You're undervaluing Gobert - 538 speaks

[ShortShorts]

Yes a bit click baity title, but I believe for 95% of even top fans and for likely more of the broad NBA fan base this is probably true.

Here's the defensive side of why:

Defensive Metrics Don’t Ever Agree … Except On Rudy Gobert’s Great Season

End-of-year NBA awards are a good lens through which to evaluate the league’s best performances, but the framing isn’t always quite right. Certain seasons are s…

fivethirtyeight.com

Pretty hard not to say Gobert may be the greatest defensive player in history if you're open minded about the data.

By being the smartest defender ever (not going for blocks when it doesn't help the team, learning to handle drop coverage adjustments by top tier 3 assassins, understanding how to be the ultimate help defender in a broken 2v1 from a PnR) and his unique body type the man enables so-so defenders around him to become a top defense year in and year out.

There's another article waiting to be written about his offensive prowess as the perfect work horse 3 point enabling machine. Not as impactful as his D but still mighty important.

And it's likely why he got more than Spida as the team realizes it and wants to reward his drastically underappreciated impact on the game.

Haven't posted much lately but can't help it when something I've guessed at for a long time gets crystallized so succinctly at 538.

 

[One Brow]

And it's likely why he got more than Spida as the team realizes it and wants to reward his drastically underappreciated impact on the game.

IIRC, both signed contracts that were close to the maximum for their years in the NBA and accomplishments.

 

[MT Steve]

In terms of impact, the Gobert contract is a bargain for us.

 

[idiot]

Yes a bit click baity title, but I believe for 95% of even top fans and for likely more of the broad NBA fan base this is probably true.

Here's the defensive side of why:

Defensive Metrics Don’t Ever Agree … Except On Rudy Gobert’s Great Season

End-of-year NBA awards are a good lens through which to evaluate the league’s best performances, but the framing isn’t always quite right. Certain seasons are s…

fivethirtyeight.com

Pretty hard not to say Gobert may be the greatest defensive player in history if you're open minded about the data.

By being the smartest defender ever (not going for blocks when it doesn't help the team, learning to handle drop coverage adjustments by top tier 3 assassins, understanding how to be the ultimate help defender in a broken 2v1 from a PnR) and his unique body type the man enables so-so defenders around him to become a top defense year in and year out.

There's another article waiting to be written about his offensive prowess as the perfect work horse 3 point enabling machine. Not as impactful as his D but still mighty important.

And it's likely why he got more than Spida as the team realizes it and wants to reward his drastically underappreciated impact on the game.

Haven't posted much lately but can't help it when something I've guessed at for a long time gets crystallized so succinctly at 538.

I don't disagree with the conclusion, but when this 538 article is written by noted Jazz homer Ben Dowsett, can we really call it a "538 article" in the sense of coming from a dispassionate national source?

 

[MT Steve]

I don't disagree with the conclusion, but when this 538 article is written by noted Jazz homer Ben Dowsett, can we really call it a "538 article" in the sense of coming from a dispassionate national source?

Sure we can. Just because Dowsett is a Jazz fan doesn't mean he's incapable of putting together a pretty damn logical, hard-to-rebut argument for Gobert. It belongs on 538.

 

[idiot]

Sure we can. Just because Dowsett is a Jazz fan doesn't mean he's incapable of putting together a pretty damn logical, hard-to-rebut argument for Gobert. It belongs on 538.

It may be logical, it may belong on 538; but there's no getting away from the fact that a Jazz fan wrote it.

Just like when Bill Simmons writes something favorable toward a Celtics player: doesn't mean he can't be right, but I'll always take what he writes about the Celtics with a grain of salt.

 

[MT Steve]

It may be logical, it may belong on 538; but there's no getting away from the fact that a Jazz fan wrote it.

Just like when Bill Simmons writes something favorable toward a Celtics player: doesn't mean he can't be right, but I'll always take what he writes about the Celtics with a grain of salt.

Or you could just form your opinion of the content based on the content itself instead of the person writing it.

 

[idiot]

All I'm saying is that we don't get to disregard who the author is just because of where it is published.

 

[MT Steve]

All I'm saying is that we don't get to disregard who the author is just because of where it is published.

No, but you also don't get to disregard whether or not the article belongs on 538 just because of who wrote it.

If you think the content of the article isn't 538 worthy, that's another thing entirely. This just feels like an ad-hominem.

 

[idiot]

Or you could just form your opinion of the content based on the content itself instead of the person writing it.

Well, if you want that, I'd put it in the context of the Ringer article on defense stats that was posted yesterday. To the extent that all-in-one defensive stats mean anything, then yes, Gobert is as good as it gets. The Ringer's article made that clear, as did Ben's article -- both very persuasively. But there's plenty of reason to be wary of all-in-one defensive stats.

Personally I have no problem with Ben's argument as long as we keep in mind that these stats are imperfect. But I also recognize that articles like his aren't going to persuade people who don't trust those stats . And believe it or not, some people will decide to trust trust those stats or not depending on whether they're a Jazz or Sixers fan.

 

[idiot]

No, but you also don't get to disregard whether or not the article belongs on 538 just because of who wrote it.

If you think the content of the article isn't 538 worthy, that's another thing entirely. This just feels like an ad-hominem.

It's worthy to be on 538. 538 is a stats based site, and Ben usually does quite well with stats.

I will admit to being somewhat old fashioned when it comes to journalism, however. The recent blurring of blogging and journalism in sports means that we have lots of "fanboys" (I don't mean this perjoratively) who are breaking through into journalism, but often by putting out pieces in support of their home team. This can be done well (as I think Ben usually does), but I would be quicker to consider it as dispassionate journalism when done in the service of something other than the home team.

I don't mean to make a huge deal out if it. I just think the 538 platform and the Dowsett authorship (and kudos to Ben for publishing in 538) need to be mentioned together when thinking about this article.

 

[infection]

Well, if you want that, I'd put it in the context of the Ringer article on defense stats that was posted yesterday. To the extent that all-in-one defensive stats mean anything, then yes, Gobert is as good as it gets. The Ringer's article made that clear, as did Ben's article -- both very persuasively. But there's plenty of reason to be wary of all-in-one defensive stats.

Personally I have no problem with Ben's argument as long as we keep in mind that these stats are imperfect. But I also recognize that articles like his aren't going to persuade people who don't trust those stats . And believe it or not, some people will decide to trust trust those stats or not depending on whether they're a Jazz or Sixers fan.

I could be wrong because I was reading this earlier today piecemeal while otherwise occupied with different tasks, but wasn't the main point about the stats not that there are one or two statistical models highlighting Rudy's defensive season, but that all of the models consistently put him at the top? Every model has variance and outliers, but my take-away was that he's preforming so well that his performance isn't being negated by any kind of variance or anomaly in any model, and therefore give further credibility to it being legit.

It'd be like testing students on a certain subject matter. Every test is imperfect and includes bias that will impact where people fall in the distribution, but if you have one student scoring 98-100% on all the tests, the amalgam shows that the individual doesn't seem to be particularly phased by any variance or bias in the tests and that they're having a ceiling effect.

 

[idiot]

I could be wrong because I was reading this earlier today piecemeal while otherwise occupied with different tasks, but wasn't the main point about the stats not that there are one or two statistical models highlighting Rudy's defensive season, but that all of the models consistently put him at the top? Every model has variance and outliers, but my take-away was that he's preforming so well that his performance isn't being negated by any kind of variance or anomaly in any model, and therefore give further credibility to it being legit.

It'd be like testing students on a certain subject matter. Every test is imperfect and includes bias that will impact where people fall in the distribution, but if you have one student scoring 98-100% on all the tests, the amalgam shows that the individual doesn't seem to be particularly phased by any variance or bias in the tests and that they're having a ceiling effect.

Yes, both Ben's article and the Ringer article made this point, and made it well. It is a powerful point.

But there are ways to rebut it and reasons people may choose to downplay it, nonetheless.

Defensive stats are kind of like IQ tests or college entrance tests. They are as close as we seem to be able get to measuring the thing we want to measure (intelligence, defensive ability, for example), but there are a lot of good reasons to think that not all parts of the whole basket of attributes we value (about intelligence, defense) are completely measurable. Or that someone's place within a particular system may predispose them toward higher scores according to the leading measures that exist.

It's great that Rudy scores high on virtually all the measures, because each measure looks for something a little different than other measures. But this is not the same thing as saying that all things that are valued about defensive ability (or intelligence for that matter) can be measured by the set of all measures. Even though the tests collectively measure a lot, they're not collectively taking into account everything we value about defense, simply because some of those things are unmeasurable (or depend too much on teams' systems).

This doesn't change the fact that I think Rudy's the best defensive player in the world. It just acknowledges that there are limits to the measures we have, even when utilized collectively.

 

[Rubashov]

Yes a bit click baity title, but I believe for 95% of even top fans and for likely more of the broad NBA fan base this is probably true.

Here's the defensive side of why:

Defensive Metrics Don’t Ever Agree … Except On Rudy Gobert’s Great Season

End-of-year NBA awards are a good lens through which to evaluate the league’s best performances, but the framing isn’t always quite right. Certain seasons are s…

fivethirtyeight.com

Pretty hard not to say Gobert may be the greatest defensive player in history if you're open minded about the data.

By being the smartest defender ever (not going for blocks when it doesn't help the team, learning to handle drop coverage adjustments by top tier 3 assassins, understanding how to be the ultimate help defender in a broken 2v1 from a PnR) and his unique body type the man enables so-so defenders around him to become a top defense year in and year out.

There's another article waiting to be written about his offensive prowess as the perfect work horse 3 point enabling machine. Not as impactful as his D but still mighty important.

And it's likely why he got more than Spida as the team realizes it and wants to reward his drastically underappreciated impact on the game.

Haven't posted much lately but can't help it when something I've guessed at for a long time gets crystallized so succinctly at 538.

Great read, thanks.

 

[Saint Cy of JFC]

Wish this was written by someone else.

 

[Getting Traded]

Well, until he can stop fumbling passes, I'm not totally convinced. He has actually cost us games because of his turnovers.