Is Avery Bradley a Good Defender?

yoyoboy · Post #1 » by **yoyoboy** » Wed Jun 28, 2017 5:15 pm

There's been a lot of talk about how crazy it is that Bradley didn't make an All-Defensive Team. Even some players are chipping in.

Read on Twitter

Yet the numbers tell a different story. He's 417th out of 468 in DRPM! RAPM doesn't paint him any better, with him posting a -1.85 DRAPM. And if you believe the box score has much relevance when it comes to defense, he had a -0.4 DBPM.

So what gives? Why is there such a discrepancy between the stats and how his defense is viewed around the league?

apeezus · Post #2 » by **apeezus** » Wed Jun 28, 2017 5:24 pm

I'm not going to overreact to the obviously ridiculous premise of the title but it's really not all that complicated. Yes, he is an very good defender at the guard position. No, that fact isn't reflected by RAPM because a) RAPM can be noisy, especially on the defensive end and b) he plays the vast majority of his minutes alongside the worst defensive player in basketball.

HeartBreakKid · Post #3 » by **HeartBreakKid** » Wed Jun 28, 2017 5:26 pm

He's not as good as his reputation suggest, he is a very good man to man defender against quick guards which is rare, and looks impressive to the "eye" test.

But he is not anything special on the other aspects of defense.

A reason why his stats are probably as bad as they are is because his back up is Marcus Smart who is MUCH better than Bradley, and if I had to guess Avery Bradley plays more minutes with Isaiah Thomas than Smart does as well (I am assuming this because of starting roles, though I wouldnt be surprised if it was even).

His defense is not as bad as his stats suggest, but he's not a top tier defender, and Marcus Smart is much better - perception and reptuation matter a lot when it comes to defensive awards which is why there is so much out rage over Bradleys "snub".

feyki · Post #4 » by **feyki** » Wed Jun 28, 2017 5:36 pm

Danny Green is the best defensive player of the guard position as a star defensive player. And There are a few have above average impact on that end, names of like Beverley,Bradley,Paul etc..

Bradley has a solid shot defence and force opponent perimeter players to tunovers with the agressive defence.

I don't know about plus minus metrics. But for the Box Score Metrics, blocks are not showing how well you're defending the shots and steals don't show how many turnovers you forced.

Xherdan 23 · Post #5 » by **Xherdan 23** » Wed Jun 28, 2017 6:13 pm

yoyoboy wrote:There's been a lot of talk about how crazy it is that Bradley didn't make an All-Defensive Team. Even some players are chipping in.

Yet the numbers tell a different story. He's 417th out of 468 in DRPM! RAPM doesn't paint him any better, with him posting a -1.85 DRAPM. And if you believe the box score has much relevance when it comes to defense, he had a -0.4 DBPM.

So what gives? Why is there such a discrepancy between the stats and how his defense is viewed around the league?

I really don't care what players say most of the time.
They only saw Bradley 2-4 times this year and I doubt they watch games in their free time.

That being said, I think they're right lol. Bradley is a top wing defender in the league.

I'd say the reason stats show him as bad is because he spends most of his minutes next to IT with Horford or Olynyk protecting the rim and defending the pick&roll.

So despite him being a great defender, he's part of a not so great backcourt defense and the stats have trouble telling the difference.

RCM88x · Post #6 » by **RCM88x** » Wed Jun 28, 2017 7:46 pm

He's a very skilled defensive player, but a negative impact one. Probably because he isn't great at coming off of his man on helps or avoids screens? I haven't watched enough of him to really have a grasp on his poor defensive stats, perhaps something similar to Kawhi this season?

It would be interesting to look at the lineup data and see exactly where they're getting burned.

MEGAQUIB · Post #7 » by **MEGAQUIB** » Wed Jun 28, 2017 7:57 pm

Probably the best defensive shooting guard in the league. His advanced stats are just crushed by who he plays with.

Mike Hok · Post #8 » by **Mike Hok** » Wed Jun 28, 2017 8:03 pm

His perimeter man defense is nothing short of elite (among the best I've ever seen from a guard). He has insane durability aswell as very decent team defense. In today's NBA he's likely the most hated matchup for most 2-guards in the game. And btw, defensive impact stats, especially perimeter defense are a bunch of bs.

giberish · Post #9 » by **giberish** » Wed Jun 28, 2017 8:09 pm

Players rate defense by 1- on 1, iso defense (at least for perimeter players). That's Bradley's strength so he'll get rated higher by that standard then by someone caring about all-around defense.

Ron Swanson · Post #10 » by **Ron Swanson** » Wed Jun 28, 2017 8:20 pm

Pretty simple. He's a great defender, but voters are just discovering RAPM and subsequently overvaluing it as an accurate measure of individual defense. It's the downside of over-reliance on analytics and treating them as gospel. It's just weird how they didn't similarly penalize Kawhi despite the same numbers saying that his team was +8.6 points better on defense when he was on the bench. So likely a combination of bias, and analytic contrarianism.

LivingLegend · Post #11 » by **LivingLegend** » Wed Jun 28, 2017 8:23 pm

Sounds like a Kawhi Leonard situation. Bradley/Kawhi both share the same perception of being incredible defenders yet the numbers say their teams are better on defense when they are not on the court.

This is where there needs to be a balance between the eye test and analytics and not taking either one as 100% accurate.

I think the simple conclusion would be to say both Bradley/Kawhi are good defenders but not all-world.

HeartBreakKid · Post #12 » by **HeartBreakKid** » Wed Jun 28, 2017 8:27 pm

giberish wrote:Players rate defense by 1- on 1, iso defense (at least for perimeter players). That's Bradley's strength so he'll get rated higher by that standard then by someone caring about all-around defense.

I agree with this, players think in terms of man to man largely.

prejt · Post #13 » by **prejt** » Wed Jun 28, 2017 8:45 pm

he's outstanding. but the writers voting of course know more than these players do.

E-Balla · Post #14 » by **E-Balla** » Wed Jun 28, 2017 8:51 pm

Smart is a better defender than him. I don't get why Avery is the one. He's good but let's be real he phoned it in a lot of the year.

Post #15 » by **Clyde Frazier** » Wed Jun 28, 2017 9:03 pm

Really surprised no one's mentioned he only played in 55 games this year. That's one of the main reasons he missed the cut. He's a very good man defender putting pressure on a ball handler and denying the ball. Maybe that doesn't impact the overall team defense as much as it should. Of course there can always be noise in lineup data without looking further into the context of it.

Jaivl · Post #16 » by **Jaivl** » Wed Jun 28, 2017 9:47 pm

Kobe syndrome: good on ball, bad off ball. Also: lineups.

homecourtloss · Post #17 » by **homecourtloss** » Wed Jun 28, 2017 10:39 pm

He didn't deserve to be on one,

He wasn't particularly effective in ISO defense either. Out of 76 players who defended 1 ISO possession per game and played 50 games, he ranked 66th out of 76 players.

http://stats.nba.com/players/isolation/#!?sort=PPP&dir=-1&Season=2016-17&SeasonType=Regular%20Season&OD=defensive&CF=PossG*GE*1:GP*GE*50

His defense directly contesting shots wasn't very good--opponents shot about 2% better against him than they did against everyone else. http://stats.nba.com/player/#!/202340/defense-dash/

His team defense isn't great anymore.

He did not deserve to be on any all defensive team this season or the last few seasons. He was a defensive monster his first few seasons, but as his offensive responsibilities grew, his defense suffered as it does for almost all players.

Ortho Stice · Post #18 » by **Ortho Stice** » Wed Jun 28, 2017 11:39 pm

He's short and not that strong and is often undersized and overmatched at his own position. Most shooting guards can easily shoot over him or outmuscle him. Also, his basketball IQ is pretty low and he commits a lot of bad fouls when the Celtics are in the penalty. Here's an example of a low BBIQ play where he commits a bad foul on Khris Middleton to lose the game: https://streamable.com/kora? As a Celtics fan I've always thought that he was an overrated defender and have wanted Ainge to trade him because his ability doesn't really match up to his reputation.

Woodsanity · Post #19 » by **Woodsanity** » Thu Jun 29, 2017 3:01 am

Overrated but decent defender overall

Post #20 » by **Texas Chuck** » Thu Jun 29, 2017 3:14 am

homecourtloss wrote:He didn't deserve to be on one,

He wasn't particularly effective in ISO defense either. Out of 76 players who defended 1 ISO possession per game and played 50 games, he ranked 66th out of 76 players.

ignores that he's always taking the toughest matchup. These stats need context. For instance Dirk ranked first in post defense several seasons if I recall, but of course it doesn't tell you that he's always taking the easiest possible matchup. And since almost no teams outside of the Grizz have 2 post-up bigs on the court together its easy to look good.

Guard the toughest iso scorers every night in a league designed to make it impossible to defend them and you are going to give up some numbers. Doesn't make you a bad defender.

People are relying too much on some stats without using context or understanding that our individual statistics still have serious limitations in the context of a team game. If you take a look at 5 man units with Bradley you will see that any combos that played any meaningful minutes together were quite effective with Bradley except when they paired Amir and Olynyk at the bigs with IT at the point and of course the most reasonable explanation wouldn't be that Bradley is the weak spot.