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

It has nothing to do with shane in what I was saying. Limiting kobe to 27ppg on 47% isn't limiting and it has little to do whether his teammates get involved. Unlike the jvg rockets of the past, odom,gasol,and artest don't need kobe to get them shots. The main reason, if not the only reason is the fact they have no one who can contain brooks. U put rafer back on the rosters or just have lowry and u will see that 13ppg margin of defeat we saw during the regular season. Orlando had problems because the let Ariza keep the lakers in the game when everyone else was struggling and a defensive breakdown that allowed a walk up 3 by fisher. Kobe is good enough, but boston showed how u can shut him down vs just containing him. There is a huge difference.

 

I don't know what Kobe has shot specifically against Battier when they've shared the court. But his scoring efficiency has been substandard (for him) agains the Rockets since Battier has been here. He's scored about 1.04 points per true shot, or a 52 TS%. But against the league on average, he's scored at an efficiency of 57 TS%. League average scoring efficiency is usually around 53-54 TS%.

The Rockets also believe that when Kobe is taking a lot of shots, his teammates become uninvolved and don't play as well. So they want Kobe to take a lot of shots, and they would like the scoring to be inefficient. On average, they've succeeded.

Here's a breakdown of Kobe's scoring and efficiency against the Rockets in games Battier played:

Code:

points       points       shots      ts%    win-loss
> 50         53,53        45,50      56%      1-1
> 40         45,41        44,37      53%      1-1
> 30         37,33,30     27,36,26   56%      3-0
> 20         26,24,23,    31,35,29,  44%      2-3
             20,20        12,22
-------------------------------------------------
per-36       28.0         27         52%      7-5

against_lg   27.0         24         57%      166-81 

Kobe has had some great games, to be sure. But the Lakers have been most successful (3-0) when he's scored in the 30s at good efficiency (56 TS%).

 

Durvasa, u do a great job at the stat stuff, what are those number vs say the per playoff team and what were the result. I ask because we know there are enough bad team that the vs the league stuff is skewed. Like I would like to know how efficient he was vs Boston,cleveland,portland,spurs,dallas,orlando,denver,atl,and houston.

 

According to the NBA.com article linked in the first post, between 06-07 and 08-09, Rockets are 4th best at limiting Kobe's efficiency, 2nd best at limiting Wade's efficiency, and 1st at limiting Anthony's efficiency. Battier, being the primary wing defender in those years, should get credit for that, but of course he is not alone. Yao is a vastly underappreciated interior defender, and the Rockets have good team defensive principles.

When I have some free time today or tomorrow, I'll check what Kobe has done against the teams you specifically mentioned.

 

Thanx Durvasa. People won't believe me, but when he has mobility, guys have a hard time shooting over him also. Also, I've said it before that yao being in the lane or close to it really limits guys attacking the rim. He's not got in space, but in in the paint, he's a huge factor.

 

I dont think anyone disagrees Yao helps on defense.

 

IMHO these posts show you have no idea what you're talking about:

^These show the same thing. The first one says Stat A is 100% correct but only 75% of the time (1.00*.75) while Stat B is 75% correct but 100% of the time (.75*1.00).

In plain English, your Stat A doesn't make sense because when you assume something is 100% correct, you can't put qualifiers like "75% of the time". Once you do it isn't 100% correct anymore, its just 75% correct. On the other hand when you say something has 75% accuracy you would assume that accuracy is consistent no matter how many times you do it. If in the 4rth trial the accuracy is different then that probably means the accuracy is wrong, it should be ((75%X3)+X)/4 where X is the 4rth accuracy.

When has Durant ever been a poor man's Rudy Gay? Everyone except you knows its actually the other way around. In his freshman year Durant was equal to gay, the moment the 2nd half of his 2nd year kicked in he surpassed Gay already. I don't see anyone saying Gay will be making the Allstar team anytime soon, while Durant was already borderline all star material last season. Now that he's playing defense he's actually leading his team to wins, and unfortunately that concept is still eluding Gay to this day.

 

I don't think there should even be any discussion that Yao Ming is the team's best defender, its something that's back by watching the game, stats (look at the team's defensive efficiency when he's not on the floor), and logic (space eating 7 footer who bothers shots and prevents drives in the lane). As the article already stated, we can survive without Battier's defense. What we have a hard time dealing with is Yao's absence in the paint.

 

That makes no sense. Look back at the Olympics when the US was getting stomped. That team still had Iverson, Duncan, James, Anthony etc... All those guys were better players and would have made more moeny in the open market then the nobodys from Argentina and Spain but that didnt make the US team better.

Go back to when Erik Dampier signed his massive deal. He signed for seven years and 73 million dollars whereas Ginobili (6 years and 55 million) and Turkoglu (six years and 39 million) signed much smaller deals. You think Dampier is better then those two?

Is Jamarcus Russell better then Adrian Peterson cuz he commanded a lot more money in 2007?

 

You quoted my post, but it's almost as if you didn't even read what I wrote. I said "in moneyball terms." The knock on Gay among self-proclaimed moneyball proponents is that even though he scores a lot of points on fairly good shooting percentages, he still has a negative effect on his team, as evidenced by his bad plus/minus numbers.

Well if you think Gay's plus/minus numbers are bad, Durant's career plus/minus numbers are even worse. Gay at least had a very good plus/minus his rookie year (better than Battier's in fact, but that's another topic for another day). Durant's plus/minus has been horrible ever since he entered the league up until this season. That's what I meant when I called Durant a poor man's Rudy Gay in moneyball terms.

Also, I love how, according to you, Durant's all of a sudden "playing defense" and that's the reason OKC is winning games. You really think Durant's game has changed that much since last season? How many Thunder games have you even watched? Or are you just pulling that out of your ass?

 

wow, great read

 

Well I agree with you that increased usage tends to lead to worse efficiency stats, but we don't have enough data on Ariza yet to accurately judge him under high usage. Gay's shooting is better so far and Ariza's A/TO is better. Best to revisit further into the season.

As far as the three players you mentioned with low A/TO -- did you notice that those are players whose stats correlate very poorly with their team's wins? Melo has been an outstanding scorer since he came into the league, but his teams were always mediocre until they added Billups. Durant and Granger are similar. They put up big numbers on teams that don't win. Hmm that sounds a lot like Rudy Gay.

Now consider some of the players that do have good A/TO ratios: LeBron, DWade, Kobe Bryant, TMac, Dirk Nowitzki. These are players that have always been considered better than the types of players you mentioned, and even in their bad years are still close to elite. Here is the next tier of A/TO>1 wings with a high usage rate: Paul Pierce, Ray Allen, Vince Carter. All of these guys have been the man on some pretty good teams over the years. The only one who can say that in your group is Melo, and he's arguably not even the key to his team. And Melo is the BEST of the A/TO < 1 players.

 

Great article! This is why Morey didn't entertained any deals for Battier over the summer. It is an understatement when people say that Battier is the ultimate Glue Guy and why he and the Chuck Wagon are our captains.

 

I wanted to see how Kobe's offensive numbers correlated to whether or not his team won. I looked at all games from 06-07 season to today where he played at least 25 minutes. The results may surprise those who think its a failing strategy to allow Kobe to shoot a lot (even at a lesser efficiency):

&nbsp;PTS&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;AST&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;FG%&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;TS%&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;eFG%&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Ast/shot&nbsp;&nbsp;Ast/min&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;shots/min&nbsp;&nbsp;pts/min&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;W/L
-0.024&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;0.122&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;0.287&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;0.275&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;0.275&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;0.204&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;0.205&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;-0.117&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;0.108&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;1.000


The further it is from 0, the more likely there's a relationship between the particular stat and whether the Lakers won or lost. And a positive correlation would indicate a positive relationship, while a negative correlation would indicate a negative relationship.

Based on this, what appears to be most important? Efficiency (whether you want to look at it as FG%, TS%, or eFG%) -- when Kobe is very efficient that's a pretty good indicator of his team winning. Next would be assists. In particular, the more assists he gets with respective to his minutes or his shot attempts, the better. You can see that there is actually a negative relationship between Kobe's shots/min and whether his team won or lost. How many points he scored per minute is a positive correlation, but seemingly not as strong an indicator as his efficiency or assisting per minute.

I'm sure the Rockets have more sophisticated methods of determining how they want Kobe to play within his offense. But even from this fairly simple analysis, one can see where their approach comes from. If Kobe shoots a lot, but does so at less efficiency, and he's not getting his teammates as involved, that works in the Rockets favor.

Leebigez asked how Kobe played against some of the better teams in the league. Here's a breakdown, again from 06-07 to the present:

Opp&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;W&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;L&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;MP&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;PTS&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;AST&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;FG%&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;TS%&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;eFG%&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Ast/shot&nbsp;&nbsp;Ast/min&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;shots/min&nbsp;pts/min
HOU*&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;7&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;5&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;42.8&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;33.1&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;4.4&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;0.421&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;0.514&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;0.452&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;0.137&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;0.103&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;0.751&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;0.772
ORL&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;3&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;3&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;41.3&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;31.3&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;6.5&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;0.425&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;0.542&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;0.449&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;0.225&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;0.157&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;0.699&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;0.758
HOU&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;8&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;5&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;42.2&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;32.3&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;4.3&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;0.429&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;0.519&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;0.460&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;0.138&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;0.102&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;0.738&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;0.766
ATL&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;4&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;2&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;35.3&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;21.5&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;4.3&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;0.436&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;0.520&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;0.468&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;0.210&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;0.123&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;0.585&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;0.608
CLE&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;2&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;4&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;40.7&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;27.2&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;6.0&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;0.438&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;0.531&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;0.453&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;0.234&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;0.148&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;0.629&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;0.668
BOS&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;4&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;2&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;39.2&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;30.7&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;5.5&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;0.438&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;0.553&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;0.507&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;0.199&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;0.140&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;0.707&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;0.783
DEN&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;7&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;5&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;35.8&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;25.3&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;5.6&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;0.455&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;0.540&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;0.471&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;0.238&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;0.156&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;0.656&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;0.709
DAL&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;7&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;5&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;41.0&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;30.5&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;4.4&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;0.486&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;0.597&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;0.514&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;0.173&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;0.108&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;0.623&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;0.744
POR&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;5&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;6&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;40.1&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;32.9&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;4.3&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;0.488&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;0.597&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;0.535&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;0.155&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;0.107&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;0.687&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;0.821
SAS&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;6&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;4&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;38.7&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;27.0&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;5.3&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;0.490&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;0.578&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;0.526&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;0.227&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;0.137&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;0.604&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;0.698

* When Battier also played

It interesting that amongst the metrics that I found to be best indicators for beating the Lakers, the Rockets (with Battier) are right at the top. Yes, he shoots a lot against them. Yes, he scores a bunch of points on average. But the Rockets have been very good at keeping him to a low efficiency and making him a shooter versus a facilitator.

 

BUT BUT BUT WHAT ABOUT BATTIER NOT GETTING REBOUNDS

 

Thanks as always for the info. When you find time, could you find data on how Kobe performed against us before 06/07? We already had a very good defense under Van Gundy before Battier came here, so I'm wondering just how much those post-06/07 stats differ from our pre-06/07 stats.