is hard to measure like defensive schemes, coaching, quality of teammates, competition level, momentum etc. Basically, defensive advanced stats are still developing and still has problems with inaccuracies at times. http://www.sloansportsconference.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/The%20Dwight%20Effect%20A%20New%20Ensemble%20of%20Interior%20Defense%20Analytics%20for%20the%20NBA.pdf
I did watch it. I also thought Jones dominated Robinson (which was his key matchup the rest of the way) EXCEPT in the crucial game 6 Mind you, it was only a 4 minute burst from Robinson, but proved telling. Did you miss games 3-5 because you became conditioned to rage by games 1-2? If, in your opinion, the sky was green, would that make it so? Stats can't tell you the sky is green.... you might have missed the point of what they do?
Once again you have to watch the games and understand what is actually happening and not just stare at numbers in a vacuum. Pat Beverley was playing with a torn miniscus the whole series. Pat Beverley was playing with a 101 degree fever for the whole series. We were playing a really good team, not the Utah Jazz.
I'm sorry. I don't know if I follow this argument. Are you saying Jones is great at defense because he supposedly shut down Robinson? What are you trying to say?
Obviously it's a team based stat but with a large enough sample size (minutes and game played in season) it shows if a player is worse or better than the team DefRtg. Of course the other 4 teammates on the floor and the strength of opposing players can skew a players rating. Advance stats like RAPM and xRAPM start with the on/off data used in DefRtg to try to get a cull out the guys like Harden who don't pass the "eye" test because he played the most minutes with Howard.
Sounds like we agree on Drtg, fair enough. Now xRAPM is a much better stat imo, but despite it's great evolution and improvement on +/-, APM and RAPM it can still be flawed at times too. For example, ESPN's new Real Plus Minus: It's one of the latest improvements, but still has the occasional flaw. Look at this years regular season rankings: http://espn.go.com/nba/statistics/rpm/_/sort/RPM Click RPM and it ranks Andre Igoudala as the third best player in the league, above Kevin Durant. I like this stat and it's very useful, but like other stats you still need context and understands it's flaws at times.
