SoTD: Bargnani's defensive numbers over 4 years

[novi13]

You know, I find it so silly that people take this crap seriously. Are you, through your statistics trying to say Andrea got WORSE defensively each year? Seriously?

I can't stand this numbers crap anymore. Anyone who understands basketball knows that numbers mean so much less than most on this board give them credit for. I bet by numbers, Shareef was a positive player on (W/L)

Probably his defensive impact became worse as he transitioned from the bench to a starting role, since starters are presumably harder to guard than bench guys.

Regarding numbers and statistics in general...err, just because you don't understand them doesn't mean they are meaningless

Oh I don't understand statistics now? Dear god, all those stats courses through university and the 80's and 90's seem to have mislead me into feeling I did understand... guess not.

Let's paint a picture here.

Statistics say:
1. Reggie Evans is a good defender
2. Jose Calderon actually should play more minutes and when he plays more minutes, our defense improves.. as the less he's played, the more we've regressed.
3. Chris Bosh is an average defender..

I say:
1.Reggie Evans is a scrub who plays against scrubs.. and when he's in the game, the team slows down the tempo.. and thus the scoring of the other team goes down dramatically..
2. Jose should probably never play because his presence on the court creates break downs.. foul trouble.. but it also slows down tempo.. hmmmmmmmm.. Slow down offensive tempo.. increase your defensive efficiency. It's not a secret that the best defensive team we've had in years was 2004/2005.. and that was Kevin O'Niell.. with his grind it out offense.. expend less energy running and gunning and as a byproduct.. your defense improves.. but do you become a better team? Kinda debatable.
3. Chris Bosh is and always has been a terribly unwilling defender. And he's also incapable. So.. he's a 4, Andrea's a 4.. but because Andrea's the guy who can match up size-wise and because he's the one the team would rather see in foul trouble.. he guards the 5's.. but the problem is.. he's not a 5.. he's a 4.. and guarding David West v.s guarding Dwight Howard are very different things..

Here's something..

Andreas four years: 46 wins, 41 wins, 33 wins, 40 wins..
Bosh? hmmmmmmm

So on average.. any NBA team with Andrea is bound to win roughly 41-42 wins per season..
and any team with Bosh (as per 7 years of evidence) is bound to win about 35 or 36..

That makes about as much sense as this statistical analysis.

You forget that tempo matters.. who people often play with matters.. match-ups matter.

If you put Bosh on the 5's and Andrea on the 4's.. would Andrea become better?... One has to wonder. Would we be worse? ... exactly.

[The_Hater]

Bargs is an excellent defender. He will prove himself this coming season.

Just curious but if he's an excellent defender, why do we need to see the upcoming season as proof? Wouldn't there be proof somewhere in the previous 300 NBA games he's played?

[andreafan]

Scott i believe calderon was on the court during those minutes also , hint hint

Calderon is also an awful defender, nobody disputes that. The only players on last year's Raptors who could be considered above-average defenders and played over 1,000 minutes were Amir Johnson and Antoine Wright. When you have so many poor defenders and when your worst defenders play C and PG, that's a surefire recipe for having one of the worst team defences in the NBA.

Agree scott, but with andrea being our franchise player now, should not bryan go about surrounding him with better defenders. Compliment andreas weaknesses with strenghts .

[gamer4Life]

Bargs is an excellent defender. He will prove himself this coming season.

Just curious but if he's an excellent defender, why do we need to see the upcoming season as proof? Wouldn't there be proof somewhere in the previous 300 NBA games he's played?

As the primary option. Just be patient.

[Ka5p3r]

numbers mean nothing!
defense is MOSTLY teamwork
in the nba no one can really guard 1 on1 except for a handful of people...

[ZefSyde]

Everyone is harping on Bargs because hes not the best help defender. But what is help defence? You are helping a teammate WHO FAILED HIS ASSIGNMENT. Andrea man to man can defend anyone in the NBA. Thats half of defence. Actually, thats more than half of defence, unless you play for the raptors.

If Andrea needs to CONSTANTLY try to fix other peoples mistakes, hes going to look bad. Who was helping on Bargs mistakes? Nobody, because Bosh was busy waiting for the rebound. Thats why we were terrible. I dont blame bargs for looking lethargic, I would too if my team was terrible defensively like the raps were. Calderon, DD, Turk and Bosh were all TERRIBLE defenders and you expect bargs to clean up that mess every game? Please son.

Maybe if this was a 1v1 nba showtime league we can use defensive statistics to paint an accurate picture but thats simply not the case. We play 5v5 so its a 5 man effort and for you to peg it all on bargs is a cop out in order to not look stupid because you've been bashing bargs from day one.

Well now you see idiotic threads like this just meant to rile people up. Nobody and I mean nobody in their right mind would insinuate that Bargs got worse every year defensively. Only a completely blind and pathetic hater would write such a thing.

Hopefully all you bandwagon fans like reignman (only started watching the raps in '08 but I know more than you) and rip (im going to post some useless team stats and attribute it to a single player) can go cheer on another team because you're no good here. You dont really know much about ball or if you do your ridiculous hate for bargs is blinding you from the truth.

[DG88]

That's irrelevant. This stat geek and his posse of sheep are trying to tell me bargs got worse every year he has been in the league.

defensively yes that's what the stats say. not that his whole game has gone downhill.

[Scott Carefoot]

Agree scott, but with andrea being our franchise player now, should not bryan go about surrounding him with better defenders. Compliment andreas weaknesses with strenghts .

He tried that. Tyson Chandler should be a Raptor now, but MJ kiboshed the deal.

[The_Hater]

Bargs is an excellent defender. He will prove himself this coming season.

Just curious but if he's an excellent defender, why do we need to see the upcoming season as proof? Wouldn't there be proof somewhere in the previous 300 NBA games he's played?

As the primary option. Just be patient.

That would be a decent enough argument about him offensively but makes absoultely no sense when discussing his defense.

[theDEATH]

I haven't read the thread yet, so don't kill me if this has been mentioned already. I would argue that those stats represent the first unit/the starter's performance as a whole rather than just Bargnani. The second unit is better defensively (relative to their competition), and we, as a fan-base, have known that for a while, so I don't really know why this comes as a surprise to people.

[Scott Carefoot]

Everyone is harping on Bargs because hes not the best help defender. But what is help defence? You are helping a teammate WHO FAILED HIS ASSIGNMENT. Andrea man to man can defend anyone in the NBA. Thats half of defence. Actually, thats more than half of defence, unless you play for the raptors.

If Andrea needs to CONSTANTLY try to fix other peoples mistakes, hes going to look bad. Who was helping on Bargs mistakes? Nobody, because Bosh was busy waiting for the rebound. Thats why we were terrible. I dont blame bargs for looking lethargic, I would too if my team was terrible defensively like the raps were. Calderon, DD, Turk and Bosh were all TERRIBLE defenders and you expect bargs to clean up that mess every game? Please son.

A center's primary role on defence is to play help D as the last line of defence. The problem is that Bargnani is not equipped to successfully play that position in the NBA. He sucks at help defence and he's a terrible rebounder. It's not his fault that he's put in a position where he's apparently incapable of succeeding. That doesn't change the fact that his supporters are in serious denial at how terrible he is at playing center. If we can all agree on this, then we can join forces in protesting the Raptors' insistence on continuing to play him at that position.

[JN]

I love how the excuse makers criticize these stats, and then stats in general, but then at the same time use simple counting stats like 20-7 as the holy grail for justification. Stats are only good if they are easy to understand apparently!!

Its like baseball fans who used to get upset when moderately advanced stats like OPS became more acknowledged as a tool for evaluation (and, we were called statheads for using them or OPS+ or eventually things like VORP). But at the same time if you criticized a player like Joe Carter because of his low OPS, they would call you an idiot for being a stathead for relying on stats rather then watching the game, and then counter with of course he is good he has 100 RBI's!!!

[OvertimeNO]

A center's primary role on defence is to play help D as the last line of defence. The problem is that Bargnani is not equipped to successfully play that position in the NBA. He sucks at help defence and he's a terrible rebounder. It's not his fault that he's put in a position where he's apparently incapable of succeeding. That doesn't change the fact that his supporters are in serious denial at how terrible he is at playing center. If we can all agree on this, then we can join forces in protesting the Raptors' insistence on continuing to play him at that position.

I dunno Scott Carefoot, the stats I brought up seem to show that the Raptors are at their absolute worst when they play Demar DeRozan at the 2 guard. Perhaps we should join forces in protesting the Raptors' insistence on continuing to play him at that position.

[The_Hater]

I haven't read the thread yet, so don't kill me if this has been mentioned already. I would argue that those stats represent the first unit/the starter's performance as a whole rather than just Bargnani. The second unit is better defensively (relative to their competition), and we, as a fan-base, have known that for a while, so I don't really know why this comes as a surprise to people.

Then why doesn't the same drop off occur for all the other starters? (not presented in the OP, I do realize).

The OP also presents 4 years of data, not just 1. And over that time, in various roles, the team has consistantly defended better with Bargs on the bench than on the court.

[Undefeated]

A center's primary role on defence is to play help D as the last line of defence. The problem is that Bargnani is not equipped to successfully play that position in the NBA. He sucks at help defence and he's a terrible rebounder. It's not his fault that he's put in a position where he's apparently incapable of succeeding. That doesn't change the fact that his supporters are in serious denial at how terrible he is at playing center. If we can all agree on this, then we can join forces in protesting the Raptors' insistence on continuing to play him at that position.

Yes, but you don't expect your Center to consistently play help D on nearly every possession as such like Bargnani for the Raptors. Even with better resistance from the wing, Bargnani still isn't going to man a top defensive team as the last line of defense which I agree. But as I've said, the Raptors can manage to become a middle of the pack defensive squad when the wings offer more resistance. The Raptors had a DRtg of around 108 which is pretty damn good when Bargnani had Sonny and/or Antoine who could at least buy Bargnani some time to rotate. Not successfully, but the Raptors can live with it though. Bargnani has a DRtg of 97.6 in the clutch which does show he does have what it takes to bring it to the defensive end, but it all comes down to effort and being held accountable.

[SDM]

Two blocks a game was good for fifth in the L last year. If Bargs averaged 17/9 with two blocks, no one would call him a crappy defender. He's a sucky rebounder, yes. Is it possible for him to get two more rebounds out of an available 100? Yes. Is it possible for him to get another half block a game? Yes.

Since the anti-Bargs crowd has finally conceded that he plays solid man to man defense, the sticking point is 2% of available rebounds and half a block a game. Unreal. I don't seen anyone holding any of our other players (except for Calderon) to the same kind of scrutiny.

[HeyJoe]

i'm not usually one to defend bargs but this reeks of confound

[ZefSyde]

Everyone is harping on Bargs because hes not the best help defender. But what is help defence? You are helping a teammate WHO FAILED HIS ASSIGNMENT. Andrea man to man can defend anyone in the NBA. Thats half of defence. Actually, thats more than half of defence, unless you play for the raptors.

If Andrea needs to CONSTANTLY try to fix other peoples mistakes, hes going to look bad. Who was helping on Bargs mistakes? Nobody, because Bosh was busy waiting for the rebound. Thats why we were terrible. I dont blame bargs for looking lethargic, I would too if my team was terrible defensively like the raps were. Calderon, DD, Turk and Bosh were all TERRIBLE defenders and you expect bargs to clean up that mess every game? Please son.

A center's primary role on defence is to play help D as the last line of defence. The problem is that Bargnani is not equipped to successfully play that position in the NBA. He sucks at help defence and he's a terrible rebounder. It's not his fault that he's put in a position where he's apparently incapable of succeeding. That doesn't change the fact that his supporters are in serious denial at how terrible he is at playing center. If we can all agree on this, then we can join forces in protesting the Raptors' insistence on continuing to play him at that position.

Bargs can succeed at the 5 because hes big enough, strong enough, tall enough, and fast enough to play the position. There is only one dwight howard in the league, dont ask him to be a dwight howard. Out of 30 starting NBA centres in the league Bargs is not the worst defender out of all of them, he just looks bad with all the scrubs he plays with.

I can concede he would do better as a PF but dont tell me he cant be a centre because Calderon or Derozan dont know how to contain their man. I doubt people would be crying about his defence if he didnt play in a no defence lineup like Calderon/DD/Turk/Bosh, which were our starters last year. Not one good defender amongst them.

Not one.

Hes not the best but dont blow it out of proportion like these haters do. If he can play solid man defence and the other 4 positions arent completely useless at defence then we can be a top 12-15 defencive team. Maybe even better depending on who the other 4 are. And if we can be a top 6 offensive team thats second round material, possibly more.

Everyone here is looking for a top 5 defence, its not going to happen. Get over it. Enjoy what we have and stop being pathetic little children arguing over whos pokemon could beat who. Its not cut and dry and its not black and white. I dont need stupid ass statistics to tell me bargs got better defensively since his first year in the NBA. Only a (Please Use More Appropriate Word) would debate that, which isnt surprising on this forum.

Cant wait for school to start, but its not like these kids do any studying.

[The_Hater]

Two blocks a game was good for fifth in the L last year. If Bargs averaged 17/9 with two blocks, no one would call him a crappy defender. He's a sucky rebounder, yes. Is it possible for him to get two more rebounds out of an available 100? Yes. Is it possible for him to get another half block a game? Yes.

.

Your entire line of thinking is just off base here. If Bargs averaged another 1/2 block per game while showing similar defensive ratings, sorry but no, that doesn't suddenly make him a decent defensive player.

Also he averaged 6.2 boards a game in 35 mpg last year. So if he jumped almost 50% to 9 rpg would be a pretty massive leap considering last year he posted the best per minute rebounding rate of his career. I wouldn't call it impossible, but I would file it under the highly unlikely file. I think you'd be hard pressed to find many if any big men that have jumped their career high rebounding rate by 50% in a single season this deep into their career.

[hoop_head]

I wonder what an analysis of our perimeter defence would look like over that same 4-year period. Specifically look at the PG and SG spots, and overlay those statistics over the analysis done on Bargnani.