Defensive Rating vs Defensive Win Shares vs Defensive Box Plus/Minus: Which is the most accurate?

[B-Mitch 30]

As someone who admittedly uses Basketball Reference for most of my research, I've never really understood how these three stats are calculated, outside of defensive win shares being derived from defensive rating. In any case, I was hoping people could explain how these stats work in simple terms, and which one is the most accurate to actual defensive performance.

[MiamiBulls]

"Which one is the most accurate to actual defensive performance" None.

Box Score Based Defensive Metrics that you use on Basketball Reference and elsewhere is junk statistics. Defensive Win Shares overvalues Defensive Rebounding. Defensive Rebounding is closer to a Team Stat than individual stat. Defensive Rating is a Team Stat that does almost nothing to capture the singular player's value on Defense.

Defensive Box Plus Minus overvalues Blocks, Steals & Rebounds especially for players who come off the bench. Defensive Box Plus Minus & BPM in general makes presumptions of a player's value simply based on the position they play. If a Center racks up ton of Assists after a certain threshold the remaining box production gets treated as a Defensive Value in BPM hence Nikola Jokic's DBPM or Damontas Sabonis who objectively one of the Worst Defenders in the NBA at Center yet DBPM is top of the league.

[homecourtloss]

"Which one is the most accurate to actual defensive performance" None.

Box Score Based Defensive Metrics that you use on Basketball Reference and elsewhere is junk statistics. Defensive Win Shares overvalues Defensive Rebounding. Defensive Rebounding is closer to a Team Stat than individual stat. Defensive Rating is a Team Stat that does almost nothing to capture the singular player's value on Defense.

Defensive Box Plus Minus overvalues Blocks, Steals & Rebounds especially for players who come off the bench. Defensive Box Plus Minus & BPM in general makes presumptions of a player's value simply based on the position they play. If a Center racks up ton of Assists after a certain threshold the remaining box production gets treated as a Defensive Value in BPM hence Nikola Jokic's DBPM or Damontas Sabonis who objectively one of the Worst Defenders in the NBA at Center yet DBPM is top of the league.

^^^

[SpreeS]

As someone who admittedly uses Basketball Reference for most of my research, I've never really understood how these three stats are calculated, outside of defensive win shares being derived from defensive rating. In any case, I was hoping people could explain how these stats work in simple terms, and which one is the most accurate to actual defensive performance.

Did you see this year Finals?

DRTG of 2024 Finals

Porzingis 100
Doncic 105
Horford 106
Tatum 107
Brown 107
White 109
Livley 110
Holiday 110

By DRTG Doncic was second best defender on the floor and by far the best defender on own team... Forget these stats if you want to use them for defence.

[Special_Puppy]

All of Defensive Box-Plus Minus is the best out of the three, but its still not ideal. Use a combination of D-DPM, D-EPM, D-LEBRON, D-RAPTOR, D-RAPM, and D-BPM