Suns best five defenders...

[lilfishi22]

My favorites are
http://basketballvalue.com/index.php -- Everything, both individual and unit stats
and
http://hoopdata.com/ -- Player stats, usually advanced and shot locations. Hoopdata is really interesting to play around with; it lets you manipulate a lot.

For team rankings I look at Hollinger's power rankings
http://espn.go.com/nba/hollinger/powerrankings
Hollinger's playoff odds
http://espn.go.com/nba/hollinger/playoffodds
and Sagarin's ratings
http://www.usatoday.com/sports/sagarin/nba1011.htm

I don't like Hollinger's players stats, but I do like his team stats
http://espn.go.com/nba/hollinger/teamstats
especially offensive and defensive efficiency

I sometimes go to
http://www.basketball-reference.com/teams/
for old info on a player that hoopdata doesn't have, but that site annoys me.

This is my favorite place for advanced stats articles
http://www.82games.com/articles.htm

And this is one of the best articles you'll ever read
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/15/magaz ... ier-t.html

I also like http://www.hoopsstats.com/. Doesn't have much on advanced stats but breaks down basic stats for positions (front court, backcourt, bench, paint scoring) and stats vs'ing different teams (sub .500 teams, playoffs teams).

[YFZblu]

We don't talk about 2009 here.

Thanks.

[Wannabe MEP]

Plenty of votes saying no to Marion=Childress. Thinking back on it, I'd have to say they're right: that's an exaggeration. At this point, Marion>Childress, definitely. However...

Offense: Childress has never had the chance to be the kind of scorer that Marion was. They had a small pile of scorers in ATL, and he's never played big minutes with Nash. He has consistently had a better true shooting % though, and I think he'd score in bunches if he played with Nash. He gets more assists than Marion, plays well within the flow, finishes off the pass just like Marion, and can fastbreak like Marion.

Rebounding: Marion has definitely pulled down more boards, but I think this was also at least partly situational. He played a ton of minutes at the 4, with guys like Amare Stoudemire and Boris Diaw at the 5. He had to almost lead the team in rebounding or the Suns were going to get slaughtered. Childress has never played the 4, and he's played alongside much better rebounders. Could he rebound like Marion? Not sure, but we're not asking him to with Frye, Warrick, and Dudley on the court. I don't care about anyone's individual numbers, I care about whether the team as a whole gets rebounds.

Defense: Here's where there's no doubt--Marion has him. Marion definitely was a defensive freak, and Childress, as far as we can tell, is merely good. But then, we're not asking him to be a 6-7 power forward either, which was what made Marion so incredible, that versatility. Childress is a very good perimeter defender, and that's what we need him to be with Warrick and Frye on the court. Childress and Dudley give us two very good perimeter defenders, and neither will be asked to guard the 4 (although...could they if we went small? I'd take that over Turk any day)

It's not a direct translation, person by person; it's taking what was good about the best Suns teams (2004-2007) and saying...we can still do that. We can still PnR, slash, fastbreak, fire threes, play four out, hustle on defense, and play defense as good as (or better than) we ever did.

As a defender, Marion is better than Childress. But isn't Nash-Childress-Dudley-Warrick-Frye a better defensive team than Nash-Bell-Diaw-Marion-Stat?

[YFZblu]

As a defender, Marion is better than Childress. But isn't Nash-Childress-Dudley-Warrick-Frye a better defensive team than Nash-Bell-Diaw-Marion-Stat?

Yes, because Amar'e was atrocious Warrick hedges nicely on the P+R, and Frye not only plays decent post defense, but his "verticality" is above average and helps stop easy buckets at the rim..

Anyway, I really like the Bell/Marion skillset comparison.

[Wannabe MEP]

Sundamental, just found this forum for advanced stats. Seems like it has some major players and some really interesting stuff.
http://sonicscentral.com/apbrmetrics/viewforum.php?f=1

[Wannabe MEP]

Not that this is news to anyone, but it just makes it so...visual. We gotta work on defense.

[Wannabe MEP]

That's offensive efficiency to the right, and defensive efficiency going up.

[Sundamental]

Los Soles,

Thanks for the link. I'll take a look when I get a bit of time.

As to the defense thing, I firmly believe that if a team has enough ability to lead the league in offense it at least has the ability to be a lower mid-pack defensive team, perhaps better. Certainly not last. Gentry just has to keep emphasizing proper defensive procedure and the awareness will pick up. I'm hopeful.

Did you also notice Milwaukee. They're at the other end of the spectrum. Good defense and poor offense. I think their situation is harder to fix as offense requires skills that take a long to acquire (unless it's an injury problem) while defense can be greatly improved with effort and coaching.

[Wannabe MEP]

We currently have four players with positive ratings for one-year adj +/-:
1) Steve Nash
2) Josh Childress
3) Channing Frye
4) Hakim Warrick
Those four never play together.

We currently have three players with positive ratings for two-year adj +/-:
1) Steve Nash
2) Jared Dudley
3) Channing Frye
Those three never play together.

We currently have two players in the top 15 in the NBA for one-year adj +/-:
1) Steve Nash
2) Josh Childress
Those two never play together.

We currently have two players in the top 20 in the NBA for two-year adj +/-:
1) Steve Nash
2) Jared Dudley
Those two never play together.

Is that insane? I think that's insane.