supersub15 wrote:I'll try to answer some in one place. I hate choppy quotes.
First, I am not running DRTG off of 82games.com. I am using a spreadsheet with detailed 5-man lineups vs. other 5-man lineups. Had I had the time, I would've analyzed who's playing against who and gave you some sort of strength of opponent metric, but it takes too much time, and frankly, for a message board, it's just too much to try and win an argument. Not worth it.
Second, I see what you mean by noisy, but for most of my arguments, I am using 9000+ minutes of play. That's a large enough sample size to smooth over any "noise". Over a 4-year period, Bargnani, Calderon and Bosh have played together and without each other against all kinds of opponents. Moreover, and in any case, we were being consistently destroyed last year, whether against bench players or starters. So, your argument that we don't know the opponent, while valid in most circumstances, is not valid here.
Yes, I am "guessing" that a big met the driver, but you still have not provided an explanation as to why our DRTG was 104.9 over a period of 4 years (4000+ minutes) with Jose and without Bargnani in the lineup. I have made my conclusions, but I would like to hear alternative conclusions as to why the numbers were so low without Bargnani. I know that Jose was getting beat at the point of attack whether Bargnani was there or not, but then why is our DRTG so low without Bargnani?
I am also confused by something you said. At certain points in this thread, you've said that Bargnani was a bad defender (just not an egregious one), while at some other points, you've said that he was neutral to positive. How do you balance both assertions?
As to solely blaming Bargnani, I have, at different points in this thread, said that Bargnani was not the sole cause of last year's disaster. As you've mentioned, having 4 bad defenders (Turkoglu/DeRozan/Calderon/Bargnani) on the floor together is a recipe for disaster. But, as I've shown in the OP, it's been 4 years now that the team DRTG becomes worse when Bargnani plays, whether against backups or starters. So, he's a net negative. There is no metric that can tell us by how much exactly.
Okay, well, your spreadsheet either takes the data from 82games.com or you count it yourself from PBP data. It's the same essential method, either way.
I don't think adding extra minutes of noise makes anything less noisy, honestly. Especially when a given player's role has changed which seems to have a substantial effect - Calderon, mostly. And again, keep in mind that these stats do not measure individual defensive proficiency. They're measuring the team when a player is on vs. when a player if off the court - not the player himself. You are trying to make that leap: it cannot be done with these numbers. And again, that is the problem with thinking that the stats tell the story. They get you to ask questions of the basketball floor, which honestly you're not even attempting to do.
Why do the numbers over the past four years reflect better with Bosh and Calderon without Bargnani? I don't know. Neither do you. My first thing to do is point out that for over 2 of those years Jose was coming off the bench and not getting exploited by better talent. My second point would be "ease of opponent, and better supporting defenders". Having Moon, Parker and a younger Nesterovic support you defensively is far preferable to Turkoglu, DeRozan (for now) and Bargnani - no? You seem completely oblivious to the fact that defense is a five-man, not a two- or three- man operation.
If you honestly think that a team whose starting unit is Bosh + Calderon + 3 other random dudes is going to produce a defensive rating of 104.9, you have spent far too much reading your spreadsheet, and almost no time 1) interacting with other data, 2) watching the games with any sort of attention to detail.
I think you misunderstand me, once again. I pointed out that Bargnani is a poor defender in some situations (screening situations, help on dribble drives, defensive rebounding) and actually a very good one in other areas (rotating on the perimeter to help, defending smaller players in switches one-on-one, defending the post one-on-one). Tell me: what does Calderon do well defensively? The answer is nothing. He can't stop or even slow the ball in transition (never mind digging it out of the middle of the floor), he doesn't contest shots well, he can't pressure the ball without getting beaten, he doesn't rebound, he can't handle screen sequences, he gets above the line of the ball defending one pass away and puts himself in jeopardy of backdoor cuts all the time (even in a packline defense!). In regards to "positive or neutral", I was pointing to the fact that 82games.com for a good portion of the season had Bargnani's on/off court defensive numbers as being around neutral or a slight positive, but to end the season they entire fell apart. I asked you to interact with that - I got no response whatsoever (something I'm frankly getting used to).
Bottom line? Pointing to a statistic that measures peripheries and not direct contributions and hailing them as an absolute judge of an individual's defensive play is not going to work. At some point, you need to go to the actual basketball floor to evaluate a player's defensive play. PDSS does this. Basketball-savvy individuals do this. Stats need to join to basketball analysis, not usurp it.
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