nate33 wrote:Ruzious wrote:Stats aside, you know... no team considers Nick a legit #1 scoring option. Teams know that he doesn't help his team when he's not making shots. He doesn't do anything else consistently. People keep saying he's a very good defender. What matters is if he's a very good team defender, and he's not. We still see him not fighting through screens. There are still consistency issues. All it takes is one team to be stupid, but if Nick gets more than 5/30, I'll be surprised. If he gets an offer in the 5/40 area - Nick, seeyabye.
I agree that that is the general opinion on Young right now. But if he does what he has been doing for an entire season while playing 36 minutes a game, that opinion is going to change. People like "glory stats" and points per game is the biggest glory stat of all. If Young can post 20 points per game with efficiency, people WILL notice. (I'll readily cede that this is a big "if". I'm skeptical that Young can maintain this efficiency as teams try to key on him more and more.)
Oh and the statistical data belies your assertion of Young's team defense. For 3 years, the Wizards have played significantly better defense as a team when Young is on the floor. Two years ago, Young improved the defense by 6.9 points per 100 possessions. Last year, he improved it by 1.6. This year, he improves it by 3.0. This year, with Young on the floor, the team forces opponents to shoot 1.8% worse from the floor, they force 2 more turnovers per 100 possessions, and the Wizards actually rebound better on the defensive glass. On/off data is certainly "noisy", but 3 years is a pretty solid trend which has statistical significance.
Chanelling my inner Warner Wolf - Come awn, Nate. Those defensive stats simply don't tell you much - especially when the team was so poor defensively. Use stats in conjunction with your eyes. For some things, we don't have the stats to make adequate judgments. Maybe he's been better than some of the 2's we've had, but that doesn't make him a good team defender.
