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Interior defense: Bargnani has second lowest opp percentage.

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Re: Interior defense: Bargnani has second lowest opp percent 

Post#61 » by Jakay » Tue Mar 12, 2013 8:01 am

Harry Palmer wrote:
Jakay wrote:Pretty sure Bargnani's not allowed to be good at anything.



He's a victim, all right.


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Re: Interior defense: Bargnani has second lowest opp percent 

Post#62 » by RealRapsFan » Tue Mar 12, 2013 1:55 pm

There is a significant chunk of information missed here

apparently Andrea Bargnani is really good at this. His problem? He doesn’t often get within five feet of his opponents


Bargnani is good at interior defense when he bothers to try. But he doesn't bother to try....

Which ofcourse leads to the other misnomer

We all know he has a good interior man to man defender


which is a result of the above - he doesn't leave his man to help.

So what we are left with is an individual who looks good at defense, on paper, in a vacuum. But its only because he doesn't actually help the team defend. Meaning its always left on his teammates to compensate for him.

The end result becomes obvious. A significant decline in the teams defense performance, year after year, when Bargnani is on the floor. What Bargnani does is play one-on-one basketball despite being on a TEAM.
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Re: Interior defense: Bargnani has second lowest opp percent 

Post#63 » by elmer_yuck » Tue Mar 12, 2013 2:03 pm

The numbers have been there for anyone to see all these years.
Not a great shooter and getting worse every year.
Possibly the worst rebounder of all time.
Bad defender.
No other impact re steals, assists, blocks.
He's just a very mediocre player.
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Re: Interior defense: Bargnani has second lowest opp percent 

Post#64 » by Lukeem » Tue Mar 12, 2013 6:46 pm

Using one stat like this to assume anything is pretty usèless

I could score 30ppg in the nba. My team would lose 150- 30 and I would shoot 5% but hey 30ppg

Bargs is a bad defender. Correction horrid

Saying he is a good man to man defender totally dismisses the entire concept of man to man d

Everyone has heard the idea of defence being like a chain and when he is on he is the weakest link ( think paper clip( not the small metallic things think a clip made of paper))
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Re: Interior defense: Bargnani has second lowest opp percent 

Post#65 » by FluLikeSymptoms » Tue Mar 12, 2013 11:52 pm

Schadenfreude wrote:
FluLikeSymptoms wrote:Little things like post defence and shooting? Good grief.


Yes. Because if his post defense is more than cancelled out by his lack of rebounding and help defense -- and it is -- and he makes his shots at a rate well below the league average, then yes: they are, in the grand scheme, little things.


Post defence and 3pt shooting are incredibly difficult and schematically imperative things, not little things, and they're things this team needs from a big as a different look. We need somebody to put on legit scoring bigs on the defensive end, JV isn't there yet and it could take a couple years, and we need spacing on offence. You can find decent rebounders and help defenders anywhere (Birdman got signed a Harlem shake ago, after playing for nobody), that's all you can find up front, but we already have three on the roster. It's not like we're going to land a post scorer or any big better than Amir or JV, and most, if not all stretch bigs are considerably worse defenders than Bargnani and any we could get would likely go to another bench. So, no, not just any big we have or could realistically get would help this team more- if we had stretch bigs and excellent 250lb post defenders, then you might be right. We don't, and you're probably not.

We finally have creative players like KL and RG, good defensive/rebounding SFs in Rudy and Fields and help defenders in JV (coming along) and Amir in our rotation, so we can ask AB to do what he does best in a smaller role and shorter minutes and it could help the team greatly. When he mostly played off-ball, he shot threes very well and he can still get his shot off from everywhere if we should occasionally need that. Don't ask him to anchor the D in a zone or as solo big, don't ask him to create off the bounce from the wing all night. That was dumb, and now it's completely unnecessary. In our grand scheme, what he does well, provided his arm heals, doesn't need to be cancelled out going forward.


You sound like a fan of baseball, a sport of endless, easily-tracked 1v1 outcomes. But presenting broad stats like on/off as proof of anything in a sport like basketball is silly.


Actually, and there's the great irony, people are pointing to easily-tracked 1v1 outcomes as a way to tout Bargnani's defense, while the 5v5 numbers are considerably less favourable.

You're not proving anything, 10 players and 2 coaches can dictate the outcome of each play. There's a reason guys like Goldsberry are coming up with new ways to analyze basketball by breaking it down to the smallest number of factors possible and in identified conditions, such as 1v1 outcomes 5ft from the hoop. It's fair to question the study, but to rebut with substantially less conclusive evidence is about as smart as that sounds, as is treating those stats as indicators of future success in different conditions.


And from that granular accounting we have a pretty clear picture: Bargs does well 1v1 with his man. However, he also frequently loses his man or allows them to get to positions where they can do damage free of his influence, and he provides very little by way of help. Thus why he was a topic of conversation at Sloan.


I covered all of this in this thread. You even quoted some of it in this section. Irony? You drew a conclusion from a basketball stat as though it had the strength of a baseball stat, while ignoring the baseball-like stat which Goldberry produced, and you used baseball as a reference in your weaker, basketball stat-based conclusion. Yes, posters point to the paper as a positive for Bargnani. Why not? I don't get where you wanted to go with this.

You didn't even acknowledge the paper until I did, you first suggested that a SF in Novak, who plays no interior defence or defense of any kind, would help more than AB. Then, you said that any big would likely make us better, a statement which you tried to support with on/off stats, shaky to begin with but presented as "pretty much indisputable" evidence which does apply to his new/future role, teammates and coach, and the future was my point of discussion. I don't think you considered the post you quoted or put much thought into this, you just saw a chance to bash Bargnani and now you're scrambling.

In all honesty, I don't consider you a contributor and I would put you on ignore if I could. We get it, you think that Bargnani is a negative-impact player no matter what, and that you have the right to attack anyone who says otherwise, with weak statistical arguments (not even numbers, this time, but it doesn't matter) and venom- that's all I've ever seen you do. You came into a possibly positive thread on Bargnani and did your little dance, great job. You snipped a sentence and did your thing. We do not share an idea of fun. You're boring. Put me on ignore if you can.


Point me in the direction of attacking that I've done here.


I probably overreacted. You only attacked Bargnani this time, you only came into a positive Bargnani thread and said anyone would likely make us better, using flimsy reasoning to support that claim, and used my post as launching pad for your oddly immoderate agenda. The rest stands. At least I can ignore Doug Smith and the gang.
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Re: Interior defense: Bargnani has second lowest opp percent 

Post#66 » by Suga2Panda » Tue Mar 12, 2013 11:59 pm

Bargnani doesn't give you enough on offense to justify building a defense to compensate for his suckness. What have some people been watching the last 7 years?
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Re: Interior defense: Bargnani has second lowest opp percent 

Post#67 » by FluLikeSymptoms » Wed Mar 13, 2013 12:31 am

Suga2Panda wrote:Bargnani doesn't give you enough on offense to justify building a defense to compensate for his suckness. What have some people been watching the last 7 years?

What? The other defenders at 3 and 4/5 are there. Nobody is trying to build around him, the thought is that he can be used to build around what we've got ie. KL, RG, JV/Amir.
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Re: Interior defense: Bargnani has second lowest opp percent 

Post#68 » by Suga2Panda » Wed Mar 13, 2013 12:43 am

FluLikeSymptoms wrote:
Suga2Panda wrote:Bargnani doesn't give you enough on offense to justify building a defense to compensate for his suckness. What have some people been watching the last 7 years?

What? The other defenders at 3 and 4/5 are there. Nobody is trying to build around him, the thought is that he can be used to build around what we've got ie. KL, RG, JV/Amir.


Amir and JV (If he can get there, probably years away) cannot compensate for Bargnani. You'd need a Chandler/Noah/Dwight, or defensive/rebounding equivalent. At sf, Rudy isn't good enough to compensate, maybe a Josh Smith or younger Gerald Wallace would have been sufficient.
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Re: Interior defense: Bargnani has second lowest opp percent 

Post#69 » by Schad » Wed Mar 13, 2013 12:51 am

FluLikeSymptoms wrote:Post defence and 3pt shooting are incredibly difficult and schematically imperative things, not little things, and they're things this team needs from a big as a different look. We need somebody to put on legit scoring bigs on the defensive end, JV isn't there yet and it could take a couple years, and we need spacing on offence.


The problem is that you do not want to put Bargnani on legit scoring bigs, because they still score on him, as do said player's teammates. Bargnani defends well in a sub-section of overall possessions, namely post-ups. But these days, that's a fairly small overall sample; most big men receive the ball in a variety of ways, including very often off penetration. Because Bargnani is such a poor help defender, he tends to spend a lot of time in the middle distance off penetration, neither guarding his own man nor reacting quick enough to either contest the penetration or prevent the pass to the player for whom he has responsibility.

As for the three-point shooting, he's simply not good enough at it to make him a desirable option. There are 150 players who have taken 200+ three-pointers over the past two seasons. Of those, Bargnani's .304 shooting percentage ranks 141st (Gay's 142nd, for what it's worth). That means that, for every three-pointer he throws up, he's averaging .91 points per shot, which is rather bad...he is simply not a valuable shooter, which means that the spacing he provides is severely overrated, given that the high-percentage play for defenses is to sag off both he and Gay and let 'em fire.

You can find decent rebounders and help defenders anywhere (Birdman got signed a Harlem shake ago, after playing for nobody), that's all you can find up front, but we already have three on the roster.


This is not a checklist to tick off, though. You cannot have one big who provides good help defense, and one big who provides no help defense, and have a decent overall defensive unit.

It's not like we're going to land a post scorer or any big better than Amir or JV, and most, if not all stretch bigs are considerably worse defenders than Bargnani and any we could get would likely go to another bench.


Most stretch bigs are not considerably worse defenders, because there are very few players in the league as bad defensively as Bargnani. He does do one thing well defensively, but the sum total of his influence on the team's defense is hugely negative.

So, no, not just any big we have or could realistically get would help this team more- if we had stretch bigs and excellent 250lb post defenders, then you might be right. We don't, and you're probably not.


Again, not a checklist. What you're looking for is players who contribute more than they take away; if you have two Amir Johnsons, you might sacrifice a basket or two more per game on average from post plays (and statistically, the differential is actually less than that), but if you are grabbing an extra couple defensive rebounds, and preventing a couple more baskets that would otherwise be scored on penetration, you have won the battle.

As for stretch bigs, most teams do without them. Why? Because they're only useful in specific circumstances. One of those circumstances is if you have a Dwight Howard-type who needs the lane wide-open, because the fewer players within the vicinity, the less likely it is that he'll have to do his scoring from the free throw line (and have the fouls spread around among enough opposition players to prevent their post defenders from fouling out midway through the first half). We have no such need; given that we're a team that has isolation perimeter shooters who are rather poor percentage-wise, what we need more than anything is big men who do traditional big men things...namely, rebound their misses, provide screens, and make themselves available on duck-ins. None of those are strengths of Bargnani's game.

We finally have creative players like KL and RG, good defensive/rebounding SFs in Rudy and Fields and help defenders in JV (coming along) and Amir in our rotation, so we can ask AB to do what he does best in a smaller role and shorter minutes and it could help the team greatly.


When we tried to put him in a smaller role, he sulked to such an extent that we began starting him again.

When he mostly played off-ball, he shot threes very well and he can still get his shot off from everywhere if we should occasionally need that. Don't ask him to anchor the D in a zone or as solo big, don't ask him to create off the bounce from the wing all night. That was dumb, and now it's completely unnecessary. In our grand scheme, what he does well, provided his arm heals, doesn't need to be cancelled out going forward.


As a big man, he is automatically a defensive anchor, in either a zone or man-to-man, or a hybrid zone. There's simply no hiding a big who cannot provide help defense in the modern game.

You're not proving anything, 10 players and 2 coaches can dictate the outcome of each play. There's a reason guys like Goldsberry are coming up with new ways to analyze basketball by breaking it down to the smallest number of factors possible and in identified conditions, such as 1v1 outcomes 5ft from the hoop. It's fair to question the study, but to rebut with substantially less conclusive evidence is about as smart as that sounds, as is treating those stats as indicators of future success in different conditions.


But the people at the Sloan Conference were themselves the ones doing the refuting. When Bargnani's stature as a preeminent post defender became a subject of conversation, they stated that it was because he involves himself in far fewer plays than the average big man; he often isn't penalized for his man scoring because he simply was not close enough to them to trigger this particular event filter.

I covered all of this in this thread. You even quoted some of it in this section. Irony? You drew a conclusion from a basketball stat as though it had the strength of a baseball stat, while ignoring the baseball-like stat which Goldberry produced, and you used baseball as a reference in your weaker, basketball stat-based conclusion. Yes, posters point to the paper as a positive for Bargnani. Why not? I don't get where you wanted to go with this.


See above.

You didn't even acknowledge the paper until I did, you first suggested that a SF in Novak, who plays no interior defence or defense of any kind, would help more than AB. Then, you said that any big would likely make us better, a statement which you tried to support with on/off stats, shaky to begin with but presented as "pretty much indisputable" evidence which does apply to his new/future role, teammates and coach, and the future was my point of discussion. I don't think you considered the post you quoted or put much thought into this, you just saw a chance to bash Bargnani and now you're scrambling.


Novak is playing at the four defensively as often as not in the Knicks' small sets, as he's one of the few players they have who is i) over 6'9" and ii) not in a wheelchair. And as bad as he is defensively, he brings three distinct advantages over Bargnani. One, he actually hits the shots that he takes. Two, he only takes shots that he should take. Three, he's fairly good about making an obstacle of himself defensively...he's not going to contest many shots, and he generally looks pretty ridiculous in the effort, but he adds a bit of degree o' difficulty by simply being there. And being there is at least half the battle (see: Chris Bosh, who has spent a decade lowering opponents' FG% simply by sticking his arms in the air while they shoot over him).

I probably overreacted. You only attacked Bargnani this time, you only came into a positive Bargnani thread and said anyone would likely make us better, using flimsy reasoning to support that claim, and used my post as launching pad for your oddly immoderate agenda. The rest stands. At least I can ignore Doug Smith and the gang.


This is a thread about Bargnani's defense. It's also something that is directly related to the actual article itself, because it looks at two things: proximal FG%, and percentage of opponent chances that happen within X distance of they player in question. And while Bargs' numbers are good in the former, they are extremely bad in the latter. He's 90th out of 93 players in percentage of shots taken within five feet, tied for 88th out of 93 for shots taken within five feet. Thus, you have data which says exactly what I am saying: Bargnani does well at defending certain possessions, but he does a very poor job of involving himself defensively, which leads teams to get a bounty of uncontested baskets around the hoop when he is on the court. As such, any contribution he makes on shots in proximity is mere rowing against the current that is the rest of his play.

If you want a place where discussion of positive statistical data is free from any sort of counter-example, it's not a message board you're looking for, it's an echo chamber.
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Re: Interior defense: Bargnani has second lowest opp percent 

Post#70 » by carl_english » Wed Mar 13, 2013 1:12 am

Andrea: "I defend my opponent at all cost. I expect my teammates to do the same."
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Re: Interior defense: Bargnani has second lowest opp percent 

Post#71 » by Suga2Panda » Wed Mar 13, 2013 1:43 am

http://www.sloansportsconference.com/wp ... %20NBA.pdf

"Appendix 1: Expanded Results from Case Study 1: Basket Proximity Shots faced when defender was within 5 feet of basket."

It's sorted by opponents close FG% (points in the paint), David Lee when he is 5 feet and less from the basket, allows opp FG% of 61%...

Andrea doesn't even make the list... I'm assuming that means opp FG% is GREATER than 61% when he is 5 feet and less from the basket.

Edit: OR that he never defends close enough to the basket to qualify for the analysis
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Re: Interior defense: Bargnani has second lowest opp percent 

Post#72 » by Schad » Wed Mar 13, 2013 1:55 am

Suga2Panda wrote:http://www.sloansportsconference.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/The%20Dwight%20Effect%20A%20New%20Ensemble%20of%20Interior%20Defense%20Analytics%20for%20the%20NBA.pdf

"Appendix 1: Expanded Results from Case Study 1: Basket Proximity Shots faced when defender was within 5 feet of basket."

It's sorted by opponents close FG% (points in the paint), David Lee when he is 5 feet and less from the basket, allows opp FG% of 61%... Andrea doesn't even make the list... I'm assuming that means opp FG% is GREATER than 61% when he is 5 feet and less from the basket.


I'm guessing that it's actually because there haven't been enough shots involving Bargnani that met the qualifying criteria, namely the involved player being within five feet of the basket.
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Re: Interior defense: Bargnani has second lowest opp percent 

Post#73 » by Suga2Panda » Wed Mar 13, 2013 2:00 am

Schadenfreude wrote:
Suga2Panda wrote:http://www.sloansportsconference.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/The%20Dwight%20Effect%20A%20New%20Ensemble%20of%20Interior%20Defense%20Analytics%20for%20the%20NBA.pdf

"Appendix 1: Expanded Results from Case Study 1: Basket Proximity Shots faced when defender was within 5 feet of basket."

It's sorted by opponents close FG% (points in the paint), David Lee when he is 5 feet and less from the basket, allows opp FG% of 61%... Andrea doesn't even make the list... I'm assuming that means opp FG% is GREATER than 61% when he is 5 feet and less from the basket.


I'm guessing that it's actually because there haven't been enough shots involving Bargnani that met the qualifying criteria, namely the involved player being within five feet of the basket.


Yeah that might be the reason. So Andrea doesn't defend enough within 5 feet of the basket to qualify... He must be a lock down perimeter defender.
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Re: Interior defense: Bargnani has second lowest opp percent 

Post#74 » by Schad » Wed Mar 13, 2013 2:21 am

It likely speaks to his lack of help defense. Many (not all) defensive bigs will collapse into the paint at the first sign of penetration, and thus end up near the rim even if the shot goes up from 18 feet; their primary goal is to get in front of you. Note that most of the players with extremely high totals in that regard are fairly slow, but considered good defenders (Tim Duncan has, by far, the largest total)...they're clogging the lane.

Some, like Ibaka, are a bit different, hence his very low total (and anomalous numbers for mid-range/three-point range relative the rest); as the paper suggests, he's not looking to get in front of you so much as to take an angle that gets him to you at the time you're looking to shoot. Because of that, he's not close to the basket if you end up taking that 18-footer, because he's lurking off stage right to swat the ball away if you get into the lane. And because you know that he's lurking, you take the 18 footer rather than have your soul violated as the ball flies into the upper tier of seats.

Others, like Bargnani, are neither. Watch him during a game: more than any player I've ever watched, with one exception (who I won't mention because I don't want to create that firestorm), he fixates on the player he is assigned to guard. If the ball is on the left-hand side, elbow extended, and his man is on the right-hand side of the key, his gaze will almost exclusively fall 180 degrees away from where the danger lies, whereas most others would be keeping tabs on their man with a forearm or their peripheral vision, and primarily focusing on the development of the play. This as much as anything is why he's consistently too late to help...by the time he realizes that help is needed, the player is already one step from the basket.
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Re: Interior defense: Bargnani has second lowest opp percent 

Post#75 » by Guy Smiley » Wed Mar 13, 2013 11:14 am

Defending near the basket is extremely overrated. ILL MAGO is the greatest perimeter defender in big man history.

Like ILL MAGO I no longer care and bring absolutely nothing to the table.
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Re: Interior defense: Bargnani has second lowest opp percent 

Post#76 » by FluLikeSymptoms » Wed Mar 13, 2013 9:22 pm

Schadenfreude wrote:.


- I get this game, I see who does what and which groups do what, so save the condescending tone. I'd put my comprehension and posting record next anyone's and feel good about it. Go ahead and critique my grammar, you can have that. Your tone is not justified, accidental, or a positive. Never seen you post anything positive- didn't even see any schadenfreude when Bargnani got hurt! :lol:

- I definitely believe that there is a checklist of sorts when you're constructing a roster, particularly when it comes to players # 4-12. Of course there is, but you're in the vast majority who does not believe that. Judging individuals is far easier than judging groups. Dynamics, synergy, adjustments, matchups- more of the same good thing is not neccesarily better, duplication is often worse unless you're duplicating complete players.

- Most teams do not have stretch bigs, not because they don't want or need them, but because they are rare and they usually do nothing thing else at all- this thread is about Bargnani dong something else. But most good teams do have one in the rotation, as have most champions going back to the bad boys. Many had pivots, some had drivers, some had both. KL's driving is his best mode, Rudy's posting is his, Demar's posting is his, JV/Amir on the PnR is theirs- a stretch big absolutely helps this particular roster. Why do you think we're a low% iso pull-up team? No space, and our top players can't do what they do best. Demar is shining because he's mooching off Rudy's attention, and we're losing because it's bad basketball.

- AB played well in his first couple games off the bench. Then, he sucked. Was he started for sulking at coming off the bench? Did BC want to see him play with Rudy? Did DC want spacing? I would say sulking was the least likely reason he started.

- Your PF is absolutely not always a defensive anchor. Look at the championship Mavs, Dirk is a worse defender than AB. Teams go 4-around-1 all the time, SF/PF are becoming as close as SG/SF used to be. Bargnani is not just a good post defender, he's a good 1v1 defender everywhere- that's what half this study, and the half thread is about: his defence when 5ft from the ball, not the hoop. Better when in shape, obviously. Yes, you can put him on a scoring big. When we do, it works when AB's help is exposed, it's because they've gone away from his man.

- Novak's D? Like Novak, Bargnani doesn't leave his man at all, that's the problem, and Novak can't stay with anyone fast or strong. Bargnani is the king of the look-how-tall-I-am defence, better than Bosh ever was on the ball and in that regard. Novak is an elite shooter who knows his role, but, again, if Bargnani's role changed he could help in more ways and hopefully hit as well previously did in that role, while Bosh was here. Bosh was the reason he camped out, and AB helped Bosh put up his monster numbers. But you again ignored the role change and brought up his latest 3pt shooting numbers. He's still guarded out there, and when you're drawing out a big (nobody puts 3s on him anymore) I think you don't have to hit as high of a rate anyway, drawing the big helps the offence so much. 35%+ is fine, I think he can get back there with more legs, a healed arm and that focus. I might be wrong.

-I know what this thread is about. You initially dismissed the topic. As I said, it's fair to question the study, context is the goal. I did, and do. Heck, sportVU is only employed in half of the arenas. But there's nothing about on/off in the paper, maybe someone tweeted something? On/off is still loaded with variables, and I don't think it's a valid statistical response to AB's opposing FG% when he's 5 feet from his man. Your counter was more of a lash.

-I think every player in the 1st part of the study, the part which applies to D 5ft from the hoop, has been playing most of their minutes at C for the past 2 years which were covered, whether they started there or didn't. AB has barely played C at all in the past two years under Casey, not until he returned from his last injury, and for good reason. So he's not among the 52. I don't know why the distinction was not mentioned. Maybe I missed it.

-In the 2nd portion of the study (which seems to include PFs), yes, AB ranks 90 of 93 in % of shots faced within 5ft of his man, or 21.9% of the time (Bynum was 88, Howard 83, Horford 84). But number 1 was Harrellson at 35.9%. They're saying that the big who got 5ft and closer to his opposing shooter most did so just more than a 3rd of the time. Larry Sanders (love him), who they suggest is the #1 defender studied, did so 32.5% of the time. 2/3rds of the time, he was more than 5ft away from his responsibility? What?

-Harrellson was tops in 3ft defensive presence at 22.3%. Amir was #2 in % shots he faced while 1ft from his man, at 2.9%? Dwight was at 1.2%? I don't know about that collection. Is every 4/5 daring every other to shoot wide open Js and allowing open dunks? Garnett is 5ft away only 29% of the time, as was last year's DPOY? Howard is at 23.9? I know post-ups are down, it seems like they're not accounting for switches or help D or anything. I would pretty much throw this part away and only concentrate on when defenders were within 5ft of their man, seems more applicable to 1v1 D. If he was there, he was there and you can measure it. I don't think the not-there part is represented well at all.

-I think that all we conclude from this study re: Bargnani is that his man doesn't shoot well at all when he's within 5 feet of him, these guys have him at .3 % off the best big in the study. He looks good to the eye. The greater than 5ft numbers seem way off for everyone, we do know that AB doesn't leave his man, that's the problem. We know he's out to lunch when it comes to help, I've never seen anything like his lowlights (which I feel some count doubly for ugliness), though he stepped it up in his last couple games.

Our disagreement seems to stem from the usage of Bargnani going forward, which remains the most important thing for me. I want the guy to play about 25 minutes or so in a role which suits his strengths, like any role player should, in the role he played as a rook with more 1v1 responsibility. I think he can help more than an attainable target could. I think he can guard somebody and space, that the other jobs could be covered as he covers the ones currently open, and that his 3pt shooting could/should come back if that's all he's asked to do. His shot looked great the other day from 3, with the higher arc/more legs we discussed, and his defensive awareness showed a pulse. I'm not saying he be a top option or play 35+ locked in as a starter. Maybe he's gone, maybe not- I would say that his chances of remaining a Raptor would be much higher if BC/DC (blunderstruck?) are replaced. I'm sure anyone else coming in would think they could get more out of him than for him.
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Re: Interior defense: Bargnani has second lowest opp percent 

Post#77 » by I_Like_Dirt » Wed Mar 13, 2013 9:32 pm

we do know that AB doesn't leave his man, that's the problem


Just because he doesn't leave his man doesn't mean he's within 5 feet of him when he scores. Once his man gets by him, Andrea lets him go more often than almost any other NBA player I can recall. There is even an argument that it isn't a bad play since it leads to him fouling less on a play where he's beaten in the first place, but it also inflates his appearance in statistical analysis like the one in the article here. On offense, Andrea is almost always close to the top of the 3 point arc making him one of the closest players to his own defensive basket but when the opposing team fastbreaks, he's almost never the first guy back despite that advantage, which also cuts out a lot of his volume. The idea that Andrea is a good man defender is misplaced here. He could be a good man defender but he's really only a good man defender when the play doesn't leave him behind in the first place.
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Re: Interior defense: Bargnani has second lowest opp percent 

Post#78 » by FluLikeSymptoms » Wed Mar 13, 2013 10:02 pm

I_Like_Dirt wrote:
we do know that AB doesn't leave his man, that's the problem


Just because he doesn't leave his man doesn't mean he's within 5 feet of him when he scores. Once his man gets by him, Andrea lets him go more often than almost any other NBA player I can recall. There is even an argument that it isn't a bad play since it leads to him fouling less on a play where he's beaten in the first place, but it also inflates his appearance in statistical analysis like the one in the article here. On offense, Andrea is almost always close to the top of the 3 point arc making him one of the closest players to his own defensive basket but when the opposing team fastbreaks, he's almost never the first guy back despite that advantage, which also cuts out a lot of his volume. The idea that Andrea is a good man defender is misplaced here. He could be a good man defender but he's really only a good man defender when the play doesn't leave him behind in the first place.

I'm not sure his own man blows by him too much, it's usually blown (or refused) rotations I see. I agree, he lets guys finish way too much. But we also have had brutal perimeter D which has exacerbated his napping, oftentimes and-1s would be the only outcome. Amir, JV, Ed all had trouble helping this year, they just foul(ed). I don't know what to say about him looking in the other direction on some plays, or his refusing to help the helper. It's perplexing. I facepalm as much as anyone.

I think he does get back a lot when he's up top but it's the same thing, he doesn't foul, only offering an obstacle. And that is, indeed, a 7-footer out there. He's not going to catch everybody. I would definitely like to see him foul more while helping in a smaller role, he doesn't need to save them anymore.

This article actually says that he's only within 5ft 22% of the time which is 3rd-lowest, but the others at the bottom and also the top %s make me question their interpretation of "his man".
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Re: Interior defense: Bargnani has second lowest opp percent 

Post#79 » by Harry Palmer » Wed Mar 13, 2013 10:08 pm

FluLikeSymptoms wrote:
Schadenfreude wrote:.


I'd put my comprehension and posting record next anyone's and feel good about it.


Other than mine, obviously.
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Re: Interior defense: Bargnani has second lowest opp percent 

Post#80 » by FluLikeSymptoms » Wed Mar 13, 2013 10:11 pm

Harry Palmer wrote:
FluLikeSymptoms wrote:
Schadenfreude wrote:.


I'd put my comprehension and posting record next anyone's and feel good about it.


Other than mine, obviously.

You've been right about some stuff, too. But only when we've agreed.

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