SoTD: Bargnani's defensive breakdown (updated)

[Jmatt12]

Cool. I was wondering b/c I was reading about Bargs playing history and found this

Bargnani is unique in that he developed largely as a small forward, and as a result, some of these rudimentary post skills are unrefined, while he has retained some remarkable abilities on the perimeter for a player his size. While most North American big men extend their game outward towards the perimeter as they develop, Bargnani is doing the opposite. As a result, certain elements of a post game are emerging before others. For example, his potential as a post defender is ahead of his development as a rebounder.

http://www.draftexpress.com/profile/And ... gnani-154/

You should look at what it says under positions But cool story bro.

Yeah I know with regards to his size he is incapable of playing the 3 and that he his better suited for the 4/5 position at the NBA level.

But I was under the impression that his natural position was a small forward which is why his development as a big (4/5) on the defensive end as well as an offensive re bounder was somewhat of an issue.

[Lionel Messi]

I've read the OP, thanks. These stats are rubbish plain and simple.

I guess Harry Palmer was right, some people will just brush these completely objective stats away.

You realize that these are TRACKED POSSESSIONS. There's no question of opinion or anything. People see something, they write it down, and they publish it. There's no interpretation, or calculation, or any sort of manipulation here.

Obviously I hardly expected you to have problems with these numbers. Help d or not any metric that puts Bosh as a better defender then Noah is a joke.

Clearly Bosh isn't a better defender than Noah, but that's not what these stats are saying. Noah actually suffers the same fate as Bosh does as a man-to-man defender. He is usually not strong enough to keep guys out of the paint when they back him down.
Also, Bosh is quicker on the perimeter, and stays in front of his man well. Whether or not he finishes that with an aggressive shot-block/shot-contest is a different story, because more often than not, Bosh will opt to just "be there" and avoid the risk of fouling. Sometimes the players will miss, sometimes they'll pass it away and sometimes they'll score.

Again, this completely ignores help D, which is crucial for an NBA Center (and shot-blocker) like Noah. Not sure why you disregard this fact. Noah is one of the best P&R defenders in the league and he is a great team defender on the weak side and on help. Of course this stat will make him look a lot worse when it doesn't factor in his biggest strengths on D.

[steve_steamer]

bargnani defense is not good, especially his help..many times he is a spectator to someone converting a lay-up while other bigs would most definately attempt to block or alter the shot, very painful to watch

however, synergy sports stats that have jarrett jack and jose calderon as equivacol defenders is wrong. jose is worse than jack, suffers way more blow by's, wether it results in a lay-up by his man, or someone trying to help calderon and then the help man's player gets the bucket, does synergy account for this? most likely not. stats are stats. to be taken with a grain of salt. everyone knows jose is a terrible defender and jack is half decent, its open season with calderon free layups, blow bys oposing pg in the paint which creates shots for all 5 players on the team as team collapses to paint, and then any of the other 4 guys will score, making any of our other 4 players defensive stats look bad.

this is a skew, stats are stats. bargnani's stats as well as everyone else on the raptors are probably worse while calderon is on the floor, since ppl have to help him and react to his blow by's. see if the stats show team-mates suffering from calderon being on the floor, not just individual.

we need a fundamental big to play d. bargnani nor bosh fit the bill. end of topic no stats needed just logic.

[Lionel Messi]

When Bargnani gets to play his natural position his greater than average role will be to score, block the occasional shot and grab the occasional rebound. Something I'm confident he will do... Oh and the 5 assists at the Knicks game is just a preview to things to come.

"occasional rebound".

Unless you're talking about a wing position, he damn well better get used to grabbing more than the "occasional" rebound.
I fully expect him to average at least 7+ rpg next season, anything lower will be a huge disappointment.

[Kurtz]

Stats can be a wonderful thing when every variable has been taken into consideration. Stats are also a fraudulent way to provide evidence for ones bias.

Three different stats by two people were used to provide a measurement of Rudy's D# in this thread. They not only contradicted each other but one of the posters contradicted himself. He was called out for this and dismissed the criticism as an interpretation error on the part of the person who had criticized him. I guess he missed the irony of it while he was stroking his ego.

Humans are the fundamental flaw in the process of interpreting statistics. Anonymous individuals with preconceived notions exasperate the fundamental flaw.

Flawed statistics FTW?
If so, Harry Palmer and Supersub for GM

...I like this guy.



On a different note, can I just mention that Supersub has pointed out that our best defender under these stats, Wright, is 86th? That makes him what, roughly average?

So if these stats rank our best defender as average, what are they going to do to our lesser defensive players?


I think the focus is off here, this defensive ranking is still not an individual ranking but rather team D ranking, and as such, all of our guys ranks will suffer.

The iso post D is the rank to focus on, where Bargs is around 80, and thus his man D is about average, as we've known from seeing him play. And his help D is bad, which we've also known from seeing him play.

[McFurious1]

When Bargnani gets to play his natural position his greater than average role will be to score, block the occasional shot and grab the occasional rebound. Something I'm confident he will do... Oh and the 5 assists at the Knicks game is just a preview to things to come.

If that's his future, he shouldn't have a greater-than-average role.

And I'll bet you an excessive amount of money that Bargs' assist rate will not approach 10% next year (Bosh was at 11.5%, FWIW)...he only had more than 3 assists twice the entire season. Amir Johnson, despite playing less than half as many minutes and having a considerably lower usage rate, had just as many such "previews of things to come". He's either one of the worst or the least-willing passers in the league.

When you only get 3 touches in the 2nd half you wouldn't want to pass the ball either.

[Tony_Montana]

i wanna know who the best open 3-pt shooters are in the league.

[Schad]

When you only get 3 touches in the 2nd half you wouldn't want to pass the ball either.

Second on the team in usage rate, second in field goal attempts by a mile. He doesn't pass the ball because he doesn't like to pass the **** ball.

[Clutch Carter]

Clearly Bosh isn't a better defender than Noah, but that's not what these stats are saying....

[Lionel Messi]

Clearly Bosh isn't a better defender than Noah, but that's not what these stats are saying....

Jesus man. Man-to-man defence isn't the only part of defence.

What's so hard to understand here?

[Fairview4Life]

You realize that these are TRACKED POSSESSIONS. There's no question of opinion or anything. People see something, they write it down, and they publish it. There's no interpretation, or calculation, or any sort of manipulation here.

You saw supersub's later post pointing out that when Bargs switched onto Mo Williams and he hit a 3, that was also counted as Bargs' man scoring on him, right? All the plays are there to watch, that is the non interpretation part of this. That is different from how these stats are being interpreted when they are presented as Bargnani (or whomever else) defending his man. There is clearly an interpretation going on here. it's just SS can look back through and see how each type play has been interpreted. If the Raps scheme has bigs switching on picks more often than the Bucks, for example, and Bargs ends up trying to cover guys on the perimeter more often, would his stats take a slightly different hit in this 1v1 interpretation than a guy like Bogut? Possibly. I don't know. This is one of the things SS can hopefully dig into and answer for us.

Basically SS needs to stop his life and spend the next two weeks answering all of our questions.

[BigApple]

I'd love to chime in but I'm in Europe for the summer and I won't be using internet cafe's because they ask you for a passport and its a big hassle............

[Ripp]

Clearly Bosh isn't a better defender than Noah, but that's not what these stats are saying....

Jesus man. Man-to-man defence isn't the only part of defence.

What's so hard to understand here?

Lots of people have strong incentive to either not understand, not believe, or to change the subject to other things

[Tony_Montana]

I'd love to chime in but I'm in Europe for the summer and I won't be using internet cafe's because they ask you for a passport and its a big hassle............

nobody cares.

[Reignman]

Ok, since I see mcfurious and others trying to pimp another (Please Use More Appropriate Word) myth about Bargs lets address this now.....what leads you guys to believe Bargs is a "natural 4"?

His play and his stats suggest he's a natural SF on offense. On defense does Bargs even have a natural position? Seems like a 6th man / first big off the bench to me.

Anyway, like all the Bargnani myths that have been exposed, next year Synergysports should be a great tool to expose this myth that Bargs is a "natural 4".

The "5 year project" will finally be over next season and I'll be laughing when we discuss the final product. Considering he's going to play for his NT (no big man camp), I just want to say what a colossal waste of time in advance, thanks folks.

[tmoney34]

Ok, since I see mcfurious and others trying to pimp another (Please Use More Appropriate Word) myth about Bargs lets address this now.....what leads you guys to believe Bargs is a "natural 4"?

His play and his stats suggest he's a natural SF on offense. On defense does Bargs even have a natural position? Seems like a 6th man / first big off the bench to me.

Anyway, like all the Bargnani myths that have been exposed, next year Synergysports should be a great tool to expose this myth that Bargs is a "natural 4".

The "5 year project" will finally be over next season and I'll be laughing when we discuss the final product. Considering he's going to play for his NT (no big man camp), I just want to say what a colossal waste of time in advance, thanks folks.

Who should we have drafted instead?

[Harry Palmer]

I'd love to chime in but I'm in Europe for the summer and I won't be using internet cafe's because they ask you for a passport and its a big hassle............

As was previously shown (patterns of patterns of patterns) the poster who thought you did not need a passport to use an internet cafe in Italy was wrong.

http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/1004/p07s01-woeu.html

Currently, I am in Germany, staying with a friend, and have more time on my hands than anticipated due to the volcano situation. Hence, more ability to chime in. In a couple days, though, I'm on my way to Belgium and, happily for you and some others, will be much less able/likely to post here for a while...although not due to passport issues,I'm glad to say.

[Reignman]

You realize that these are TRACKED POSSESSIONS. There's no question of opinion or anything. People see something, they write it down, and they publish it. There's no interpretation, or calculation, or any sort of manipulation here.

You saw supersub's later post pointing out that when Bargs switched onto Mo Williams and he hit a 3, that was also counted as Bargs' man scoring on him, right? All the plays are there to watch, that is the non interpretation part of this. That is different from how these stats are being interpreted when they are presented as Bargnani (or whomever else) defending his man. There is clearly an interpretation going on here. it's just SS can look back through and see how each type play has been interpreted. If the Raps scheme has bigs switching on picks more often than the Bucks, for example, and Bargs ends up trying to cover guys on the perimeter more often, would his stats take a slightly different hit in this 1v1 interpretation than a guy like Bogut? Possibly. I don't know. This is one of the things SS can hopefully dig into and answer for us.

Basically SS needs to stop his life and spend the next two weeks answering all of our questions.

F4L, maybe I'm confused, but if you switch (either you do it yourself or you do it because your teammate is an idiot) isn't that still your cover?

Maybe I'm missing something but if Bargs was switched onto Mo and Mo hits the 3, who else would you charge that against?

And if you think it should be charged against Jose, then that's a massive flaw in the entire "plan" because at the start of the year we were switching almost every play because Jose didn't know what to do with a screen. Actually, this happened throughout the season.

Switching is a part of the game (obviously not to the extent we use it) and that score was rightfully charged against Bargs IMO.

[Lionel Messi]

You realize that these are TRACKED POSSESSIONS. There's no question of opinion or anything. People see something, they write it down, and they publish it. There's no interpretation, or calculation, or any sort of manipulation here.

You saw supersub's later post pointing out that when Bargs switched onto Mo Williams and he hit a 3, that was also counted as Bargs' man scoring on him, right? All the plays are there to watch, that is the non interpretation part of this. That is different from how these stats are being interpreted when they are presented as Bargnani (or whomever else) defending his man. There is clearly an interpretation going on here. it's just SS can look back through and see how each type play has been interpreted. If the Raps scheme has bigs switching on picks more often than the Bucks, for example, and Bargs ends up trying to cover guys on the perimeter more often, would his stats take a slightly different hit in this 1v1 interpretation than a guy like Bogut? Possibly. I don't know. This is one of the things SS can hopefully dig into and answer for us.

Basically SS needs to stop his life and spend the next two weeks answering all of our questions.

I saw that.
To me, it just means that they count switches. I would guess that we probably DO switch more than most teams, and I thought of that, but Bargnani seemingly does a good job when he's switched onto a perimeter player or a PG. So wouldn't that be GOOD for Bargnani's case?

[Reignman]

Ok, since I see mcfurious and others trying to pimp another (Please Use More Appropriate Word) myth about Bargs lets address this now.....what leads you guys to believe Bargs is a "natural 4"?

His play and his stats suggest he's a natural SF on offense. On defense does Bargs even have a natural position? Seems like a 6th man / first big off the bench to me.

Anyway, like all the Bargnani myths that have been exposed, next year Synergysports should be a great tool to expose this myth that Bargs is a "natural 4".

The "5 year project" will finally be over next season and I'll be laughing when we discuss the final product. Considering he's going to play for his NT (no big man camp), I just want to say what a colossal waste of time in advance, thanks folks.

Who should we have drafted instead?

Man, some of you guys see things in only black and white. If BC felt Bargs was BPA or had the highest ceiling then he made the right pick from an asset perspective.

But since it was clear as day that Bargs wasn't the right fit, then BC should've traded Bargs (the asset) for a better fit a long time ago. If posters on this board figured out 2 or 3 years (some knew even before) ago that Bargs / Bosh don't work as a starting tandem, then moves should've made made to address that or Bargs should've been turned into a 6th man.