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Defensive Synergy Ratings for Jazz Players

JJAS said:
Let me try to alleviate the negative, holy ****, Al Jefferson is so bad and ranked better than X, Y, Z, talk. The numbers benefit those players whose original man does not score. So if Harris gets burned and his man scores, his score goes down (or up in this case). However, if he gets good help defense, and his man doesn't score because of the efforts of the big, his score goes up (down). This can go the same for the big who helps, whose man then scores. You're getting into three or four passes by then though. What this does tell you is what the shooting percentage is of a given players man on every single defensive possession. Transition is tougher to gauge, and this is by no means a hard and fast measurement, but it does have some worth, coupled with the eye-ball (which is deceiving as well at times, or at least its memory), but not completely negated.
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I am glad that you added this because that was my understanding of how these numbers work so I wasn't too worried about seeing Jefferson so high. Jefferson does play good defense on his man but when someone else's guy is driving down the lane he likes to step aside as to not get posterized.
 
Bodhi said:
Well science proves what my eyes think otherwise. Thank you stat geeks, here I thought Jefferson just was a bystander as people strolled into the lane..........sure is a ton of egg on my face, eh gents?
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*whispers*
Dude, that's not egg...

michaelmoore-navy.jpg
 
Jefferson haters are mad once again :D

What's the formula for this rating? I think it's not that bad if you can't put in help-D. It could be like:

(opp. points allowed*a + fouls*b - blocks*c - steals*d - charges drawn*e) / min played*f

Defenders who help a lot(in Bell's case too much) have a bad rating (Bell, Favors), decent man-to-man defenders get rewarded. Also Favors fouls too much to have an average rating, if this is included in the rating.
 
Weezur said:
So Alec Burks is the best defender in the NBA?
And Favors is the worst on the Jazz?

This is less believable than Newt Gingrich as president.
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I hope you're right on the Gingrich thing, but what the stats say irrefutably is that Favor's original man on every defensive possession has the highest percentage of any Jazz player and Burks' man has the lowest. I wish they're were a perfect "best defender" gauge. Were that the case, no way Kobe makes the all defensive team last year.

Favors: adjusted overall rating 47.3% (44% in the post)
Burks: adjusted overall rating 31.3%, which is absolutely absurdly low (after yesterdays games, he's now to a 14, even lower)

Favors has decent defensive post presence (and these numbers are more pure since there's usually less switching etc.). Here is a comparison of some of the best post defenders (statistically speaking) in the NBA, as well as the Jazz players. These are only for post-ups against them:

Kanter: 51.2 (103 = rank)
Dwight Howard: 46.3 (74)
Favors: 44 (not enough times, so there's no rank); Favors would be even better if he didn't foul so much
Andrew Bynum: 39.7 (54)
Al Jefferson: 37.4 (47)
Andrew Bogut: 27.8 (not enough times, so there's no rank)
 
I like this defensive stat better.

Points per Possession against the Jazz when this player is on the floor

Watson 1.0
Burks 1.02
Kanter 1.03
Favors 1.04
Miles 1.04
Howard 1.04
Millsap 1.06
Hayward 1.07
Harris 1.08
Jefferson 1.08
Bell 1.09

This one passes the eyeball test a little better. The main flaw is a particular bad defender (Bell and Jefferson) can bring down the stats of the playes who mostly play with them (Hayward, Millsap). And a Particular good defender (Watson,Kanter,Favors) can increase the stat of average defenders (Miles, Howard). But combined with your eye test you can get a fairly accurate idea of who is the better defenders.

This stat is only good to compare within a certain team. League wide comparisons of this stat are virtually worthless IMO.
 
everytime a player who got free of a screencomes in the paint. and jefferson stands there he just moves away/back leaving the paint wide open.
not once
not twice
but 99% of the time when that happens.
that trumps stats
 
Stats have their place. But to rely on them to tell you about basketball is naive. If a stat fails an eye test blatantly like the one in the OP. Then it is probably worthless. Stats can be manipulated to underscore an argument. They can also be subjective to your interpretation.
 
gregbroncs said:
Stats have their place. But to rely on them to tell you about basketball is naive. If a stat fails an eye test blatantly like the one in the OP. Then it is probably worthless. Stats can be manipulated to underscore an argument. They can also be subjective to your interpretation.
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All great points! One thing I like about stats is that they can allow you to pinpoint what exactly makes someone a bad defender. Most players are not all-round horrible defenders but rather have deficiencies. Defense is even more complex to gauge than offense in my opinion and so defensive statistics help, but can be manipulated as you said. What I like about Synergy is that you can watch every singly defensive play in a row, and you really start to see how the stats match up with the defender. Kanter for example is a pretty good post defender but often plays off of the offensive player too much and gets jumpers rained down on him. This is a consistent flaw that he needs to work on. This is the best way to use the "eye-ball" test after you've watched the game because our minds have a tendency to hold on to poignant moments in games--not the whole game but the major screw up at one point in the game. This then gets attached to who that player is, and it is very hard to shake the stigma after that because we begin to construct a reality based not on every play but on poignant plays. That's why watching Synergy allows you to see the competition and consistent play of a given player. I to like the ppp, but it also has to do with combinations of players, match-ups etc. It is another stat to work with.
 
DutchJazzer said:
everytime a player who got free of a screencomes in the paint. and jefferson stands there he just moves away/back leaving the paint wide open.
not once
not twice
but 99% of the time when that happens.
that trumps stats
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See my point above. Humans are always more confident in their memories than is warranted, and almost all of us are somewhat oblivious to the signification process going on around us. We're rarely reluctant to express conviction in our seemingly secure judgment particularly when we have some mindless credo to substitute for thought and the discomfort of uncertainty.
 
Taking the stats from the OP (shows man on defensive stats respectably) and the stats I showed (shows contribution to team defense respectably) you can start to see who is a decent defender overall.

For example it's surprising to see Burks near the top of both lists. It is not surprising to see Bell at the bottom of both lists.
 
gregbroncs said:
I like this defensive stat better.

Points per Possession against the Jazz when this player is on the floor

Watson 1.0
Burks 1.02
Kanter 1.03
Favors 1.04
Miles 1.04
Howard 1.04
Millsap 1.06
Hayward 1.07
Harris 1.08
Jefferson 1.08
Bell 1.09

This one passes the eyeball test a little better. The main flaw is a particular bad defender (Bell and Jefferson) can bring down the stats of the playes who mostly play with them (Hayward, Millsap). And a Particular good defender (Watson,Kanter,Favors) can increase the stat of average defenders (Miles, Howard). But combined with your eye test you can get a fairly accurate idea of who is the better defenders.

This stat is only good to compare within a certain team. League wide comparisons of this stat are virtually worthless IMO.
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So all the starters suck at defense. It's not because they are playing against better players for more minutes night in, night out. Gotcha.
 
chawx said:
Maybe that's Ty's thought on it too, which is why our team looks like a deer in the headlights when a team goes into a zone and we pass it around the 3-pt line for 23.9 seconds until CJ hoists up a fade away 30 footer...
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Liar. CJ only hoists up shots 4 seconds into the shot clock.
The rest of the play he's dreaming about eating deep fried twinkies off fat Dallas chicks' bellies.
 
JazzSpazz said:
So all the starters suck at defense. It's not because they are playing against better players for more minutes night in, night out. Gotcha.
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Never said that. And you are correct. That is another flaw with this stat. Though you would think that it would affect all of the starters similarly. Yet Bell and Jefferson are still putting up the worst #'s. In fact in this thread I have stated the flaws with stats. Maybe you should read further before being a smart ***.

No stat adequately shows the effectiveness of defense. It is just not possible. It is all conjecture or opinion.

I still stand by my opinion that Bell is the worst wing defender on the team. It's convenient for me that both of these stats seem to also indicate that.
 
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