Ball so hard wrote:zimpy27 wrote:Ball so hard wrote:Data on Bradley paints a far different picture than that of KCP. I didn't watch Bradley a ton last season so I was quite surprised by my finding. By and large Bradley was almost terrible across the board. He was only a plus defender against SFs. The data suggests he may simply be too slow to keep up with PGs and SGs... again, I didn't really watch him last year.
Ranking based on minimum of 5 possessions:
SG - 806 possessions - Offsensive players pts diff of net +32
PG - 389 possessions - Offsensive players pts diff of net +126
SF - 289 possessions - Offsensive players pts diff of net - 4
PF - 55 possessions - Offsensive players pts diff of net +55
A few SFs he had a plus rating while defending:
Taurean Prince
Lebron
Paul George
Wes Iwundu
Covington
Omri Casspi
Harkless
Porter Jr.
Conclusion:
We're in big trouble if Bradley is our starting PG next year. He was atrocious while defending PGs. I expect KCP will start next to Lebron and Bradley will come off the bench.
Keep the analysis coming.
KCP seems a PG/SG defender and Bradley seems to be an SG/SF defender.
Both players gamble and hassle, they need a good defensive Frontcourt to be effective. They need people to clean up the gambles they lose. Here you have him being lauded as the best perimeter defender only 2 years ago.
https://www.flohoops.com/articles/5050579-is-avery-bradley-the-best-perimeter-defender-in-the-league
Maybe it's worth doing a 2-year analysis.
In any case, I actually thought the best starting lineup would be KCP, Green, LeBron, AD, Howard and the best backup lineup would be Caruso, Bradley, Thabo, Kuzma, McGee. The reason I thought that was the starters have LeBron and AD as playmakers while the bench has Caruso and Bradley. It's a much more balanced lineup. KCP/Green is also the better 3-shooting combo to surround LeBron with. I like that your analysis might gel with that.
Will post once I clean things a bit and remove what I think are outliers. 2017 data currently shows he was a + defender against just about every position including PGs. Perhaps the 2018 season was an off year. I'll need to drill down a bit deeper in the data.
Both Bradley and KCP seemed to drop in effectiveness when they were on teams with a poor defensive C. I've stated it a few times but I think the combo of AD/Howard is going to boost the defensive impact of KCP and Bradley. Their defensive style is in the face of the perimeter player which makes them vulnerable to blow-bys. That doesn't hurt as much with a defensive PF/C.