William Blake
Bench
Inspired by JT's two blocks and the encouraging data on the Kings interior D I checked out the player tracking data on nba.com under the voice "defensive impact", trying to see if someone in particular should take credit.
The most relevant and interesting stat to look at is Opp FG% at rim, which stands for field goal percentage of an opposing player's or team's shots at the rim while being defended by a certain player. "Being defended" means that said defensive player is within five feet of the basket and within five feet of the player taking the shot. I think that it's a better stat than blocks per game to assess a big man's rim protection ability. A player can block a fair amount of shots while being a poor defender and on the other hand if he is mobile, long and understands team defense he can be a good anchor without stellar shotblocking numbers (e.g. Asik).
Don't get me wrong, I still think that generally great shotblockers are great defensive players, but there are always going to be outliers.
Note: last year Larry Sanders was at the very top of the league in this particular stat while David Lee was dead last.
In order to avoid "freakish" data I set two common sense filters:
-Opponent field goal attempts at rim per game > 3: in order to include only players who spend a decent amount of time protecting the rim
-Number of games > 10 to avoid numbers inflated or deflated by small sample size
Then I sorted the results from the best to the worst.
Here's what comes out:
http://stats.nba.com/playerTracking...IM*G*3&sortField=FGP_DEFEND_RIM&sortOrder=ASC
Considering that the league this year shoots 58.3% from less than 5 ft. the first thing that jumps out is that the only big guys who have a negative impact are notorious defensive stoppers such as Carlos Boozer and Kevin Love. Which is kind of the argument behind the whole stretch big craze of the past few years.
Now if you move back to the first page you will notice that Jason Thompson is the best ranked King* and is in good company too! Opponents convert only 46% of their attempts at the rim when JT is within 5 feet, a percentage that puts him into Howard/Drummond/Horford territory, which is not as good as Hibbert, Asik, Noah or Davis but still pretty damn good.
So, why in the hell are we still hoping to swap some assets for a defensive big?
Well, the thing is that while JT is quite good at defending the rim, he isn't around to contest shots very often.
Shots at rim contested per 36 minutes:
Acknowledged defensive anchors
Hibbert 11.1
Howard 10.7
Bogut 10.7
Noah 7.7
Unexpected good percentages
Monroe 7.6
Thompson 6.5
West 5.6
Interesting low minutes guys
Gobert 10.3
Udoh 9
Adams 7.4
My conclusion? I pretty much agree with what Slim said in the Houston grades (or game) thread: JT is a pretty good one on one defender and a lousy help one. Which is pretty much the case for West as well, while Monroe seems like a genuinely underrated defender, at least on this board. It should also be noted that JT fouls a lot, so he biases a bit this particular stat.
As for the low minutes guys: Pete please pick up the phone and call Milwaukee!
*Cousins sits at a very respectable 8 contested shots per game with a not so respectable 54.3% allowed.
The most relevant and interesting stat to look at is Opp FG% at rim, which stands for field goal percentage of an opposing player's or team's shots at the rim while being defended by a certain player. "Being defended" means that said defensive player is within five feet of the basket and within five feet of the player taking the shot. I think that it's a better stat than blocks per game to assess a big man's rim protection ability. A player can block a fair amount of shots while being a poor defender and on the other hand if he is mobile, long and understands team defense he can be a good anchor without stellar shotblocking numbers (e.g. Asik).
Don't get me wrong, I still think that generally great shotblockers are great defensive players, but there are always going to be outliers.
Note: last year Larry Sanders was at the very top of the league in this particular stat while David Lee was dead last.
In order to avoid "freakish" data I set two common sense filters:
-Opponent field goal attempts at rim per game > 3: in order to include only players who spend a decent amount of time protecting the rim
-Number of games > 10 to avoid numbers inflated or deflated by small sample size
Then I sorted the results from the best to the worst.
Here's what comes out:
http://stats.nba.com/playerTracking...IM*G*3&sortField=FGP_DEFEND_RIM&sortOrder=ASC
Considering that the league this year shoots 58.3% from less than 5 ft. the first thing that jumps out is that the only big guys who have a negative impact are notorious defensive stoppers such as Carlos Boozer and Kevin Love. Which is kind of the argument behind the whole stretch big craze of the past few years.
Now if you move back to the first page you will notice that Jason Thompson is the best ranked King* and is in good company too! Opponents convert only 46% of their attempts at the rim when JT is within 5 feet, a percentage that puts him into Howard/Drummond/Horford territory, which is not as good as Hibbert, Asik, Noah or Davis but still pretty damn good.
So, why in the hell are we still hoping to swap some assets for a defensive big?
Well, the thing is that while JT is quite good at defending the rim, he isn't around to contest shots very often.
Shots at rim contested per 36 minutes:
Acknowledged defensive anchors
Hibbert 11.1
Howard 10.7
Bogut 10.7
Noah 7.7
Unexpected good percentages
Monroe 7.6
Thompson 6.5
West 5.6
Interesting low minutes guys
Gobert 10.3
Udoh 9
Adams 7.4
My conclusion? I pretty much agree with what Slim said in the Houston grades (or game) thread: JT is a pretty good one on one defender and a lousy help one. Which is pretty much the case for West as well, while Monroe seems like a genuinely underrated defender, at least on this board. It should also be noted that JT fouls a lot, so he biases a bit this particular stat.
As for the low minutes guys: Pete please pick up the phone and call Milwaukee!
*Cousins sits at a very respectable 8 contested shots per game with a not so respectable 54.3% allowed.