OK, I raised this question in another thread about Francis' defense. The conventional wisdom around here is that Francis is not a good defender as compared to his counterparts. The logic behind that reasoning is usually "Steve got blown by by Parker/Terry/insert name here last night." In other words, the evidence is anectdotal. While anectdotal evidence has some value, it doesn't have as much value when trying to evaluate Francis' D as compared to his counterparts, the main reason that we don't see how Francis counterparts play defense night in and night out, as the majority of us don't watch their games. How are we to know if Jason Williams gets his ankles broken by Gilbert Arenas? etc etc. Accordingly, I have gone through and attempted to measure the defensive effectiveness of Francis as compared to his premier counterparts in the Western Conference, first a few disclaimers: 1. I used the stats from 82games.com. I measured simply the opponents production stats from the individual player "by position" pages, not from the team "by position" pages. 2. I used the "Opponents Counterpart 48 Minute Production" stats. I ONLY used the stats at PG, not the stats of that player at SG. While it would have made the analysis more accurate, I decided to omit it because I didn't feel l ike doing the math for 8 guys. If you want to, please do and let me know. 3. I used eFG% (effective FG%) and ppg here. I did not use the PER rating, reason being that I don't really understand PER rating and I don't understand whethr or not it includes just offensive or offensive and defensive stats. Again, here I am focusing purely on defense. 4. I used West PG's only because they play a similar schedule and did not want the weakness of the East to be a factor. With those disclaimers, here are the stats: Francis eFG% .452 Pts 17.6 Nash eFG% .490 Pts 19.3 Miller eFG% .479 Pts 19.1 Payton eFG% .462 Pts 19.8 J.Williams eFG% .497 Pts 20.4 Cassell eFG% .460 Pts 20.7 Bibby eFG% .473 Pts 19.3 Parker eFG% .437 Pts 17.9 Ranking Opponents eFG% 1. Parker 2. Francis 3. Cassell 4. Payton 5. Bibby 6. Miller 7. Nash 8. Williams Opponents pts/48 1. Francis 2. Parker 3. Miller 4. Nash, Bibby (t) 6. Payton 7. Williams 8. Cassell Now, this doesn't necessarily correlate to who is the best defender. What this means to me is that strong defensive teams (Spurs, Rockets) tend to show strong defenders (Francis, Parker). Howeve, some theories (I don't know about you, but I always thought Jason Williams wasn't much of a defender and that Payton had slipped dramatically) appear to hold up. What this does tend to indicate, though, is that the perception that Francis is horrific in comparison to his counterparts may be misplaced. At worst, he is average. Point guard is just a strong, strong position in the West. Of those names up there, all of them have or are capable of scoring 20 ppg or close to it. Every PG in the West is going to give up some points now and then, simply by being a PG.
nice work, but that speaks just as much about team defense as it does individual defense, that's why tony parker and steve are at the top b/c they play on teams which play great team defense. But speaking of defense, that block by steve on lebron on the fast break was SICK, absolutely ridiculous. At least his atheletic ability can't be questioned(other than his lateral quickness...).
Oh, absolutely. That's one of the first things I noticed too. You know, if I have time, I will go back tomorrow and do this analysis for last year too when the Rock's team D was not as good, so then we can limit that as a factor.
Not logical. If you want to be absolutely certain to remove any bias from the Rockets systemic defense, you'd have to prorate Francis' statistics. Moreover, the PER # does seem fairly reliable: and it's a little too convenient that you leave out a # that's quite damning to Francis. To avoid the appearance of impropriety, you really should have brought that up... if nothing else, because it looks fishy that you don't. The best way to calculate Francis' defensive abilities would probably be some combo # of: 1. A ratio of (points scored by opposition PG)/ (points scored by the other team) versus that of the (league average PG PPG / league average allowed PPG) combined with 2. Some sort of combination of the #'s you give.
Francis plays good team defense. It's usually the reason other PGs get open looks around the perimeter and get open lanes to drive in the paint. While the Rockets will provide team defense at almost any position, it seems the two positions I've noticed they'll leave open on help defense is the PG and PF position. It's really hard to fault Francis on his defense especially this season. He hustles like a madman, and I can't fault him for that. I'm not entitled to anyways other then from a frustrated fan perspective.
Haven, I left out PER #'s because I don't know what they mean, and I don't know whether they measure offense or defense. I think PER measures the overall effectiveness of a player on offense AND defense. Accordingly, if you compare opponents PER, you are incorporating some measure of the player's offense. That's what I'm trying to keep out. In addition, I don't know how to have a dialogue about a number that I don't really understand But anyway, to eliminate any perception of bias, here they are: 1. Parker 14.1 2. Miller 15.3 3. Payton 15.5 4. Francis 15.7 5. Bibby 16.2 6. Cassell 16.3 7. Nash 16.5 8. Williams 17.9 Again, he is average at worst. Also, I note that Jason Williams brings up the rear, again. If you want to do that other analysis, go for it, I think I've done enough for now.
You're right, maybe I could have put in the trade threads about Francis you started over the last few weeks, golly gosh, those sure needed their own threads, right? Thanks for the insight, DD, as always.
Sam a lot of hard work and interesting Stats. Your foundation has one fundamental problem and that being that Rocket fans realy care about other Teams Point Guards when playing other non Rocket Teams. Surely, they 'realy care' when they are playing the Rockets and use a Point Guard to Point Guard Comparison. By observation it is obvious that Francis doesn't like to play Defence and his ability to do so is lacking. Not only that but he regularly gets shown up by the opposing Point Guard. Even the use of Statistics can't alter this fact.
SamFisher: Ugh - hard to make those calculations because of the lack of info on the web about such things. I couldn't find just an "average scoring by position" in the NBA #. But some information. The Rockets allow 21.1% of their PPG allowed to be scored by the opposing PG. The Lakers allow 20.5% by the opposing PG. The Kings 19.3%. Of course, that's not player specific. But it is interesting. At least, relative to the team, it appears that that the PG position is the weak point of the Rockets D. Although it can always be systemic. I'm afraid that the more I think about it, the less useful stats are in gauging individual defense . Too bad - I like stats. In baseball, they're awesome...
Haven: yeah, I've seen that stat; however, my explanation for that is this: 1. last time 82 games.com checked, the Rockets gave up more jumpshots overall then any team in the league (yet had the 2nd lowest opponents eFG% for jumpers) That's a function of having Cato and Yao inside (Cato and Yao both ranked high in 82games "deterrent factor" measurements early in the season), as well as what seems to be the Rox philosophy of collapsing the middle in general; so it stands to reason that perimeter players would have a slightly higher proportion of points against the Rockets, though not more points overall. 2. If you want to see something scary, click on Moochie's individual player page for the Rockets....ouch. That's the reason why I used the individual player page rather than the team pages. Again, I'm not saying any of this proves whether Francis is good or bad in an absolute sense, but if his counterparts are giving up as many more points, at a higher percentage, at an equal or higher PER, whatever that may be, well, it certainly weakens the argumetn that, among point guards, Steve is a bad to horrible defender.
True Steve doesn't have lateral quickness but he'll make a PG or anyone alter there shot...when he wants too.
This is not scientific enough sam. You don't know how much impact team defence or other things affect these stats, 10%? 90%? we don't know. So we can't draw any conclusions. Just because he's on top doesn't mean he's average at worst. It only means he's on par with Parker. Granted I don't blame Francis defence compares to some of other things he does. A lot of the times he got stuck in the PnR and our PF never shows up.
Sam, Pure numbers show that Steve is an avg defender. What we have forgotten is: 1) Most PGs you compare Steve to are avg to bad defenders themselves. Steve is a better athlete than all of them. If he is not the best of the lot, then he under-performs. 2) Steve plays on the best defensive team, it helps his number a great deal. Guys like Nash, and Bibby give up better percentage simply because they and their team score even higher. 3) Opposing PG's eFG% are high if you compare it to the rest of our team. The rest of the Rockets hold the opponents to a much lower avg while Steve allows about the same number.
Sam, As others have said, I think you have to take those stats with a grain of salt. Im a Steve supporter, but you have to attribute alot of that to our team defense/rotations. Kind of like +/- stats. They are misleading in a way. Id be curious to see if that site breaksdown the shooting% of opponent guards (Steve and Cat's men). Our rotations tend to allow alot of open 3 pt shoots, and thus, its not a coincidence that we are only 7-12 against the top 10 3 point shooting teams in the league. Thus, just like we cant give Steve too much credit for opp PG stats, we cant blame him too much either. There is no doubt though, that he still struggles with penetration defense. He just gives up too easily and doesnt do a good job staying in front of his man. That being said, he has improved this year and seems more dedicated.
C: Yeah, I agree a lot of it is reflectivve of team defense. I wouldn't say that Tony Parker is a defensive ace or anything even though he comes out near the top. However, I do think that it at least undercuts the perception that Francis is being "burned" nightly in a way that others aren't Regarding the top 3 pt shooting teams comment, while that's true, I think, as you say, that is our preferred mode of doing business (the allowing teams to take 3's part, not the losing part!), which is why we are at or near the top of the league in both FG defense and eFG defense. RagingFire You might be correct that the other WC top PGs are average to bad defenders themselves. Perhaps this is a function of them all having to carry so much of the load on the offensive end that they all slack a bit on defense? I'm not really sure.
I have not started any trade threads about Francis...the threads may have been hijacked, but not about trading him at all. DD
