Discussing Other Teams' Moves - Part 7

[gtn130]

Trae Young update:

He's been incredible on offense as we all know. Defense is still a problem.

OffRTG: 109.1
DefRTG: 112.2
NetRTG: -3.1

When Trae is off the court:

OffRTG: 93.0
DefRTG: 99.1
NetRTG: -6.0

Isaiah Thomas still appears to be a pretty good comp in terms of output.

I agree that Trae has issues on defense but DRTG isn't the way to show it. DRTG works for teams but for players it is a very different stat. Just google the formula. It is a mess.

No, DefRTG is fine. It can obviously be pretty noisy and requires some context to be useful, but the context here is pretty clear - Trae is a wildly undersized NBA player with t-rex arms who fails the eye test, and the numbers support that. Atlanta is a bad defensive team and they're better with him off the court.

[Ball4life32]

Trae Young update:

He's been incredible on offense as we all know. Defense is still a problem.

OffRTG: 109.1
DefRTG: 112.2
NetRTG: -3.1

When Trae is off the court:

OffRTG: 93.0
DefRTG: 99.1
NetRTG: -6.0

Isaiah Thomas still appears to be a pretty good comp in terms of output.

I agree that Trae has issues on defense but DRTG isn't the way to show it. DRTG works for teams but for players it is a very different stat. Just google the formula. It is a mess.

No, DefRTG is fine. It can obviously be pretty noisy and requires some context to be useful, but the context here is pretty clear - Trae is a wildly undersized NBA player with t-rex arms who fails the eye test, and the numbers support that. Atlanta is a bad defensive team and they're better with him off the court.

I mean Mavs are better both offensively and defensively with Luka off the court..guess he’s flawed as well based on your logic. Trae is significantly better than IT at 21.

Hawks defense has been bad since Jabari entered the starting lineup. The hawks offense is awful with no Trae & have no chance without him ...especially with no Huerter or Collins.

[payitforward]

What is the actual formula for DefRTG?

I found it. https://www.basketball-reference.com/about/ratings.html

Note the following from the page:

"Out of necessity (owing to a lack of defensive data in the basic boxscore), individual Defensive Ratings are heavily influenced by the team's defensive efficiency. They assume that all teammates are equally good (per minute) at forcing non-steal turnovers and non-block misses, as well as assuming that all teammates face the same number of total possessions per minute.

"Perhaps as a byproduct, big men tend to have the best Defensive Ratings (although Oliver notes that history's best defensive teams were generally anchored by dominant defensive big men, suggesting that those types of players are the most important to a team's defensive success). A corollary to this is that excellent perimeter defenders who don't steal the ball a lot — for instance, Joe Dumars or Doug Christie — are underrated defensively by DRtg, and are prone to look only as good as their team's overall defense performs."

To each his own, but to me these caveats render the tool more or less useless.

[gtn130]

What is the actual formula for DefRTG?

I found it. https://www.basketball-reference.com/about/ratings.html

Note the following from the page:

"Out of necessity (owing to a lack of defensive data in the basic boxscore), individual Defensive Ratings are heavily influenced by the team's defensive efficiency. They assume that all teammates are equally good (per minute) at forcing non-steal turnovers and non-block misses, as well as assuming that all teammates face the same number of total possessions per minute.

"Perhaps as a byproduct, big men tend to have the best Defensive Ratings (although Oliver notes that history's best defensive teams were generally anchored by dominant defensive big men, suggesting that those types of players are the most important to a team's defensive success). A corollary to this is that excellent perimeter defenders who don't steal the ball a lot — for instance, Joe Dumars or Doug Christie — are underrated defensively by DRtg, and are prone to look only as good as their team's overall defense performs."

To each his own, but to me these caveats render the tool more or less useless.

I mean this is just horrific analysis on your part. Stick to evaluating Thomas Bryant by his TS%. How’s that going btw?

[gtn130]

I agree that Trae has issues on defense but DRTG isn't the way to show it. DRTG works for teams but for players it is a very different stat. Just google the formula. It is a mess.

No, DefRTG is fine. It can obviously be pretty noisy and requires some context to be useful, but the context here is pretty clear - Trae is a wildly undersized NBA player with t-rex arms who fails the eye test, and the numbers support that. Atlanta is a bad defensive team and they're better with him off the court.

I mean Mavs are better both offensively and defensively with Luka off the court..guess he’s flawed as well based on your logic. Trae is significantly better than IT at 21.

Hawks defense has been bad since Jabari entered the starting lineup. The hawks offense is awful with no Trae & have no chance without him ...especially with no Huerter or Collins.

That’s certainly not my logic lmao

[I_Like_Dirt]

What is the actual formula for DefRTG?

I found it. https://www.basketball-reference.com/about/ratings.html

Note the following from the page:

"Out of necessity (owing to a lack of defensive data in the basic boxscore), individual Defensive Ratings are heavily influenced by the team's defensive efficiency. They assume that all teammates are equally good (per minute) at forcing non-steal turnovers and non-block misses, as well as assuming that all teammates face the same number of total possessions per minute.

"Perhaps as a byproduct, big men tend to have the best Defensive Ratings (although Oliver notes that history's best defensive teams were generally anchored by dominant defensive big men, suggesting that those types of players are the most important to a team's defensive success). A corollary to this is that excellent perimeter defenders who don't steal the ball a lot — for instance, Joe Dumars or Doug Christie — are underrated defensively by DRtg, and are prone to look only as good as their team's overall defense performs."

To each his own, but to me these caveats render the tool more or less useless.

I don't think it's useless. As with any stat you just need to understand what it's actually telling you. It's invariably going to lean heavily towards bigs as they block more shots and get more defensive rebounds. The wings that do better tend to be ones that get a ridiculous amount of steals, which can be accurate, or not. I'd also suggest that it's not just about bigs historically having more defensive impact but also that there is significantly more variation in the overall quality of defense amongst bigs as the talent pool tends to be smaller - though positionally they're more likely to be helping on more shots so there is also some logic to the argument that they're more valuable that way, particularly the mobile ones. Drtg can also undervalue bigs. Marc Gasol is criminally underrated by that stat, for example, as he doesn't actually get that many blocks, steals or defensive rebounds. There are some pretty severe limits with drtg, though, and using it as a standalone or even as a tie-breaker is tricky and it can be highly misleading if you aren't careful with it as it's extremely poor as a comparative tool.

[gtn130]

Trae is significantly better than IT at 21.

IT wasn't in the league at age 21. People seem to think comparing Trae to IT is some sort of pejorative but it's not - I'm thinking Trae will roughly translate to peak IT which was incredibly good offensively, but also really bad defensively. That nets out to a good but not great player.

Trae, as expected, has made minimal defensive strides thus far in year two because he doesn't have the size of an NBA player.

[Ball4life32]

Trae is significantly better than IT at 21.

IT wasn't in the league at age 21. People seem to think comparing Trae to IT is some sort of pejorative but it's not - I'm thinking Trae will roughly translate to peak IT which was incredibly good offensively, but also really bad defensively. That nets out to a good but not great player.

Trae, as expected, has made minimal defensive strides thus far in year two because he doesn't have the size of an NBA player.

That’s my point. Trae at 21 is doing better vs NBA competition than IT did vs college competition at 21. IT’s peak year (1 season) was at 27 years old....Trae is already close to that level now. So you’re saying Trae is at his peak now and won’t improve like IT did? Even then IT was a career 5 APG guy....Trae is and will always have much better passing ability / vision. Plus Trae is at least top 10 in steals (IT was never close) and had looked better on that end until the Collins suspensions. He’s got rookies & Jabari Parker starting so the Defense will be bad with the defenders around him.

[gtn130]

Trae is significantly better than IT at 21.

IT wasn't in the league at age 21. People seem to think comparing Trae to IT is some sort of pejorative but it's not - I'm thinking Trae will roughly translate to peak IT which was incredibly good offensively, but also really bad defensively. That nets out to a good but not great player.

Trae, as expected, has made minimal defensive strides thus far in year two because he doesn't have the size of an NBA player.

That’s my point. Trae at 21 is doing better vs NBA competition than IT did vs college competition at 21. IT’s peak year (1 season) was at 27 years old....Trae is already close to that level now. So you’re saying Trae is at his peak now and won’t improve like IT did? Even then IT was a career 5 APG guy....Trae is and will always have much better passing ability / vision. Plus Trae is at least top 10 in steals (IT was never close) and had looked better on that end until the Collins suspensions. He’s got rookies & Jabari Parker starting so the Defense will be bad with the defenders around him.

This is an incredibly bad post. Please point to any evidence Trae Young is as good as 2016 Isaiah Thomas. There is literally nothing you can find that will substantiate that claim. Even if you look at *only* Trae's last 12 games and assume that he'll continue to shoot 66% on tightly guarded 3pt shots, his numbers still fall short of what IT did in 2016.

And your player comp stuff is totally irrelevant. I'm talking strictly about offensive and defensive output, so *how* Trae provides impact is irrelevant.

[Ball4life32]

IT wasn't in the league at age 21. People seem to think comparing Trae to IT is some sort of pejorative but it's not - I'm thinking Trae will roughly translate to peak IT which was incredibly good offensively, but also really bad defensively. That nets out to a good but not great player.

Trae, as expected, has made minimal defensive strides thus far in year two because he doesn't have the size of an NBA player.

That’s my point. Trae at 21 is doing better vs NBA competition than IT did vs college competition at 21. IT’s peak year (1 season) was at 27 years old....Trae is already close to that level now. So you’re saying Trae is at his peak now and won’t improve like IT did? Even then IT was a career 5 APG guy....Trae is and will always have much better passing ability / vision. Plus Trae is at least top 10 in steals (IT was never close) and had looked better on that end until the Collins suspensions. He’s got rookies & Jabari Parker starting so the Defense will be bad with the defenders around him.

This is an incredibly bad post. Please point to any evidence Trae Young is as good as 2016 Isaiah Thomas. There is literally nothing you can find that will substantiate that claim. Even if you look at *only* Trae's last 12 games and assume that he'll continue to shoot 66% on tightly guarded 3pt shots, his numbers still fall short of what IT did in 2016.

And your player comp stuff is totally irrelevant. I'm talking strictly about offensive and defensive output, so *how* Trae provides impact is irrelevant.

I literally said he’s playing CLOSE to that level.

IT peak year:
29/5/3 with a .625 TS% / +5.4 BPM

Trae right now:
27/9/4 with a .587 TS% / +4.5 BPM

According to Synergy Trae is tied for #1 in the NBA with Doncic as the most trapped Guards in the league. He’s getting constant double teams especially with no Collins + no Huerter...IT had a much better and older team around him. Trae’s numbers will obviously fluctuate with being so early. And again Trae is a good bit bigger than IT...he easily has the tools to be better defensively so not seeing your comparison in the slightest on either ends.

[payitforward]

What is the actual formula for DefRTG?

I found it. https://www.basketball-reference.com/about/ratings.html

Note the following from the page:

"Out of necessity (owing to a lack of defensive data in the basic boxscore), individual Defensive Ratings are heavily influenced by the team's defensive efficiency. They assume that all teammates are equally good (per minute) at forcing non-steal turnovers and non-block misses, as well as assuming that all teammates face the same number of total possessions per minute.

"Perhaps as a byproduct, big men tend to have the best Defensive Ratings (although Oliver notes that history's best defensive teams were generally anchored by dominant defensive big men, suggesting that those types of players are the most important to a team's defensive success). A corollary to this is that excellent perimeter defenders who don't steal the ball a lot — for instance, Joe Dumars or Doug Christie — are underrated defensively by DRtg, and are prone to look only as good as their team's overall defense performs."

To each his own, but to me these caveats render the tool more or less useless.

I mean this is just horrific analysis on your part. Stick to evaluating Thomas Bryant by his TS%. How’s that going btw?

Dude... get up on the wrong side of the bed...?

Why don't you address the problem with the formula? Or do you disagree that 1) the assumptions & 2) the inability to account for a wide range of good defensive guards are problems worth considering?

OTOH, it is true that "more or less useless" is an overstatement. Better would have been "more or less useless for rating anyone other than big men."

As to Bryant, he is definitely having a slow start to the season. OTOH, no one would analyze any player solely on his TS%. Also, no one would claim that a lower TS% is better than a higher one (usage being the same).

[gtn130]

That’s my point. Trae at 21 is doing better vs NBA competition than IT did vs college competition at 21. IT’s peak year (1 season) was at 27 years old....Trae is already close to that level now. So you’re saying Trae is at his peak now and won’t improve like IT did? Even then IT was a career 5 APG guy....Trae is and will always have much better passing ability / vision. Plus Trae is at least top 10 in steals (IT was never close) and had looked better on that end until the Collins suspensions. He’s got rookies & Jabari Parker starting so the Defense will be bad with the defenders around him.

This is an incredibly bad post. Please point to any evidence Trae Young is as good as 2016 Isaiah Thomas. There is literally nothing you can find that will substantiate that claim. Even if you look at *only* Trae's last 12 games and assume that he'll continue to shoot 66% on tightly guarded 3pt shots, his numbers still fall short of what IT did in 2016.

And your player comp stuff is totally irrelevant. I'm talking strictly about offensive and defensive output, so *how* Trae provides impact is irrelevant.

I literally said he’s playing CLOSE to that level.

IT peak year:
29/5/3 with a .625 TS% / +5.4 BPM

Trae right now:
27/9/4 with a .587 TS% / +4.5 BPM

According to Synergy Trae is tied for #1 in the NBA with Doncic as the most trapped Guards in the league. He’s getting constant double teams especially with no Collins + no Huerter...IT had a much better and older team around him. Trae’s numbers will obviously fluctuate with being so early. And again Trae is a good bit bigger than IT...he easily has the tools to be better defensively so not seeing your comparison in the slightest on either ends.

His numbers are worse across the board, and that's *with* shooting at unsustainable rates on contested shots. I'm honestly being pretty charitable in assuming Trae will be 2016 IT offensively.

The IT comp is fair because Trae was historically bad defensively last year, and his size isn't that far off when you look at wingspan. Wingspan is basically the most important combine measurement for defense, and Trae is in the JJ Reddick wingspan tier. The vast, vast majority of guys drafted with 6'3 wingspan or lower do not make it in the NBA at all.

[gtn130]

What is the actual formula for DefRTG?

I found it. https://www.basketball-reference.com/about/ratings.html

Note the following from the page:

"Out of necessity (owing to a lack of defensive data in the basic boxscore), individual Defensive Ratings are heavily influenced by the team's defensive efficiency. They assume that all teammates are equally good (per minute) at forcing non-steal turnovers and non-block misses, as well as assuming that all teammates face the same number of total possessions per minute.

"Perhaps as a byproduct, big men tend to have the best Defensive Ratings (although Oliver notes that history's best defensive teams were generally anchored by dominant defensive big men, suggesting that those types of players are the most important to a team's defensive success). A corollary to this is that excellent perimeter defenders who don't steal the ball a lot — for instance, Joe Dumars or Doug Christie — are underrated defensively by DRtg, and are prone to look only as good as their team's overall defense performs."

To each his own, but to me these caveats render the tool more or less useless.

I mean this is just horrific analysis on your part. Stick to evaluating Thomas Bryant by his TS%. How’s that going btw?

Dude... get up on the wrong side of the bed...?

Why don't you address the problem with the formula? Or do you disagree that 1) the assumptions & 2) the inability to account for a wide range of good defensive guards are problems worth considering?

OTOH, it is true that "more or less useless" is an overstatement. Better would have been "more or less useless for rating anyone other than big men."

As to Bryant, he is definitely having a slow start to the season. OTOH, no one would analyze any player solely on his TS%. Also, no one would claim that a lower TS% is better than a higher one (usage being the same).

How about people address Trae Young instead of wag their finger over defensive rating?

[Ball4life32]

This is an incredibly bad post. Please point to any evidence Trae Young is as good as 2016 Isaiah Thomas. There is literally nothing you can find that will substantiate that claim. Even if you look at *only* Trae's last 12 games and assume that he'll continue to shoot 66% on tightly guarded 3pt shots, his numbers still fall short of what IT did in 2016.

And your player comp stuff is totally irrelevant. I'm talking strictly about offensive and defensive output, so *how* Trae provides impact is irrelevant.

I literally said he’s playing CLOSE to that level.

IT peak year:
29/5/3 with a .625 TS% / +5.4 BPM

Trae right now:
27/9/4 with a .587 TS% / +4.5 BPM

According to Synergy Trae is tied for #1 in the NBA with Doncic as the most trapped Guards in the league. He’s getting constant double teams especially with no Collins + no Huerter...IT had a much better and older team around him. Trae’s numbers will obviously fluctuate with being so early. And again Trae is a good bit bigger than IT...he easily has the tools to be better defensively so not seeing your comparison in the slightest on either ends.

His numbers are worse across the board, and that's *with* shooting at unsustainable rates on contested shots. I'm honestly being pretty charitable in assuming Trae will be 2016 IT offensively.

The IT comp is fair because Trae was historically bad defensively last year, and his size isn't that far off when you look at wingspan. Wingspan is basically the most important combine measurement for defense, and Trae is in the JJ Reddick wingspan tier. The vast, vast majority of guys drafted with 6'3 wingspan or lower do not make it in the NBA at all.

Sexton/Knox were just as bad defensively last year and plenty of rookies have looked awful on that end so far this year.

Fred Van Vleet - 6’2 wingspan
Trae Young - 6’3 wingspan
Chris Paul - 6’4 wingspan
Steph Curry - 6’4 wingspan
Tony Parker - 6’4 wingspan

None of these others guys are historically bad defensively with short wingspans. Not even saying Trae will be an above average defender but he’s got more potential than IT on both ends.

[payitforward]

I mean this is just horrific analysis on your part. Stick to evaluating Thomas Bryant by his TS%. How’s that going btw?

Dude... get up on the wrong side of the bed...?

Why don't you address the problem with the formula? Or do you disagree that 1) the assumptions & 2) the inability to account for a wide range of good defensive guards are problems worth considering?

OTOH, it is true that "more or less useless" is an overstatement. Better would have been "more or less useless for rating anyone other than big men."

As to Bryant, he is definitely having a slow start to the season. OTOH, no one would analyze any player solely on his TS%. Also, no one would claim that a lower TS% is better than a higher one (usage being the same).

How about people address Trae Young instead of wag their finger over defensive rating?

Well... I guess you could have asked that in your last post. Instead of sending a flame thrower my way for no particular reason.

IT in 2016-17 was comfortably superior to Trae Young so far this season. No question about it.

OTOH, Trae Young is a 2d year player who turned 21 two months ago. IT was 27 & in his 6th NBA season. (Not that you were claiming anything about IT's "essential" superiority)

[gtn130]

Sexton/Knox were just as bad defensively last year and plenty of rookies have looked awful on that end so far this year.

Fred Van Vleet - 6’2 wingspan
Trae Young - 6’3 wingspan
Chris Paul - 6’4 wingspan
Steph Curry - 6’4 wingspan
Tony Parker - 6’4 wingspan

None of these others guys are historically bad defensively with short wingspans. Not even saying Trae will be an above average defender but he’s got more potential than IT on both ends.

Here's the thing.

1) 6'4 > 6'3

2) You're literally cherrypicking two guys out of a list of hundreds

The odds of Trae Young becoming an average defender are extremely long. This is not something we can disagree on - it's a fact. So to casually assume he'll just magically become average on defense is pure wishcasting.

[Ball4life32]

Sexton/Knox were just as bad defensively last year and plenty of rookies have looked awful on that end so far this year.

Fred Van Vleet - 6’2 wingspan
Trae Young - 6’3 wingspan
Chris Paul - 6’4 wingspan
Steph Curry - 6’4 wingspan
Tony Parker - 6’4 wingspan

None of these others guys are historically bad defensively with short wingspans. Not even saying Trae will be an above average defender but he’s got more potential than IT on both ends.

Here's the thing.

1) 6'4 > 6'3

2) You're literally cherrypicking two guys out of a list of hundreds

The odds of Trae Young becoming an average defender are extremely long. This is not something we can disagree on - it's a fact. So to casually assume he'll just magically become average on defense is pure wishcasting.

I rounded up on some of them but 1 or 1/2 inch isn’t a big difference. Never said he would become an average defender, I said he can be better than IT on that end.

[gtn130]

Dude... get up on the wrong side of the bed...?

Why don't you address the problem with the formula? Or do you disagree that 1) the assumptions & 2) the inability to account for a wide range of good defensive guards are problems worth considering?

OTOH, it is true that "more or less useless" is an overstatement. Better would have been "more or less useless for rating anyone other than big men."

As to Bryant, he is definitely having a slow start to the season. OTOH, no one would analyze any player solely on his TS%. Also, no one would claim that a lower TS% is better than a higher one (usage being the same).

I'll address DefRTG since you addressed what I was actually trying to talk about.

Every single basketball metric is relatively useless without proper context. I don't agree DefRTG is useless for rating guards and wings with a large enough sample, but it also depends on what you're trying to prove and with what level of precision. If a guard has spent ten years in the league and every lineup he's ever been in has a DefRTG of 110+, we can almost definitely conclude he is a pretty bad defender. How bad of a defender is he? That's not clear.

When I reference DefRTG as it relates to Trae, it's not as if it's the lynchpin of my argument here. I'm presenting his lineup data with the knowledge that:

1) Trae Young is visibly a terrible defender
2) All of Trae's defensive peripherals are historically bad
3) His on/off numbers are in line with what they were last year
4) The early season variance is actually mostly in his favor (3pt shooting on contested shots, ATL wide open 3pt% defense)

So, I would actually agree that using DefRTG as the entirety of your argument is pretty bad, but that's not what I'm doing. There have been a number of Trae Young conversation that predate this one where I've shared plenty of thoughts on Trae.

[gtn130]

I rounded up on some of them but 1 or 1/2 inch isn’t a big difference. Never said he would become an average defender, I said he can be better than IT on that end.

But..it...is...

It's a literal Mendoza Line.

[Ball4life32]

I rounded up on some of them but 1 or 1/2 inch isn’t a big difference. Never said he would become an average defender, I said he can be better than IT on that end.

But..it...is...

It's a literal Mendoza Line.

Yet according to you Trae (6’3” wingspan) is the same as IT (6’1.75” wingspan). Also Trae (7’11.5” standing reach) compared to IT’s (7’7.5” standing reach). IT was also a couple years older at the combine.