Does Harden's defense make Derozan a better overall SG?

[Yolo]

but did he improve, is was it a function of alot of other variables? the biggest being fewer defensive finishes of the opponent?? or small sample size?? honest Q.

DD played 3017 mins in the regular season, and according to Synergy had 701 finishes against. Its about 4.30 mins for every defensive finish against.

TR played 2159 mins, and had 761 finishes against. 2.83 mins.

KL played 2862 mins, and had 888 finishes against. 3.22 mins.

JS played 1281 mins with the Raps, and had 365 finishes against. 3.5 mins.

GV played 1314 mins, and had 389 finishes against. 3.37 mins.

So isnt it plausible that as a function of a) his role defensively, and b) the dearth of wings, that some of his advanced defensive stats were inflated? Again this is just a Q, im not trying to be definitive. If were using previous yrs + the POs, then this regular season could have been a outlier, re:Synergy specifically.

I mean, DRPM hes a net negative. So its not all advanced stats.

That could apply to everything else too though. Last season DD made a huge jump in PER, FTR, AST% for example. Are you gonna say all those are outleirs too? It just seems to me you're discarding his improvements cause he got abused by JJ for 7 games.

Not at all, infact I just showed you DRPM indicates otherwise during the season.

And you could make the case, that they are outliers, not that I would believe it (re: his Passing/FTr) because theres too much evidence to the contrary, whereas his D doesnt have that much supporting it. And AST% is irrelevant, his % of teams ASTs means nothing in his improvements (that could be swayed by teammates around him), its the ASTr. I wont even go into PERs issues.

You're right they could be outliers especially in regards to his play making, who knows. As for defensively, I'm not saying he's a strong defender but I do believe he's improved in that area. He's not as bad as he looked in the playoffs. That was a very bad match up for him due to JJ's size advantage imo. The last time I checked his synergy stats were very good in the regluar but were obviously inflated due to guarding the weaker player. Were his synergy stats from he previous 4 seasons as good cause that I'm not sure of.

[vini_vidi_vici]

That could apply to everything else too though. Last season DD made a huge jump in PER, FTR, AST% for example. Are you gonna say all those are outleirs too? It just seems to me you're discarding his improvements cause he got abused by JJ for 7 games.

Not at all, infact I just showed you DRPM indicates otherwise during the season.

And you could make the case, that they are outliers, not that I would believe it (re: his Passing/FTr) because theres too much evidence to the contrary, whereas his D doesnt have that much supporting it. And AST% is irrelevant, his % of teams ASTs means nothing in his improvements (that could be swayed by teammates around him), its the ASTr. I wont even go into PERs issues.

You're right they could be outliers especially in regards to his play making, who knows. As for defensively, I'm not saying he's a strong defender but I do believe he's improved in that area. He's not as bad as he looked in the playoffs. That was a very bad match up for him due to JJ's size advantage imo. The last time I checked his synergy stats were very good in the regluar but were obviously inflated due to guarding the weaker player. Were his synergy stats from he previous 4 seasons as good cause that I'm not sure of.

I have tried googling but to no avail, ill keep looking, its gotta be in my Photobucket somewhere, last years atleast, ill post it if/when I find it. I dont deny hes had improvements however marginal, I guess what im asking is why?? was it small sample, was it a function of his role, was it ____, was it all of these things, because then maybe we could understand how much of it was an outlier, if at all. Now I concede most D stats suck, but its all we have to discuss.

[YoungG]

I think Demar will be better defensively this year. His experience with team USA will be invaluable and I'm sure he's picked up things that he didn't know before about becoming a stronger defender. He's clearly active and tries to defend but in the past I think his positioning and reaction time were always off. He seems to have cleaned it up a bit more from what I saw while watching the FIBA tournament. Hopefully it translates to the Raptors.

[WiggOuts]

one thing that really makes you think is how come you don't ever see any of his teammates chew him out for laziness on d