Defensive About Defense

[milesfides]

Defense is always a touchy topic. Generally, it's easier to quantify offense. Statistically, it's harder to account exactly for defense; the eye test does have some merit, although it's subjective and highly susceptible to prejudice. However, the available defensive stats have been helpful.

But using defensive ratings from basketball reference, nba.com, etc.:
Around 100 = elite
Low 100's = good.
Mid 100s = average.
Close to 110 = poor.

Lonzo Ball is good.
Julius Randle has been average.
Brandon Ingram has been average.
Josh Hart has been average to poor.
KCP, average to poor.
Kyle Kuzma, poor.
(Larry Nance Jr., good)

Aside from Lonzo, there's really no reasonable evidence of any potentially elite or even good defender on our team. And teams that win rings usually have ALL NBA DEFENSE candidates or close to it.

There's certainly hope and possibility with some of our young players, but reasonable projection? I don't know. Kawhi Leonard, Paul George, Jimmy Butler, Draymond Green, etc. were statistically good/elite defenders even as rookies.

Aside from slipping due to age or injury, most players are consistently what they are on defense throughout their careers. Great, good, average, bad, ugly, but mostly the same.

Note: Lebron has always been always good to elite defender, except for the past two seasons. Average to poor, at 32 and 33 years old. I'd bet his days of being an elite defender, consistently over the year, are over. Kobe faded from elite/good to average at 33/34, during that grind-it-out season which ended in his Achilles tear. After that, poor.

[milesfides]

This is relevant to winning championships, of course.

The Warriors' two recent championships had 7 players posting elite defense. Staggering.

The Spurs had 8 or 9 good-to-elite players for their '14 championship.

The Cavs' championship roster had 6 players posting good-elite. Lebron's Heat had about 7. Last year when they lost, they had zero! Kevin Love and Lebron led them with average to poor defense.

The Kobe-Pau titles had 7 good-to-elite.

Kobe-Shaq three-peat...pretty much our entire roster was elite. Amazing.

Bottom line: this current team is far away.

[TylersLakers]

I think Randle's individual D on switches has been really good. And when he truly locks in, which happens a few times a game, he's one of the best in the league.

But yeah, the pieces are not all the way there for us. Lonzo, Ingram, Hart, Kuz, Randle, all need to be better. Kuz has been awful defensively pretty much all season, except when he actually locks in. Which is very rare. Ingram gets back-cut at least once a game, and that's happened since the first game he played as a rookie.

[TheHartBreakKid]

I think Ingram certainly has good/elite defensive potential, even if he isn't showing it right now. Randle being average sounds about right....he's very good at switching and perimeter D, but not a rim protector by any means. I think adding a PG or Lebron All Defensive level player will certainly do wonders as well. Lonzo Ingram and atleast one elite defender added to the core through Free Agency and you have a pretty damn good groundwork layed out for being an elite defensive team. Interesting to see that Hart's numbers don't support the common belief around here that he's a good defender. Hopefully he can show some improvement as well, as the effort is certainly there. Nance was a great defensive piece, but his offense simply didn't develop enough to warrant keeping him with Kuz and Julius on board.

[evilpimp972]

That's PG would be great for us, I love his defense.

Btw we are improving and trending in the right direction, don't be too greedy, our defense isn't elite but we lost a lot of players due to injuries this year. The Warriors weren't elite until Iguodala joined them

[stan francisco]

I'm excited and optimistic about where our defense is going. It's looking better by the game. We're 12th as a team in defensive ranking for the season, with a team full of kids. The teams higher ranked are all in the playoffs.

Advanced past defensive stats for a team of rookies that are continually improving every day mean less than for established veterans who have plateaued at their career production average.

We can only try to predict the progress of our pimpled kids, not go back to stats that will be outperformed next week, they're making strides in a hurry. It's coming together for them all individually and as a group, per the eye test. They still make rookie mistakes, it's still a moving target.

My point? Unless we're looking at something different than potential, the normal numbers will be misleading for this squad because of their age and the circumstances being the way they are, Luke, new FO and culture etc. We're growing into contention quickly.

We've won 8 of our last 10 with our two best wing defenders missing for part of it. Ingram and Hart.

When the season is over, from March and on will be more indicative of where they are and more true to where they could be expected to pick it up from at the start of next season. They're getting better in a hurry. The zits are clearing.

Eye test says to me about these guys' defensive potential:
• Lonzo's is a top shelf talent PG (and overall) defender in his 1st year(!) Elite future defensive PG, no doubt.
• Hart is a budding defensive total bulldog in his 1st year, will beast next season as he was just coming into his own with minutes and improved defensively by the game.
• Ingram's defense (year 2) has improved vastly and quickly lately. Pre-injury, not just me but HOFer Worthy pointed out BI's remarkable progress on that end of the floor. Again, his defense might not show the same promise if we analyze the stats from December. Worthy talked about the same improvements - using the eye test. A sample size from ASB and season out will be the stats to check for a summer break reference for BI's D.
• Kuzma (1st year) is making huge strides but still doesn't play defense near well or smart or intense enough. But compare his defensive numbers from ASB and out at end of season with the stats from Oct-Feb. I'd guess he improved lots. Eye test tells me so.
• Randle is not yet an elite defender but he's a bull whom it hurts to go around, can guard 2-5. He's got very good lateral quickness for a beast his size and his positional and help defense is improving as we speak. He's in what's effectively his second real season (watching Kobe chucking farewell for a year, broken leg first year).

—---------

To be fair, we should compare all of their rookie and sophomore defensive stats with PG's, LBJ's, Green's etc — in their first season. I'm very optimistic about that comparison. Also feeling very confident about our young team's potential defense next season, no matter whom we add.

[kobe_vs_jordan]

Comparing per 100 ratings of players on different teams is severely misusing the stat. The stat is only good within the context of the same team. Players on good defensive teams have high defensive ratings. Rookie Kwahi, Draymond, Butler, etc all played on good defensive teams.

Sort the lakers players by defensive rating and it gives a pretty accurate reflection of Lakers defensive potential.

[Sedale Threatt]

I do agree that it's critical to look at players in terms of how they fit together as a whole. For example, the fact that we have amassed a core of players that are pretty damn bad at the foul line isn't ideal. The same could be said of just about any facet -- turnovers, rebounding, shooting, whatever.

But in terms of defense, I'm not overly concerned given that as it stands, we currently rank 13th in defensive rating as a whole -- not great, but certainly within range of the Top 10 ranking you need to be a legitimate contender. We're actually very good defending 3s (sixth) and solid in overall FG% (11th), so I don't see why we shouldn't be able to improve.

[milesfides]

The reason is that title teams have had at least one or two all-nba defense players who buoy the entire team’s defense.

Who are those guys on this team?

Not going to reinvent the wheel. Don’t have those guys? You’re not winning it all.

[TyCobb]

The reason is that title teams have had at least one or two all-nba defense players who buoy the entire team’s defense.

Who are those guys on this team?

Not going to reinvent the wheel. Don’t have those guys? You’re not winning it all.

Lonzo Ball.

[milesfides]

Lonzo is the best chance we got, except top defensive point guards usually don’t have the same impact as forwards and centers. Points have the smallest sphere of influence on defense and a ball screen usually takes care of them. The last time a guard won defensive player of the year was ‘95 with Gary Payton and he never won a ring. Rajon Rondo is the only championship point guard on an all-nba defense team - but only with perennial all nba defense Kevin Garnett as a teammate. He’s been irrelevant before and after KG.

When it comes to all-nba defense, forwards and centers dominate the championship teams:

Draymond Green, Kawhi Leonard, Lebron, Duncan, Bogut, KG, Bowen, Ben Wallace, Shaq, David Robinson, Pippen, Hakeem, Rodman.

If you want to win a championship, better get an all-nba defense frontcourt player.

[stan francisco]

The reason is that title teams have had at least one or two all-nba defense players who buoy the entire team’s defense.

Who are those guys on this team?

Not going to reinvent the wheel. Don’t have those guys? You’re not winning it all.

Lonzo Ball.

We should compare our current players' rookie and sophomore defensive stats with PG's, LBJ's, Green's rookie and sophmore year defensive stats.

It's unreasonable to expect them to be better than 12-13 best at their age.

[stan francisco]

The reason is that title teams have had at least one or two all-nba defense players who buoy the entire team’s defense.

Who are those guys on this team?

Our starters. Two or three or four of them should be elite defenders already by next season. Some of them were boys this year, will be men in the fall.

I think we will crack the top 5 as a team in defensive rankings in 18-19.

For their individual defensive next season I'm not ruling out, in fact, I expect the following level.

Lonzo — A+, elite
Hart — A, top shelf
Ingram — A+, elite
Kuzma — B+, improvement ongoing
Randle — A, top shelf / A+, elite

Beastly defensive by committee.

[Landsberger]

Defense is a team aspect of the game. Individual statistics are useless in predicting a defensive performance. Steals and Blocked Shots are some of the worst stats in sports if you truly look at what the quantify and what they don't in relation to defense. Blocked shots are nothing more than touching an opposing players shot. How may times does it result in a change of possession? Less than half is the answer. How many times does a player break the defense to get 2 blocks a game? Not quantified in that statistic. That is the most important part of it btw...

Fans tend to focus on the individual play over the team play. Josh Hart is a great example. Most here believe he's very strong defensively. On the ball, against larger guards he's OK. Off the ball, playing the scheme he's not good at all. Randle is similar. On the perimeter one on one he's very good, within the scheme he's just OK. In the paint he's barely OK.

I've always thought the signaling out of individuals on defense is a little silly. Great defensive teams know each other and the scheme. We've played some very good defense this year in stretches and we've played some horrible defense. That's about what you would expect from a team with a lot of youngsters that is also going through a lot of lineup changes. It's not a coincidence that our best defense this year was when we had a very stable rotation.

[milesfides]

Individual stats aren't useless. You can say 2 blocks a game or 2 steals a game aren’t that important, except those stats historically correlate with the best rated defenders. The available information isn’t perfect or absolutely comprehensive, but nothing is. It’s rigorous enough to provide a reasonable basis for evaluation.

A quality 2 block shot blocker over a 1 block position defender, seems like a marginal statistical difference (such as a 36% three point shooter vs. a 40% three-point shooter)...but it has even a greater impact beyond that single quantity, within the context of a possession, over a quarter, during crunch time, over a game, over a season, considering how the statistically superior player would affect scouting reports and influence offensive and defensive strategies.

For example, some big men might put up blocks, but have a low block/foul ratio (hackers) and can't stay on the floor for 20 minutes. Yes, you have to take their defense with a grain of salt. Others, even if their blocks remain low, they can a lot of shots around the basket - as evidenced by opposing fg% stats. But if anything, those players are rarer. Stats accompany competence and reputation.

And I'll say this again - championship teams have had defensive player of the year candidates or All-NBA Defense players, all who put up great defensive stats.

As starters, per36:
Draymond Green: 2 steals, 1.5
Kevin Durant: 1 steals, 2 blocks
Kawhi Leonard: 2 steals, 1 block
Lebron James: 1.5 steals, 1 block
Tim Duncan: 1 steal, 2 blocks

Non-champion, but top defenders at their positions:
Anthony Davis: 2.5 blocks, 1.5 steals
Rudy Gobert: 2.6 blocks
Paul George: 2 steals
Chris Paul, 2.3 steals

And historically: KG, Shaq, Kobe, Ben Wallace, Hakeem, etc. all put up defensive stats as champions.

Defense is just like offense. You need 2-3 elite players on both sides of the floor to win championships. The others fall in line as they fit their roles. But the studs carry the team. If you don't have studs, you don't win. That's just history.

[Sedale Threatt]

Defense is a team aspect of the game. Individual statistics are useless in predicting a defensive performance. Steals and Blocked Shots are some of the worst stats in sports if you truly look at what the quantify and what they don't in relation to defense. Blocked shots are nothing more than touching an opposing players shot. How may times does it result in a change of possession? Less than half is the answer. How many times does a player break the defense to get 2 blocks a game? Not quantified in that statistic. That is the most important part of it btw...

Fans tend to focus on the individual play over the team play. Josh Hart is a great example. Most here believe he's very strong defensively. On the ball, against larger guards he's OK. Off the ball, playing the scheme he's not good at all. Randle is similar. On the perimeter one on one he's very good, within the scheme he's just OK. In the paint he's barely OK.

I've always thought the signaling out of individuals on defense is a little silly. Great defensive teams know each other and the scheme. We've played some very good defense this year in stretches and we've played some horrible defense. That's about what you would expect from a team with a lot of youngsters that is also going through a lot of lineup changes. It's not a coincidence that our best defense this year was when we had a very stable rotation.

The notion that the defensive team recovers less than half of all blocked shots is false. According to this, it's actually closer to 70 percent.

https://fansided.com/2015/04/13/a-quick-examination-of-blocked-shots/

That's slightly less than normal misses, but it's also impacted by the fact that most shots are blocked near the rim. This also doesn't account for the fact that, in addition to outright snuffing shots, most good shot blockers are going to be contesting even more -- an essential asset in defense. Indeed, blocked shots are like sacks in football: They're nice, but the real key is bothering shots (or applying consistent pressure, rather than taking the QB down outright.)

For example, in addition to blocking more than two shots per game, Rudy Gobert is credited for defending around 16 shots per game, tied for third-best in the NBA. Players are shooting roughly 2.5 percent worse on those shots than the league average, which might not sound like much but makes a big impact over the course of a game. It's not an accident that the Jazz have one of the league's best defenses. They're not perfect measures -- Anthony Davis also rates very high in blocks and contests, and the Pelicans are just mediocre on defense (which, obviously, is hardly his fault) -- but they can still be strong indicators of major value.

Steals are probably less so, but even then you can't just outright dismiss them as worthless. I think I read somewhere that Kawhi Leonard directly scored on something like 50 or 60 percent of steals -- i.e. not only was he blowing up an opposing possession, he was immediately turning that into points on the other end. This is MASSIVE impact. I would suspect a player like Scottie Pippen would have been doing the same thing.

Now, if you're constantly compromising your defense with low-percentage gambles, something I thought Kobe was increasingly guilty of as his career wore on, that's a different story. But while forcing turnovers doesn't necessarily directly correlate to good defense or winning, it has been identified by Dean Oliver as one of the four strongest overall indicators of success (along with effective FG percentage, rebounding rate and free throws drawn).

So, while context is key, to just outright dismiss either steals or blocked shots is silly.

[Landsberger]

Defense is a team aspect of the game. Individual statistics are useless in predicting a defensive performance. Steals and Blocked Shots are some of the worst stats in sports if you truly look at what the quantify and what they don't in relation to defense. Blocked shots are nothing more than touching an opposing players shot. How may times does it result in a change of possession? Less than half is the answer. How many times does a player break the defense to get 2 blocks a game? Not quantified in that statistic. That is the most important part of it btw...

Fans tend to focus on the individual play over the team play. Josh Hart is a great example. Most here believe he's very strong defensively. On the ball, against larger guards he's OK. Off the ball, playing the scheme he's not good at all. Randle is similar. On the perimeter one on one he's very good, within the scheme he's just OK. In the paint he's barely OK.

I've always thought the signaling out of individuals on defense is a little silly. Great defensive teams know each other and the scheme. We've played some very good defense this year in stretches and we've played some horrible defense. That's about what you would expect from a team with a lot of youngsters that is also going through a lot of lineup changes. It's not a coincidence that our best defense this year was when we had a very stable rotation.

The notion that the defensive team recovers less than half of all blocked shots is false. According to this, it's actually closer to 70 percent.

https://fansided.com/2015/04/13/a-quick-examination-of-blocked-shots/

That's slightly less than normal misses, but it's also impacted by the fact that most shots are blocked near the rim. This also doesn't account for the fact that, in addition to outright snuffing shots, most good shot blockers are going to be contesting even more -- an essential asset in defense. Indeed, blocked shots are like sacks in football: They're nice, but the real key is bothering shots (or applying consistent pressure, rather than taking the QB down outright.)

For example, in addition to blocking more than two shots per game, Rudy Gobert is credited for defending around 16 shots per game, tied for third-best in the NBA. Players are shooting roughly 2.5 percent worse on those shots than the league average, which might not sound like much but makes a big impact over the course of a game. It's not an accident that the Jazz have one of the league's best defenses. They're not perfect measures -- Anthony Davis also rates very high in blocks and contests, and the Pelicans are just mediocre on defense (which, obviously, is hardly his fault) -- but they can still be strong indicators of major value.

Steals are probably less so, but even then you can't just outright dismiss them as worthless. I think I read somewhere that Kawhi Leonard directly scored on something like 50 or 60 percent of steals -- i.e. not only was he blowing up an opposing possession, he was immediately turning that into points on the other end. This is MASSIVE impact. I would suspect a player like Scottie Pippen would have been doing the same thing.

Now, if you're constantly compromising your defense with low-percentage gambles, something I thought Kobe was increasingly guilty of as his career wore on, that's a different story. But while forcing turnovers doesn't necessarily directly correlate to good defense or winning, it has been identified by Dean Oliver as one of the four strongest overall indicators of success (along with effective FG percentage, rebounding rate and free throws drawn).

So, while context is key, to just outright dismiss either steals or blocked shots is silly.

I thought you'd gotten the hint by now....

[Spens1]

backcourt defense is fine but the issue is next year. If we don't get PG and KCP doesn't come back, we're cooked. Hart is alright but Brewer who is a big part of our backcourt defense is gone also. Also Nance Jr who was a pretty big part of our front court defense is gone and the only one who plays above average defense in the front court is Randle (ok, he's about average overall). Brook Lopez can be a damn good defender but he's also too inconsistent. In the front we are lacking that consistent shot blocker and all round great defender. Randle does things well and Lopez can be that but he also isn't consistent enough with it.

[milesfides]

I'd also think about Derrick Favors. Aside from his rookie year, he has mostly played very good to elite defense. Still young, he turns 27 this summer. The emergence of Rudy Gobert has pushed Favors from the paint, but that has expanded Favors' perimeter game, and he's become more of a modern NBA center.

Who knows what the market could be, but either Noel and Favors could be good low-risk, high reward moves. The truly difficult position to fill is that elite defensive big man who won't be a liability in some way. That's the low key move the Lakers really need to make.

Even if we strike out on Paul George, the league's elite talent is mostly at the wings. We'll have another crack at it in the next couple years with Kawhi, Klay, etc.