Hayward's Hot Hand

d-will8 · Post #21 » by **d-will8** » Sat Apr 21, 2012 5:36 pm

I'll gladly admit that PER's not a perfect stat, but it's not like bad one-on-one defenders just randomly hold their opponents to an average PER under 10. Additionally, whatever Hayward's DRTG is, the eye test tells me that he's a pretty good defender. Sure, Gay's had some good games against Hayward, but Hayward's done a pretty good job holding down KD and Kobe (among other great offensive players) and he's even shown some ability to guard point guards. Eyes are subjective creatures, so we'll have to agree to disagree, but I feel like it's pretty apparent that Hayward's a much better defender than Miller.

countrybama24 · Post #22 » by **countrybama24** » Sat Apr 21, 2012 6:13 pm

The opponent PER stat is a little misleading because is entirely dependent on who you're guarding. Deng / George / Iggy always guard the opponents best wings. I do t think Corbin has put Hayward in that kind of role. For the record, I don't think Hayward will be Manu. But Manu could be the best scorer on a championship team, so that's a pretty high standard for Gordon.

Post #23 » by **StocktonShorts** » Sat Apr 21, 2012 6:57 pm

countrybama24 wrote: I do t think Corbin has put Hayward in that kind of role.

I disagree. Lately Corbin hasn't had a choice, and even when he had a full roster he put Hayward on Durant.

Post #24 » by **StocktonShorts** » Sat Apr 21, 2012 7:07 pm

reapaman wrote:BTW Monta freaking ellis who defends no one has an opponent PER lower than Paul George and Iman Shumpert for that matter. So I wouldn't hold that as a good reference. PER sucks as a stat. D-Rating is a much better stat and Miller in his second year was 108, Hayward is 109, George is at 99. Even with that said Iggy was not as known for defense his 2nd year and was at 108 and now he's at 97 d-rating. So Hayward could make dramatic improvements, but that remains to be seen.

I'm really trying to get a feel for how much to trust O-Rating and D-Rating. I really WANT to believe in the stats, but I can't figure out why the top 5 guys for the Jazz on D-Rating are all bigs (http://www.basketball-reference.com/teams/UTA/2012.html) and the bottom are all wing players. Shouldn't there be more overlap? If Millsap is allowing 102 points/possession on defense, who are the wing players on the floor with him during that time? How can the average of all the Jazz's wing players' D-Rating be so much higher (worse) than the average D-Rating of the bigs?

d-will8 · Post #25 » by **d-will8** » Sat Apr 21, 2012 7:20 pm

countrybama24 wrote:The opponent PER stat is a little misleading because is entirely dependent on who you're guarding. Deng / George / Iggy always guard the opponents best wings. I do t think Corbin has put Hayward in that kind of role. For the record, I don't think Hayward will be Manu. But Manu could be the best scorer on a championship team, so that's a pretty high standard for Gordon.

There's definitely some truth to that, but Hayward still ends up guarding great players fairly often. Probably not as often as those guys, but it's not like he's just guarding scrubs.

reapaman · Post #26 » by **reapaman** » Sat Apr 21, 2012 8:05 pm

HappyProle wrote:
reapaman wrote:BTW Monta freaking ellis who defends no one has an opponent PER lower than Paul George and Iman Shumpert for that matter. So I wouldn't hold that as a good reference. PER sucks as a stat. D-Rating is a much better stat and Miller in his second year was 108, Hayward is 109, George is at 99. Even with that said Iggy was not as known for defense his 2nd year and was at 108 and now he's at 97 d-rating. So Hayward could make dramatic improvements, but that remains to be seen.

I'm really trying to get a feel for how much to trust O-Rating and D-Rating. I really WANT to believe in the stats, but I can't figure out why the top 5 guys for the Jazz on D-Rating are all bigs (http://www.basketball-reference.com/teams/UTA/2012.html) and the bottom are all wing players. Shouldn't there be more overlap? If Millsap is allowing 102 points/possession on defense, who are the wing players on the floor with him during that time? How can the average of all the Jazz's wing players' D-Rating be so much higher (worse) than the average D-Rating of the bigs?

It goes by how much the guy you guarding scores on you. So since most of the top offensive threats in this league are wings then wing defenders who actually guard wings in general can't help but have higher defensive ratings than bigs who just guard other bigs because many of them today are not as prolific of scorers as wings. So even tho Jefferson's (for example) d-rating looks much better than Haywards, they are both ranked around the same amoung defenders of their postions.

It may have been the other way around in the 90's but thats just how it is now, so you have to use those ratings in perspective of the player's postion and the postions they guard (or in case of o-rating whos guarding them). Otherwide they are great stats, imo.

Post #27 » by **StocktonShorts** » Sat Apr 21, 2012 8:37 pm

I thought O and D rating measured how many points you and your opponent's TEAM scored per 100 possessions while you're on the court.

I didn't think it tried to measure whom you were supposedly guarding. Am I mistaken?

Against the Mavs, for example, how do the stats tell us that Millsap rather than Jefferson was guarding Dirk?

I know there are some video-based tools that look at matchups like this, but I figured stuff at basketball reference was all driven off of info available from box scores.

BJSmiles · Post #28 » by **BJSmiles** » Sun Apr 22, 2012 7:12 am

ut_jazz wrote:He did this last april too. when he figures out how to do this year round he'll be a all star

A real training camp will do wonders for the kid. He is seeing the game so well right now, and is avoiding the sophomore slump he was speeding to earlier in the season. Put Favors (and Harris for that matter) in the same boat, having a real training camp will really help them get a better start to the season.