Defensive metric and Kings

#3
Says that Bjelica is a hair worse on defense than Giannis. Chief called, he told me to tell you that this ain't it.
Remember Giannis came into the league at 19 while Bjelica came in at 27. Since the stat seems to be cumulative, you have to take into account the first couple years when Giannis was still learning how to play the game. Take the last few years into account and it's a no brainer.

On a side note, I think Beli was a really underrated defender last year. He seems slow footed and his man will drive by him here and there but he's a very savvy defender and made a huge number of impact plays in the first half of the season. People don't remember all the times he played free safety and intercepted opponents breakaway passes or all the tips he got that either stole the ball or let the Kings go onto transition baskets themselves. The times when his opponent got by him but he still caught up to get the blocked shot from behind. He fell off during the second half but his shooting mixed with his defense was why he was one of the top 30 players in the league during the first half according to advanced stats.
 

dude12

Hall of Famer
#4
The metric seems to favor bigs. Is this because of proximity to other players as opposed to the wings who are out more in space?
 
#7
Isn't this the same stupid website whose metrics claim Klay Thompson is an average NBA player?

Also the same website that failed miserably in projecting a certain election a couple years ago?
 
#8
Remember Giannis came into the league at 19 while Bjelica came in at 27. Since the stat seems to be cumulative, you have to take into account the first couple years when Giannis was still learning how to play the game. Take the last few years into account and it's a no brainer.

On a side note, I think Beli was a really underrated defender last year. He seems slow footed and his man will drive by him here and there but he's a very savvy defender and made a huge number of impact plays in the first half of the season. People don't remember all the times he played free safety and intercepted opponents breakaway passes or all the tips he got that either stole the ball or let the Kings go onto transition baskets themselves. The times when his opponent got by him but he still caught up to get the blocked shot from behind. He fell off during the second half but his shooting mixed with his defense was why he was one of the top 30 players in the league during the first half according to advanced stats.
Thanks for pointing out the reason for Giannis being less than amazing in this stat. I totally agree on Bjelica.
 

Capt. Factorial

trifolium contra tempestatem subrigere certum est
Staff member
#9
Remember Giannis came into the league at 19 while Bjelica came in at 27. Since the stat seems to be cumulative, you have to take into account the first couple years when Giannis was still learning how to play the game. Take the last few years into account and it's a no brainer.

On a side note, I think Beli was a really underrated defender last year. He seems slow footed and his man will drive by him here and there but he's a very savvy defender and made a huge number of impact plays in the first half of the season. People don't remember all the times he played free safety and intercepted opponents breakaway passes or all the tips he got that either stole the ball or let the Kings go onto transition baskets themselves. The times when his opponent got by him but he still caught up to get the blocked shot from behind. He fell off during the second half but his shooting mixed with his defense was why he was one of the top 30 players in the league during the first half according to advanced stats.
Actually, the stat is not cumulative, it is a per-100 possessions stat. It doesn't appear to be anything too terribly complicated, it's using some of the player tracking data to determine who was the closest defender on any given defended shot and then comparing the shooting percentage on those shots relative to the shooting percentage on a wide open shot.

Silver points out that it's not a be-all, end-all stat. In fact, it does NOT incorporate important things like steals and rebounds (though I guess it would by nature incorporate blocks), but it certainly looks like a better way to gauge shot defense than any box score metric. They later combine it with a couple of box score metrics to make their updated "CARMELO" defensive rating, so in that it's only a part, not the whole thing.

What they don't actually show here is their updated CARMELO defensive rating, only the raw shooting stat (5 years and last year) and the *change* in the CARMELO rating. If you pick through their final table, you can see that their overall defensive rating of Giannis is +1.94 per 100 possessions, while Bjelica is +1.68 - both good defenders, Giannis better, but Bjelica getting a lot more boost from the stuff that their shot defense metric is measuring, which previously was really only an "eye-test" kind of thing, and then obviously not very reliable.

I agree that Bjelica was, by eye test, an underrated defender, so it's nice to see a metric that does seem to confirm his ability to force bad shots.
 
#10
the eye test tends to remeber things such as iso plays (most people are thinking JJJ in that one game at this moment). this metric does a better job of "remembering" countless running contests on the three point line for example that Bjelica made in the normal flow of a defensive possesion...
 
#11
Actually, the stat is not cumulative, it is a per-100 possessions stat. It doesn't appear to be anything too terribly complicated, it's using some of the player tracking data to determine who was the closest defender on any given defended shot and then comparing the shooting percentage on those shots relative to the shooting percentage on a wide open shot.

Silver points out that it's not a be-all, end-all stat. In fact, it does NOT incorporate important things like steals and rebounds (though I guess it would by nature incorporate blocks), but it certainly looks like a better way to gauge shot defense than any box score metric. They later combine it with a couple of box score metrics to make their updated "CARMELO" defensive rating, so in that it's only a part, not the whole thing.

What they don't actually show here is their updated CARMELO defensive rating, only the raw shooting stat (5 years and last year) and the *change* in the CARMELO rating. If you pick through their final table, you can see that their overall defensive rating of Giannis is +1.94 per 100 possessions, while Bjelica is +1.68 - both good defenders, Giannis better, but Bjelica getting a lot more boost from the stuff that their shot defense metric is measuring, which previously was really only an "eye-test" kind of thing, and then obviously not very reliable.

I agree that Bjelica was, by eye test, an underrated defender, so it's nice to see a metric that does seem to confirm his ability to force bad shots.
I guess I'm not understanding. Above the first chart it says:

NBA players by DRAYMOND* defensive ratings, based on opponents’ shooting data in the regular season and playoffs, with a minimum of 10,000 possessions played since 2013-14


and the chart shows possessions played next to the Draymond rating.
 

Capt. Factorial

trifolium contra tempestatem subrigere certum est
Staff member
#12
I guess I'm not understanding. Above the first chart it says:

NBA players by DRAYMOND* defensive ratings, based on opponents’ shooting data in the regular season and playoffs, with a minimum of 10,000 possessions played since 2013-14

and the chart shows possessions played next to the Draymond rating.
They don't want to count any players who haven't played in enough possessions to make the calculations stable, as it were. But it is not a counting statistic. If you read the article, it states:

We divide RAW_DRAYMOND by the number of possessions that the player was on the floor, so that DRAYMOND (like RPM and most other NBA stats) is a rate statistic rather than a counting statistic.