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Game Thread: OKC Thunder vs Utah Jazz 3/28/15 @ESA 7 PM MT

An article on ESPN today kind of highlights what I'm talking about:

For all of his offensive growth, Kanter has continued to struggle on the defensive end, where that lack of ability to focus manifests itself nightly in the form of blown rotations and missed assignments.

It's no coincidence that Utah's defensive revival (from a bottom-five posting of 106.1 points allowed per 100 possessions to a league-best mark of 93.3 points allowed per 100 possessions) occurred immediately after Kanter was jettisoned from Salt Lake City. Meanwhile, he has carried over his defensive shortcomings to OKC, where the Thunder are allowing more than 109 points per 100 possessions when he is on the floor (versus 103 when he is off it). In fact, Kanter is the only Thunder rotation player to be a net negative when on the court, albeit only slightly (-1.0). His combined defensive RPM in Utah and OKC has been minus-3.74, which places him dead last among all bigs, and in the bottom 10 of all players this season.

The blown rotations and missed assignments in the first paragraph don't harm him at all in the stat you posted. Since he's missing the rotations/assignments altogether, it doesn't register as a contested shot.
 
KD's Framily said:
An article on ESPN today kind of highlights what I'm talking about:

For all of his offensive growth, Kanter has continued to struggle on the defensive end, where that lack of ability to focus manifests itself nightly in the form of blown rotations and missed assignments.

It's no coincidence that Utah's defensive revival (from a bottom-five posting of 106.1 points allowed per 100 possessions to a league-best mark of 93.3 points allowed per 100 possessions) occurred immediately after Kanter was jettisoned from Salt Lake City. Meanwhile, he has carried over his defensive shortcomings to OKC, where the Thunder are allowing more than 109 points per 100 possessions when he is on the floor (versus 103 when he is off it). In fact, Kanter is the only Thunder rotation player to be a net negative when on the court, albeit only slightly (-1.0). His combined defensive RPM in Utah and OKC has been minus-3.74, which places him dead last among all bigs, and in the bottom 10 of all players this season.

The blown rotations and missed assignments in the first paragraph don't harm him at all in the stat you posted. Since he's missing the rotations/assignments altogether, it doesn't register as a contested shot.
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Your quoting an ESPN article who's argument revolves around data gathered from dRTG?
 
Just rewatched the game.

Players took a lot of jump shots in Kanters face trying to knock one down in his face but didnt shoot them that well. That is why the stats seem like he played "good defense." When in fact he didnt even close out usually. When it came to the paint Kanter (when he bothered to help out on pick and rolls, more often he stayed standing still) got blown by. Hayward exposed his poor pick and roll defense like three plays in a row in the second half.

Someone who is good at making gifs should make one of Gobert knocking Kanter to the ground face first. Loved that play. Made me laugh that Kanter pretended he was fine and acted tough then as soon as he walked away he grimaced and acted like he was gonna cry.

Loved watching him get nervous shooting free throws. Crowd was in his head and he was shaky. Kanter did have a few nice post moves and its funny how much better Kanter is when he tries hard. If Kanter ever grows up and takes the time to learn the game and put in the kind of effort he does when he has the ball into his defense and off the ball offense he could be pretty good. But he probably never will. Best case scenerio he grows up and has a poor mans Zach Randolph career path.
 
The Blue Elephant said:
Your quoting an ESPN article who's argument revolves around data gathered from dRTG?
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Of all the things you choose to focus on, it's the one tiny portion of that excerpt that literally has nothing to do with my point?

dRTG for teams as a whole is a good stat. For individual players it's useless, for various reasons I've explained to death already. The argument within the article doesn't revolve around dRTG for individual players at all. It briefly mentions it, but it also cites that Kanter is prone to blown rotations and missed assignments (absolutely true), and compares the two team's defenses pre and post trade (less to do with my point but still relevant).
 
KD's Framily said:
Of all the things you choose to focus on, it's the one tiny portion of that excerpt that literally has nothing to do with my point?

dRTG for teams as a whole is a good stat. For individual players it's useless, for various reasons I've explained to death already. The argument within the article doesn't revolve around dRTG for individual players at all. It briefly mentions it, but it also cites that Kanter is prone to blown rotations and missed assignments (absolutely true), and compares the two team's defenses pre and post trade (less to do with my point but still relevant).
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So dRTG of the team overall is more important of the dRTG of the team when the player is actually on the floor?
 
Will love to watch this matchup when Favors is playing. Favors, Gobert and hopefully Booker and Tomic will own OKCs frontline for years. Unless Kanter signs a max offer with some team like NY and OKC has seen enough of his ****ty defense and immature distractions.
 
The Blue Elephant said:
So dRTG of the team overall is more important of the dRTG of the team when the player is actually on the floor?
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It's more like drawing conclusions about the team's defense as a whole using the team's dRTG is good. Drawing conclusions about a player's defense using the team's dRTG while he is on the court is dumb, for reasons that we've already discussed to death. Are we really having this conversation yet again?
 
KD's Framily said:
It's more like drawing conclusions about the team's defense as a whole using the team's dRTG is good. Drawing conclusions about a player's defense using the team's dRTG while he is on the court is dumb, for reasons that we've already discussed to death. Are we really having this conversation yet again?
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I never said dRTG of Kanter shows that Kanter was playing particularly good defense though. I said that the Utah Jazz have been improving defense steadily throughout the year and had good dRTG even with kanter the last 20 games of the year. If you look back everytime I mention dRTG was when people were saying "Enes Kanter left the Jazz and all of a sudden first ranked defense in the NBA" in which I responded the Utah Jazz defense was improving throughout the year even when Kanter was playing. I listed dRTG stat showing that the team was good at defense even when Enes Kanter was on the floor in the last 20 games of his Jazz career and especially so the last 14 games.
 
The Blue Elephant said:
I never said dRTG of Kanter shows that Kanter was playing particularly good defense though. I said that the Utah Jazz have been improving defense steadily throughout the year and had good dRTG even with kanter the last 20 games of the year. If you look back everytime I mention dRTG was when people were saying "Enes Kanter left the Jazz and all of a sudden first ranked defense in the NBA" in which I responded the Utah Jazz defense was improving throughout the year even when Kanter was playing. I listed dRTG stat showing that the team was good at defense even when Enes Kanter was on the floor in the last 20 games of his Jazz career and especially so the last 14 games.
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I think during that stretch you're talking about Kanter's dRTG was even higher than Gobert's. Which really goes to show how misleading that stat is: Kanter primarily played alongside Favors and Gobert. Gobert primarily played alongside Kanter and Booker.

The Jazz for the last month or so before the trade were defending at about a league-average level. After the trade, they immediately jumped to league best, by a wide margin, and are still there. So yes, when you throw Kanter back into the mix, the Jazz have incredible enough defenders that they can still defend at a league average.

The thing to draw from that isn't that Kanter CAN be on a good defense. It shows that EVEN IF you have incredible elite defensive talent that would otherwise be #1 in the NBA, the best you can hope for with Kanter having heavy minutes is a league average defense.
 
I watched some highlights of this game on YouTube and there was a play where Rodney hood went hard at the hoop and drove his shoulder into Adams and sent Adams to the floor.
While Adams was on his back on the floor, the ball came down and hit him square in the vagina. It was hilarious. He stayed down for quite a while
 
fishonjazz said:
I watched some highlights of this game on YouTube and there was a play where Rodney hood went hard at the hoop and drove his shoulder into Adams and sent Adams to the floor.
While Adams was on his back on the floor, the ball came down and hit him square in the vagina. It was hilarious. He stayed down for quite a while
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https://gfycat.com/IdealUnsteadyAvians

Should've been the Morgan Jeweler play of the game.
 
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