[nba.com] League's best one-on-one defender with statstical evidence

Gay and Durant get notable mentions for their defensive prowess...

 

Rudy Gay the worst defender in the NBA.

 

This is why I can't place a high value in these stats. Nick Young is not a great defender. Now, the Wizards might have been less awful when he was on the court but I assure you, he is not one of the best defenders in the league. Similarly, Deron Williams is not one of the worst defenders in the nba.

EDIT: The author attempts to qualify these numbers. How useful is it if you must have an explanation for why everyone is where they are on a list? And, it doesn't even look like they used adjusted +/- so it's even more misleading.

 

Deron Williams isn't very good. I haven't seen him do anything good defensively ever, and I haven't really watched how many defensive switches/assignments he's blown. A lot of the things that cause these differentials aren't very visible on the court unless you look for them.

These differentials are over thousands of minutes, too. It's not exactly a small sample like a nightly +/- is.

 

That first view of how a team does when a certain player goes out is absolutely crap! What happens if the backup that you are bringing in to replace is awful..i.e. Walton in place of Odom, what if Odom & Kobe are both off together.. Stats are great, if it's done properly!

 

agreed. some w/ and w/o stats are crap, because they're out of context.

w/ prez bush, 9/11 once; w/o, none. :grin:

 

I edited my first post it would have at least made more sense if they used adjusted +/-. Williams (and even Rudy Gay) are getting penalized because they play a lot of minutes on bad defensive teams*. I'm not saying DW is a great defensive player or even a good one but anyone who watches the game knows he isn't one of the worst. The Jazz do not defend perimeter players well because they have weak interior defense. So, if DW does everything right his man can still score easily. I've watched Nick Young play, he ain't that bright. He is not an elite defender in this league.

How can I trust that this stat iis useful in describing defensive impact when Shane Battier is ranked 66th and Nick Young is 9th?

EDIT: The Jazz weren't awful defensively last year but their post defense was.

 

Interesting read. There's a lot of things I'd like to discuss, but I don't really have time, so here's one quick point I want to make.

The writer is being disingenuous with his use of TS% to measure offensive performance. A lower TS% doesn't always equate to a worse offensive game, and I'm not just referring to things like assists, offensive rebounds, etc.

If one guy takes 20 shots with a TS% of .500, and another guy takes 10 shots with a TS% of .600, the second guy didn't necessarily perform better. That's the thing with Battier's style of defense. He'll let his man take more shots, but they tend to be lower percentage, whereas a guy like Artest will let guys take less shots, but they tend tend to be higher percentage.

In a sense, you could say Battier turns whoever he's guarding into Ron Artest (high usage, low efficiency), whereas Artest turns whoever he's guarding into Shane Battier (low usage, high efficiency).

 

Suppose there's a stat that, 75% of the time, will correctly tell you if a player is a very good defender, a very bad defender, or a middling defender.

Do you think that would be useful?

 

The goal is reducing the opponent's team efficiency. If you're forcing one of their major players to take a lot of low-efficiency shots, and you're able to do so without yielding better shots to the rest, then that's a successful strategy. Simple math.

The Rockets have liked Battier on Kobe because that's what he does well. They're not interested in how many times Kobe shoots, or how many points he scores. If he scores 40 points by has to take 40 shots to get there, that's probably good for the Rockets. Go through the Laker games and see how well they've done in terms of W-L when Kobe scores a lot of points on low efficiency. Conversely, see how well they've done when Kobe takes fewer shots but is very efficient.

 

goos stats but I want Gay or Durant over Battier any day of the week.

 

MEANWHILE........kevin garnett guards vitali potapenko, steals the ball from etan thomas, and blocks loy vaught a few times....and wins defensive player of the year...


WTF

 

what was said about ron is what i hope ariza corrects....ron isn't a great one on one defender, the main reason being he gambles too much, just like Ariza...i'm hoping he stops so he can become an overall great defender..

 

lots o love for Battier. Gotta love it.

 

I think he made All-NBA Defensive First team last year just for the epic mean-mugging he gave the Chicago Bulls bench in the playoffs.

 

That depends on how incorrect it is the other 25% of the time. If it varies wildly then I am forced to question that other 75%.

If it seemed to only be slightly incorrect sometimes then I would be fine with it.

 

who wouldn't? lol.

 

The simplest litmus of test of who is better (rudy or shane) (if you believe in american capitalism), who would get more money in the open market?