good stat for defense

[Showtime:Part2]

what's a good stat i can use to get some sort of idea of a player's defensive abilities, especially one i haven't/can't watch that often. why i want this: i'm interest in comparing the defense of different pfs to that of lamar odom. blocked shots and steals can be misleading, i think. for ex, haslem sucks at blocking shots, but some people think he is a better defender than odom. i'm not looking for a tell-all stat, just something that'll put a player in a certain range of defensive capability.

[Sting3r]

opposition's fg% and ppg.

[Showtime:Part2]

opposition's fg% and ppg.

where do i get that.

[tkb]

Finding a great defensive stat is tough. You can look at defensive efficiency on/off floor and look at impact there, you can also do the same for eFG% but be wary as both these depend a lot on who the other players on the court are. You can look at OPP PER, though that depends on how tough a defensive assignment they take every game. You can also look at OPP PTS and eFG% (not FG%), but again, that also depends on how tough a defensive assignment the player draws.

The best way to look at this statistically, is to look at all of them and get some sort of indication. However, the only way to get a real gauge on this is by watching them play.

All of the stats mentioned can be found on 82games.com btw.

[theGreatRC]

I always get confused with the defensive stats, but if you can find it, OPP Points and % are a an OK way to tell, because sometimes the players just have off nights.

[J~Rush]

Defensive statistics are usually slanted. Players that stay in front of their man and put a hand up on jump shots (like bruce bowen) have less statistical value than players who get a lot of steals/blocks (like Iverson).

[nate33]

82games.com posts defensive on/off stats. If a team plays better defense (going by points allowed per 100 possessions) when a certain player is on the floor, it may be an indication that that player is a good defender. Obviously, you have to account for teammates as well.

Also check opponent PER which is also at 82games.com. If a player can hold an opponent to a low PER, that usually means he's a pretty good man-to-man defender. Note that that stat can also be skewed. A guy like Michael Finley may get a better ranking than he deserves because Bowen is usually guarding the best swing man, leaving Finley to guard the worst swing man.

Also note that opponent PER is less useful when evaluating a big man who typically has more responsibility for help D. A guy like Kwame Brown is an excellent post defender, but he has a low basketball IQ and is often fooled by opposing offensive sets. He is slow to rotate and teams often get layups and dunks because Kwame stays on his man too long before rotating to help out. As a result, Kwame will have a good opponent PER score because his man doesn't score, but he'll have a lousy team defense on/off differential.

There is no perfect defensive stat. But if you combine team defensive effect with individual counterpart PER data; and then factor in unique situations with teammates (like the Finley/Bowen example), you can often get a pretty good indication whether or not the player can defend.

[tsherkin]

I might point out that 82games.com is notorious for inaccurately representing the matchups a player actually has. They have been baldly incorrect on a number of different occasions and the Opp data isn't all that reliable.

The +/- stuff is generally interesting, you can look at eFG% allowed while they're on/off, points per 100 possessions while on/off... on the player stats page, you can look at BLK/shooting foul, which is a good way to see if the player is just contesting a lot and badly or someone like Camby, who's blocking a hell of a lot of shots for each shooting foul he gives up.

And of course, most of the stuff on the By Position page is PER48, which minutes you're looking at stuff that gets looks really weird for low-minute players. The same could be said of +/-.

Good defensive stats are REALLY difficult to come by; like nate said, there is no perfect stat.

If you can confirm that a player is indeed playing at the position (and more importantly, guarding that position) by asking the guys on a given player's team board, then the counterpart data can be useful in conjunction with the +/- data, and any other kind of thing you might look at, such as whether the guy's a shot-blocker or if he's a man-on defender or other such observations.

[hermes]

-= original quote snipped =-



where do i get that.

teh internets?

[scottyo50]

Blocks per game, duh.

[awhite]

82games attempted to create a comprehensive defensive stat:

http://82games.com/nichols2.htm

[NetsForce]

Hoopsstats.com is a good website as well, you can find things such as bench points per game, and points in the paint per game...

[tkb]

82games attempted to create a comprehensive defensive stat:

http://82games.com/nichols2.htm

Those aren't for this season though, and like every other defensive stat it isn't 100% reliable. Like I previously posted, the only way to really be sure you're gauging it correctly is to watch a LOT of games and pay attention at the defensive end. The stats will only tell you so much. If you combine them all though, you can get a pretty good idea of what's going on.

---------------

To the OP, I've looked at Kobe's season defensively in the following to give an example of how I look at the stats.

When I rank players for DPOY, MVP etc I tend to only look at players that play a significant number of minutes. Hence I've decided to only look at players that play 50% or more of team minutes.

So, back to Kobe. If you look up all players playing 50% or more (which will take a little while) you will notice that Kobe has the highest on/off court defensive impact in both points per 100 possessions (-9.9) and eFG% (-4.9%) of any player in the league. This will give you an indication that he has been playing terrific defense this season.

Furthermore you will also know from having watched him play, that he usually guards good opposing players (often the best players on the opposing team. Sometimes Ariza draws that assignment, but by going to the Lenovo stat page on nba.com and looking up 2-player combinations on the Lakers you can calculate that Ariza is only on the floor for about 13% of Kobe's minutes). Looking at opp PER, Kobe has the lowest number of any Laker, and the Lakers rank top 10 in the league in defense overall (that rank can be found at knickerblogger.net). Don't translate the numbers from knickerblogger to 82games though, because they use different formulas for possessions, so the absolute numbers will wary a little. If you look up every team and rank them (using 82games numbers), and then look at Kobe's page you will see that the Lakers are 4th in the league when he plays, and worse than the team ranked 30th (Knicks) when he doesn't play. This is another strong indication that Bryant has been playing well defensively.

If you go even deeper into things, you can start analyzing every other Laker and see if there is a correlation between percentage of own minutes played with Kobe and defensive impact (on/off points allowed per 100 possessions), which you will find a definite correlation. Every Laker that plays 70% or more of his minutes with Kobe, has positive defensive impact, while every Laker that plays less than 70% of his minutes with Kobe has negative impact. Kobe's own backup, Sasha Vujacic also has one of the worst defensive +/-'s on the team.

When you put all of this information together, you'll probably draw the conclusion that Kobe has been one of the premier defensive players this season, and most likely the best perimeter defender in the league. This all leads to strong suspicion that he should be a strong candidate for DPOY. Having said all this, it's still not a waterproof formula, so watching him play will tell you even more.

[xcomputerman]

82games attempted to create a comprehensive defensive stat:

http://82games.com/nichols2.htm

That one kinda sucks (Bonzi Wells a better defender than Chuck Hayes? LOL.)

Individual defensive ability is hard to quantify for several reasons. For example, opposing PER is often skewed for big men who have a bigger responsibility on help defense. Then there are several teams who have designated defenders whose job is to guard the opposing team's best player every night. Usually those players get theirs regardless, and those night in, night out assignments will end up negatively impacting any statistic that tries to indicate the player's individual defensive ability.

Overall team defense is much easier to quantify -- basically how much a player upgrades (or downgrades) the team's defensive rating when he comes into the game. I like BasketballValue.com's defensive rtg +/- stat in this regard -- in my opinion it is extremely accurate as far as showing who's helping and who's hurting a team on either end of the court when they're playing. It's also true that +/- stats are skewed by the quality of a player's backup/alternates, but it's the best you can do -- you can't just look at pure defensive rating even on an individual level, as that varies widely from team to team and is dependent on the team's overall philosophy.

[tkb]

Thanks for that link. Haven't visited that site before. Looks to have good stuff.

[xcomputerman]

One thing I noticed as I was browsing the overall rankings on BasketballValue.com -- if you sort by pure defensive rating on court, you see the entire Celtics team on top first (which makes sense, they have the best team defensive rating in YEARS, it's almost scary). Then the very next player is Chuck Hayes.

If you sort by defensive rtg +/-, Chuck Hayes is 8th on the list. Why? His backup, Luis Scola also happens to be in the top 30, so there isn't *that* much of a dropoff when he leaves the court. Personally I've always thought a case could be made for Hayes being the best big man defender in the league not named Kevin Garnett, and looking at these numbers, it's easy to see why. Of course, people are going to scream "Camby!" at me, but I'd say that Camby puts up more boxscore statistics (blocks, rebounds) but isn't as good at individual post, perimeter and help defense, all things considered.

Of course, I haven't done a similar analysis of the rest of the top ten and their backups, so take that with a grain of salt as appropriate or feel free to dig deeper.

[tkb]

Paul Millsap of course has a decent case there as well.

I do feel though, that the best way to look at it is Net instead of On, because of reasons you already stated.

Camby does anchor the 3rd best defense in the league, which should count for something. He also has good impact in points per 100 possessions (-5.8) and opp eFG% (-2.4%).

[penbeast0]

Blocks per game, duh.

I see you are a DPOY voter for the league

[tsherkin]

Defensive Win Shares are generally reasonably accurate, too, I forgot to mention those before.

[Showtime:Part2]

82games attempted to create a comprehensive defensive stat:

http://82games.com/nichols2.htm

Those aren't for this season though, and like every other defensive stat it isn't 100% reliable. Like I previously posted, the only way to really be sure you're gauging it correctly is to watch a LOT of games and pay attention at the defensive end. The stats will only tell you so much. If you combine them all though, you can get a pretty good idea of what's going on.

---------------

To the OP, I've looked at Kobe's season defensively in the following to give an example of how I look at the stats.

When I rank players for DPOY, MVP etc I tend to only look at players that play a significant number of minutes. Hence I've decided to only look at players that play 50% or more of team minutes.

So, back to Kobe. If you look up all players playing 50% or more (which will take a little while) you will notice that Kobe has the highest on/off court defensive impact in both points per 100 possessions (-9.9) and eFG% (-4.9%) of any player in the league. This will give you an indication that he has been playing terrific defense this season.

Furthermore you will also know from having watched him play, that he usually guards good opposing players (often the best players on the opposing team. Sometimes Ariza draws that assignment, but by going to the Lenovo stat page on nba.com and looking up 2-player combinations on the Lakers you can calculate that Ariza is only on the floor for about 13% of Kobe's minutes). Looking at opp PER, Kobe has the lowest number of any Laker, and the Lakers rank top 10 in the league in defense overall (that rank can be found at knickerblogger.net). Don't translate the numbers from knickerblogger to 82games though, because they use different formulas for possessions, so the absolute numbers will wary a little. If you look up every team and rank them (using 82games numbers), and then look at Kobe's page you will see that the Lakers are 4th in the league when he plays, and worse than the team ranked 30th (Knicks) when he doesn't play. This is another strong indication that Bryant has been playing well defensively.

If you go even deeper into things, you can start analyzing every other Laker and see if there is a correlation between percentage of own minutes played with Kobe and defensive impact (on/off points allowed per 100 possessions), which you will find a definite correlation. Every Laker that plays 70% or more of his minutes with Kobe, has positive defensive impact, while every Laker that plays less than 70% of his minutes with Kobe has negative impact. Kobe's own backup, Sasha Vujacic also has one of the worst defensive +/-'s on the team.

When you put all of this information together, you'll probably draw the conclusion that Kobe has been one of the premier defensive players this season, and most likely the best perimeter defender in the league. This all leads to strong suspicion that he should be a strong candidate for DPOY. Having said all this, it's still not a waterproof formula, so watching him play will tell you even more.

those are some really interesting stats. what is your impression of odom. even though i watch him play, i can't really tell how good of a defensive player he is. he seems to be slightly above average, but its hard to say.