Post#434 » by Rainy » Sat Nov 15, 2014 9:05 pm
The above statistical breakdown doesn't even attempt to identify possible confounding variables or speak to its limitations. You cite blocks, for instance, but conveniently ignore that Miles' rim protection numbers have been poor (not as bad as Lopez's though). Yes, he's been great coming from the weak side to contest shots - a testament to his lateral quickness and jumping ability - but nowhere do you mention his horrible rotations.
Too often in basketball anlsyis athleticism is conflated with good defense. There is a current meme that Plumlee is a high-IQ player, but his play thus far on the defensive end has told me anything but. Not only he is fouling at a higher rate - oftentimes because he overplays his man and/or exhibits poor timing in his contests - but also his help defense is inconsistent. The guy just doesn't know where to place himself on the floor.
Plumlee has been at his worst when the other big leaves the paint to contest a guard. Instead of picking up the guy's man and boxing him out, Plumlee just stands idly, too slow to react.
Defensive rating is really a horrible statistic. It doesn't control for significant confounding variables related to the lineup one plays in as well as the lineups one faces. Plumlee has had the luxury of facing worse units, on average, than some of our starters. And when he plays with KG in the same lineup, KG can defend the 5, where Kevin is better suited than defending the 4.
I've been most disappointed with Plumlee's PnR coverage. With his athleticism he should be really effective at hedging and rotating to cover other bigs. But he just hasn't figured out that technique or anticipation yet.
The rebounding numbers also don't speak to Plumlee's production. Besides horribly overrated in mainstream analysis, defensive rebounds vary in value depending on whether they are contested or uncontested. The latter kind of rebound has little value and follows from the counterfactual analysis that has Player B not grabbed a rebound, Teammate A could have just as easily grabbed it.
From my observation, Plumlee has grabbed a very high portion of his team's uncontested rebounds (once the tracking data for this is released, I will get it to you guys). But he has struggled on the contested boards due to a combination of poor boxing-out and not rotating to cover other bigs. Despite his athleticism, his technique isn't there yet.
An interesting exercise might be to look at combinations of our bigs to see which yield the higher defensive rebounding rates, all while keeping in mind this is a small sample (but you've opened up the floodgates there).
1. KG-Teletovic 86.1%
2. KG-Lopez 79.4%
3. KG-Plumlee 74.2%
4. Plumlee-Teletovic 71.4%
5. Plumlee-Lopez 66.7%
6. Lopez-Teletovic 65.1%
When breaking it down this way, it suggests KG is perhaps the greater cause for the Net's rebounding success, even if it is not reflected in his personal DReb%. In general, I put little stock in individual DReb% because it struggles to account for the existence of rebounding padding, as well as important things like boxing-out.