RealGM

I am very new to the world of advanced basketball statistics and need some help. I am a big Kings fan and it is very clear to me that the team is not good at defense; however, by watching the games it doesn’t seem that any player on the team, outside of Jimmer is particularly bad at one on one defense. It seems to me that the Kings are INCREDIBLY awful at team defense. The team seems very slow to react to the ball on switches and our last line of defense (Cousins) would rather take a charge than to try and block a shot. Their lateness on switches seems to be causing them to give up more rebounds because our centers are trying to go out and defend unguarded people when the guards and forwards should be going out. (As a side note, I think the coach sees this too, as he tried to play Hassan Whiteside, a shot blocker, for a few games when Hickson was hurt, even though there were better options.

My hypothesis: The Kings are an average to slightly above average team at one on one defense, but the worst team at team defense.

My issue is that I know I can’t think rationally about anyone on the team because I am a fan. So, I was wondering if someone can help prove (or disprove, if that is the case) my hypothesis. Any help would be appreciated.

I'm no expert on this, but I'm learning a lot. One thing I can tell you is help defense is that it is often determined by bigs (it's rare for a perimeter player to be anchoring a defense with his help D). So taking a look at their main bigs...

Cousins plays the most minutes of any big on the Kings, at about 30 MPG. He also plays in the middle the most, so he should determine a lot of their help D.

First is his DRTG, which isn't exactly top tier. It's at 104 which is 101st in the league (for everyone playing at least 20 MPG). That's very low for bigs.

Another bad thing Cousins has going for him is his play at the rim. First, he leads the league in overall fouls, and has 4.0 FPG. Now, not all are at the defensive end, but that's still quite a few. Match that with only 1.24 BPG and 0.85 charges per game. That's 2.09 charges or blocks for every 4 fouls, not a very good rate. Cousins is 32nd in the league in BLK%, not great to begin, but adding in 4 fouls per game really puts him as a below average defensive anchor.

Now, I'm not saying Cousins is bad, he makes up for it with a great ORB rate and a good mid-range game, but on D he may be the main reason for the bad team defense.


I'll do a quick analysis of Jason Thompson, the second leading minutes for bigs on the Kings.

DRTG of 110. Not good by any means, but he doesn't play a whole lot, so it could be partially due to who he plays with and not just him.

Thompson gets 0.15 charges per game, and 0.54 BPG, with 2.43 FPG. 0.69 to 2.43, also not a good rate.


Those are the two main defensive anchors for the Kings, and neither has a strong DRTG or foul to charge/block rate. Both of those things contribute to bad team D.


Individual D is so hard to figure out for perimeter players especially. I mean, you look at a guy like Dumars who was great at man-to-man, but it doesn't show up in stats. And you really have to use Synergy (or something else) and collect your own stats on that. But all of Evans, Greene, Hayes have good reps as individual defenders, and having seen them play I'd tend to agree. But VERY hard to put on paper IMO with the stats that are officially collected. Maybe someone else can help you with that.

So that shows the bad team D part, hope that helps you at least a little bit.

i dont really think theres any point in looking at drtg in the box score. at least look at their on/off defensive numbers to get a better idea. so for example the Kings with Thompson on the court are at 108.5 as opposed to 110.5 with him off the court. so with Thompson, the kings defense improves by 2 points. of course you have to account for the guys he plays with and whoever he is replacing, but it gives you a better idea than just straight drtg.