2012-13 Player of the Year Discussion Thread

[semi-sentient]

That is not true at all. The defense is played by the defense, but a single player may still be able to influence that in one way or the other.

I never said otherwise, I only said that individual defense (especially at the guard spot) is minimal in the case of the players involved -- and it is. None of these guys are good at keeping their man in front of them and each and every one of them give up outside shots from time to time. They all rely on the help defense behind them, and if that help isn't there they look especially bad.

Bryant's way of playing defense is especially harmful, because it makes it easier for the other team to score from the perimeter. He is not recovering correctly from the help, he has trouble finding his man in transition and his roaming around causes mulitple issues in the Lakers rotation and thereby putting them into a worse position for defensive rebounds.

You're assuming that he plays that way all the time, which he doesn't. His defense hasn't been good or anything but suggesting that it's harmful is ignoring the fact that every single player on the Lakers outside of Howard is a poor defender, and they don't run any effective defensive schemes.

Defense is all about playing together as a unit. It requires good coaching, communication, some athleticism at key positions, and a clear understanding of role. Outside of Howard being athletic, the Lakers have none of the other things so you can't single out one player over the other.

I guarantee you that if you put Kobe on the Heat in place of Wade he'll suddenly be seen as a much better defender. Why? Because the team defense is so good that they can cover for each others mistakes. On the Lakers there isn't any of that so mediocre defense is often amplified, but the reality is that these guys don't play very differently.

and dRtg can't possibly tell me who was on the floor for either team at the time that Kobe was off. If you guys value it then cool, but I've never given that serious weight in any of my rankings and I never will.

Bryant during the last 40 games has clearly the worst OnCourt DRtg of all Lakers' players with reasonable minutes. The only player with a worse OnCourt DRtg than Bryant on the team among all Lakers' is Goudelock, who played 6 min overall. And then we can use ridge regression for example, to determine that as well.

You may want to ignore the seen evidence and the numbers, but overall Bryant's defense this season was bad and his defensive impact clearly negative.

Explain to me how dRtg factors in teammates and opponents and I may give it more thought. Until then I'm going to continue to ignore it unless I'm comparing teams.

[An Unbiased Fan]

Bryant during the last 40 games has clearly the worst OnCourt DRtg of all Lakers' players with reasonable minutes. The only player with a worse OnCourt DRtg than Bryant on the team among all Lakers' is Goudelock, who played 6 min overall. And then we can use ridge regression for example, to determine that as well.

You may want to ignore the seen evidence and the numbers, but overall Bryant's defense this season was bad and his defensive impact clearly negative.

Again, you're comparing 10 mins on 2nd unit vs 2nd unit time, to 38 mins of Kobe playing with a multitude of lineups against starting units. All that on/off numbers tells us is that LA's 2nd unit rotation was better defensively against opposing 2nd units.

For example, the Lakers were 8-3 in games where Kobe/Blake started. Their ORtg was 110.5, and their DRtg was 103.4. For most of the time Kobe was on court, he played next to a defensive liability at PG(Morris/Nash). MDA also played him with Pau alot due to their offensive chemistry, and Pau was bad on rotations and non-existent in transition.

Was Kobe playing great defense, of course not. BUT I really hate when we parse out on/off numbers and ignore the context.

[mysticbb]

This is why you have to watch the games instead of looking at statistics. Kobe played a lot better in the 2nd half of the season.

He played different, which may have made it look like he played better, but overall the impact didn't change much. In fact, defensively it got worse over the course of the season.

I never said otherwise, I only said that individual defense (especially at the guard spot) is minimal in the case of the players involved -- and it is. None of these guys are good at keeping their man in front of them and each and every one of them give up outside shots from time to time. To suggest otherwise is nonsense.

If you are strictly talking about 1on1 defense, I agree, but playing within the defensive scheme, being an adequate team defender, working better in terms of transition defense, are all parts of the impact a wing player has on the defensive end. And at that, Bryant really stood out in a negative way in comparison to the other players.

You're assuming that he plays that way all the time, which he doesn't.

No, that is not my assumption at all. He is just in average worse than an average guard at that. This is an issue.

His defense hasn't been good or anything but suggesting that it's harmful is ignoring the fact that every single player on the Lakers outside of Howard is a poor defender, and they don't run any effective defensive schemes.

Somehow they were able to play INCREDIBLE defense without Bryant. Seriously, in the last two games without Bryant they hold the Spurs and Rockets to 95 ORtg combined. And saying that they all were just "poor" defenders is just not accurate at all. Multiple players on the Lakers have a positive defensive RAPM, besides Howard we have Metta World Peace, Gasol, for example. And even Nash has managed to end up with 0. Yet, Bryant is clearly negative, and the team is playing their worst defense when he is on the court. Something doesn't add up here, if you want to claim that everyone else was responsible but Bryant.

Defense is all about playing together as a unit.

Indeed, it is. And somehow the Lakers were able to do that quite good in average when Bryant wasn't on the court. Now, you may believe that Bryant was not responsible, but I saw Bryant messing up defensive rotation multiple times and then even have the nerve to blame his teammates for that. Really, the only time Bryant looked like a decent defender was when he had the job to contain a primary ball handler; just that in the majority of times he was required to play defense off the ball as well.

Outside of Howard being athletic, the Lakers have none of the other things so you can't single out one player over the other.

Again, 98.9 DRtg in an amount of possession equal to 11.5 games are speaking completely against that. And please, don't insult us by claiming that this would have been "just garbage time"!

I guarantee you that if you put Kobe on the Heat in place of Wade he'll suddenly be seen as a much better defender. Why? Because the team defense is so good that they can cover for each others mistakes.

I agree, and in the other thread I even argued for that. BUT, the issue is that this doesn't make Bryant a better defender at all, unless he actually starts playing better defense off the ball, in transition and so on.

Explain to me how dRtg factors in teammates and opponents and I may give it more thought. Until then I'm going to continue to ignore it unless I'm comparing teams.

It doesn't factor that in, but RAPM is doing it. But when you think about that for awhile: When one single player has the worst OnCourt DRtg on a team, while the team showed to play much better defense during all the other minutes, how likely is it that this one player was completely innocent in that case? And do you honestly want to argue that Bryant had no negative impact on the defense? I bet you watched close to all games this season, and you really want to argue like that? Heck, read the game threads and count the times LAKERS fans actually were angry at Bryant for his lackluster defense, and you want to argue now that it would be a non-issue?

Give Bryant credit for his offensive impact, he clearly had a big positive impact there; and I disagree with everyone trying to claim that Bryant's offensive game was actually the problem for the Lakers this season. I strongly disagreed with those, who wanted to claim that mainly Bryant was the reason for the shortcomings of the Lakers' this season (injuries, coaching overhaul were clearly bigger problems). I made a post that Bryant would have deserved a spot on the All-NBA 3rd team (making him the at least 6th best guard this season, in fact, I have him as 5th), but when I look at the overall picture, I'm not willing to accept that Bryant was not an issue defensively, and at that not as big of an issue, which makes him a Top5 player of this season. He simply was not.

Again, you're comparing 10 mins on 2nd unit vs 2nd unit time, to 38 mins of Kobe playing with a multitude of lineups against starting units.

That is nonsense, and you know that. No, it is not "garbage time" or "2nd unit vs. 2nd unit", that is competitive basketball in which games are won or lost. The Lakers basically had no time where they could just rest, because they needed the wins and in average they played rather close games. The possessions I mentioned equate for 11.5 games, Bryant's possessions are equal to 29 games. You want to claim that 29% of the games didn't mean anything. That is ABSURD.

All that on/off numbers tells us is that LA's 2nd unit rotation was better defensively against opposing 2nd units.

Except that we have 4 FULL games in which Bryant didn't play. And that shameful Pacers' game, in which Bryant hobbeled around to play hero, while his teammates then won the game without him.

For example, the Lakers were 8-3 in games where Kobe/Blake started. Their ORtg was 110.5, and their DRtg was 103.4. For most of the time Kobe was on court, he played next to a defensive liability at PG(Morris/Nash).

The Lakers with Nash on the court and without Bryant played MUCH better defense than with Bryant and without Nash. Seriously, you want to blame Nash for Bryant's inability to stay within the scheme? That is hilarious. Nash was worse as a 1on1 defender, but as a team defender he beats out Bryant easily.

[HeartBreakKid]

One constant? Kobe was better at the start of the season

What? No.

This is why you have to watch the games instead of looking at statistics. Kobe definitely played better basketball in the 2nd half of the season.

I bet his oRtg was higher though! lol...

Do I really have to state how many national games the Lakers had all season? Let's not play the "you have to watch the games" thing, unless you literally think I do not watch basketball, I dont get how you can assume that I haven't seen Bryant through out the entire year.

And considering the defensive arguments being made, I could ironically flip this on you , because anyone who is watching Bryant can see he is playing terrible defense.

[semi-sentient]

He played different, which may have made it look like he played better, but overall the impact didn't change much. In fact, defensively it got worse over the course of the season.

Yes, it looked like he played better. He slowed the pace instead of trying to force D'Antoni's fast break style of play, played more within the flow of the offense instead of just looking for his own shots, and made it a point to get post players easier scoring opportunities instead of just dumping it into the post and letting them go to work (which is essentially what Nash was ineffectively doing). There is no question in my mind he played better basketball, but you do make a good point about overall impact. Making an impact undoubtedly requires help from others, so if his impact was minimal as you suggest then it's no fault of his own in terms of how he played on offense. He couldn't have played any better given his responsibilities as both the primary scoring option and play-maker surrounded by guys that can't shoot or create for themselves.

Defensively I seem to recall the Lakers improving throughout the season. I'll have to investigate this a bit more but I seem to recall them but close to the bottom of the league in terms of dRtg through December (my memory may be failing here).

If you are strictly talking about 1on1 defense, I agree, but playing within the defensive scheme, being an adequate team defender, working better in terms of transition defense, are all parts of the impact a wing player has on the defensive end. And at that, Bryant really stood out in a negative way in comparison to the other players.

D'Antoni's defensive schemes suck, plain and simple. Does he even have a scheme? If Kobe played "Frobe" defense it wouldn't make much difference at all. There is zero communication out on the court and Howard constantly seemed surprised when the Lakers guards would funnel their man to him. EVERYONE was clueless on how to play the PNR and generally did a poor job of closing out on shooters. They were completely out of sync defensively so I don't think for one second that Kobe alone could have a huge impact had he played differently outside of a few select games (the Spurs and Wizards games come to mind).

You can't play good defense if your entire team sucks defensively, and a lot of that falls on the coaching staff. The Lakers transition defense was brutal for sure but the blame can be distributed equally there. As a unit it seemed that they were focused entirely too much on getting offensive rebounds instead of running back, and the result was a lot of easy scores for the opposing team. This is what I love about the Celtics. They don't crash the offensive boards hard. Instead they get back on defense and prevent transition opportunities. That's by design, and the fact that the Lakers don't do that is on the coaching staff.

Help defense was a also a huge problem, and again you can't single out any one player because everyone did poorly in that area.

Somehow they were able to play INCREDIBLE defense without Bryant. Seriously, in the last two games without Bryant they hold the Spurs and Rockets to 95 ORtg combined. And saying that they all were just "poor" defenders is just not accurate at all. Multiple players on the Lakers have a positive defensive RAPM, besides Howard we have Metta World Peace, Gasol, for example. And even Nash has managed to end up with 0. Yet, Bryant is clearly negative, and the team is playing their worst defense when he is on the court. Something doesn't add up here, if you want to claim that everyone else was responsible but Bryant.

That's an incredibly small sample size. The Spurs were playing poorly down the stretch as Parker was working himself back into shape and had several poor offensive games against average defensive teams. Tony Parker shooting 1-10 had a lot to do with it, and he had been somewhat inconsistent in the weeks following his return. I wouldn't put a lot of stock into that, especially since the Spurs exploded offensively against the Lakers after game 1. I think they were clearly out of sync for a few weeks.

Gasol is trash defensively and no amount of number crunching is going to convince me otherwise. He's a poor PNR defender, doesn't contest shots at the rim, is always late on rotations, and can't keep anyone in front of him to save his life. Nash isn't a whole lot better.

Speaking of dRtg's, I would love to hear why Jamison and Blake have the same dRtg for the Lakers. It's quite clear that one guy doesn't play a lick of defense while the other plays solid fundamental defense. That's just one example but there are many more similar ratings that make next to no sense, so I'm left to conclude that dRtg is highly dependent on how the team performs instead of just the individual.

Again, 98.9 DRtg in an amount of possession equal to 11.5 games are speaking completely against that. And please, don't insult us by claiming that this would have been "just garbage time"!

What? I never said anything about garbage time. No clue what you're talking about here.

And do you honestly want to argue that Bryant had no negative impact on the defense? I bet you watched close to all games this season, and you really want to argue like that?

Dude, don't put words in my mouth. I never once claimed that Kobe had a positive impact on defense, nor did I dispute claims that he had a negative impact.

I stated that individual defense isn't that impactful at the guard spot when you're playing on a poor overall defensive team and singling out Kobe for his negative impact ignores the Lakers defensive woes as a unit.

[semi-sentient]

Anyway, I'm going out of town for the next few days so I won't be responding much, if at all. I have no problem with saying that Kobe wasn't good defensively and that he hurt the team, but I question how big of a negative impact he really has on a team with mostly poor defensive players that are poorly coached on top of it, and I'm certainly not going to buy into small sample sizes that don't offer lineups so that I can put those numbers into context.

[mysticbb]

but I question how big of a negative impact he really has on a team with mostly poor defensive players that are poorly coached on top of it, and I'm certainly not going to buy into small sample sizes that don't offer lineups so that I can put those numbers into context.

I think we have a slight misunderstanding here, which I hope can be cleared up with that: I'm talking about a sample which is equal to 11.5 games without Bryant, that considers ALL lineups without Bryant which played during the last 40 games (which have 4 full games without Bryant and 3/4 of the Pacers game included as well). In average in those possessions the Lakers had a 98.9 DRtg. During the same 40 games, the lineups with Bryant had in average a DRtg of 109.6, over 10 points worse. Those possessions would equate to about 29 games. We have 29% of the time, in which the Lakers can play incredible good defense in average, while we have 71% of the time where the Lakers played rather bad defense.

For sure, Bryant didn't play alone here, but the fact remains that from all players with reasonable minutes Bryant's OnCourt DRtg (meaning, how well the team played defense when he was on the court) was the worst. From all players only Goudelock in his 6 min had a worse OnCourt DRtg. I'm not talking about the boxscore metric here, I'm talking about real results. My RAPM says that Bryant was a -3 player on defense, he still was a +4.5 player on offense. Only Jamison ended up with a similar bad defensive RAPM, -3.5. I then have Howard with +4.5, World Peace and Gasol with +1, Nash with 0, Blake with +0.5 ... Maybe Sacre, Johnson-Odom, Goudelock or Ebanks might have a worse value here, but the minutes weren't quite enough to get a huge seperation from 0 here, but nonetheless, they didn't play meaningful minutes anyway.

So, D'Antoni's not-existing defensive scheme can cause the Lakers to play pretty good defense, have the other players still be with good defensive RAPM values, only two of the guys with many minutes were actually really bad, Jamison and Bryant. So, and while I bet that you are willing to believe the number for Jamison, I somehow get the feeling that you are quick to dismiss that for Bryant.

And then we have the whole "eye-test" thing, which pretty much tells me that Bryant is not a good team defender, that he was in average not good in transition, that he had trouble recovering from help, etc. pp., and my "eye-test" seems to be in good agreement with the feelings a lot of Lakers fans expressed in the respective game threads. So, now, either I have a huge bias against Bryant, and therefore misunderstood the comments by Lakers fans, and thereby have to assume that the numbers are completely off, or Bryant was indeed a pretty big negative influence on defense. You may understand that I go with the latter so far ...

So, and when we look at Bryant's 1on1 defense in average, he was just about average here as well. Usually he was pretty good as a 1on1 defender in previous years, but this was not the case this season.

[colts18]

Kobe's defense

108.1 D rating on court (equivalent be 24th ranked D in the league)
103.8 D rating off court (equivalent to 10th ranked D in the league)
+4.8 difference

In the games Kobe has missed, the Lakers defense has been a lot better

101.2 D rating allowed (their full season D rating is 106.6)
vs. 106.4 avg O rating opponent
-5.2 relative to opponent



D rating:
Kobe/Nash on court: 108.6 D rating
Nash w/no Kobe: 104.4 D rating
Kobe w/no Nash: 107.6 D rating
-3.2 difference

Kobe/Howard on court: 106.3 D rating
Howard w/no Kobe: 102.7 D rating
Kobe w/no Howard: 112.4 D rating
-9.7 difference

Kobe/MWP on court: 106.3 D rating
MWP w/no Kobe: 103.6 D rating
Kobe w/no MWP: 111.4 D rating
-7.8 D rating

Kobe/Gasol on court: 106.7 D rating
Gasol w/no Kobe: 101.6 D rating
Kobe w/no Gasol: 109.3 D rating
-7.7 difference

They are even better with Antawn Jamison on the court defensively

Kobe/Jamison on court: 112.3 D rating
Jamison w/no Kobe: 101.2 D rating
Kobe w/no Jamison: 105.8 D rating
-4.6 difference

Here is some lineup combo info:

Kobe/Howard/Nash on court: 104.8 D rating
Howard/Nash w/no kobe: 99.7 D rating
-5.1 difference

Kobe/Howard/World Peace: 104 D rating
Howard/World Peace w/no Kobe: 101.4 D rating
-2.6 difference

Kobe/Howard/Gasol: 108.1 D rating
Howard/Gasol w/no Kobe: 103.3 D rating
-4.8 difference

[An Unbiased Fan]

That is nonsense, and you know that. No, it is not "garbage time" or "2nd unit vs. 2nd unit", that is competitive basketball in which games are won or lost. The Lakers basically had no time where they could just rest, because they needed the wins and in average they played rather close games. The possessions I mentioned equate for 11.5 games, Bryant's possessions are equal to 29 games. You want to claim that 29% of the games didn't mean anything. That is ABSURD.

I never used the term "garbage time", nor did I say it didn't mean anything, so I'm not sure what you're replying to.

What I did say, is that you're using 10 mins of 2nd unit vs 2nd unit time, and equating it to 38 mins of 1st unit vs 1st unit. So it's absurd to derive impact from that data.

Except that we have 4 FULL games in which Bryant didn't play. And that shameful Pacers' game, in which Bryant hobbeled around to play hero, while his teammates then won the game without him.

LOL, ok. So what about the the 4 FULL playoff games where LA played without Kobe?

Their offense & defense wer horrible. One would expect their offense to suffer without Kobe, but by your logic, their defense should have been better....

[An Unbiased Fan]

Kobe's defense

108.1 D rating on court (equivalent be 24th ranked D in the league)
103.8 D rating off court (equivalent to 10th ranked D in the league)
+4.8 difference

In the games Kobe has missed, the Lakers defense has been a lot better

101.2 D rating allowed (their full season D rating is 106.6)
vs. 106.4 avg O rating opponent
-5.2 relative to opponent

Didn't you forget 4 games that Kobe missed......

Laker ORtg = 92.5
Laker DRtg = 112.9

I can't believe people still look at raw on/off in 2013. Kobe misses the first 5 mins of the 2nd & 4th quarters. Who's in during those minutes...mostly 2nd units. Hmmm

[semi-sentient]

For sure, Bryant didn't play alone here, but the fact remains that from all players with reasonable minutes Bryant's OnCourt DRtg (meaning, how well the team played defense when he was on the court) was the worst. From all players only Goudelock in his 6 min had a worse OnCourt DRtg. I'm not talking about the boxscore metric here, I'm talking about real results. My RAPM says that Bryant was a -3 player on defense, he still was a +4.5 player on offense. Only Jamison ended up with a similar bad defensive RAPM, -3.5. I then have Howard with +4.5, World Peace and Gasol with +1, Nash with 0, Blake with +0.5 ... Maybe Sacre, Johnson-Odom, Goudelock or Ebanks might have a worse value here, but the minutes weren't quite enough to get a huge seperation from 0 here, but nonetheless, they didn't play meaningful minutes anyway.

I don't have a problem accepting that Kobe and Jamison had a negative impact.

What I have a huge problem with is Gasol having a positive impact and Nash breaking even. Both of those guys played horrible individual and team defense, especially Gasol. Anyone who watched the Lakers this year can attest to that. If his dRtg is better then it's due to the guys around him compensating and not because of something that he was doing. This is where I start to question the value of individual dRtg and on/off numbers.

If you watched him play this year then you know I'm right. When he moved over to the 5 teams attacked the basket relentlessly and with little to no resistance. His PNR defense was absolutely atrocious and he was consistently slow in rotating. He can't keep anyone in front of him and is almost always the last player back on defense. It's very hard for me to believe the gap between he and Kobe wasn't heavily influenced by rotations.

Perhaps I'm wrong, I don't know, but something doesn't sit right with me after having watched every Lakers game and seeing how bad Gasol and Nash were throughout the season. Kobe's struggles have been well documented, and I've been called a hater quite a few times on the Lakers board for calling out his poor defense, but it's hard to believe that he is solely responsible for the Lakers playing that poor defensively and magically improving when he's out. There has to be more to it.

[JordansBulls]

Could this be a 2004 season where all 5 of the top players lost with HCA in the playoffs? In this case only 3 players are possible though.

[Vinsanity420]

Could this be a 2004 season where all 5 of the top players lost with HCA in the playoffs? In this case only 3 players are possible though.

Rote formulas FTW.

[mysticbb]

What I did say, is that you're using 10 mins of 2nd unit vs 2nd unit time, and equating it to 38 mins of 1st unit vs 1st unit. So it's absurd to derive impact from that data.

Your simplistic view does NOT represents the reality. In average during the first 3.5 half quarters, there are at least 40% of the players on the court starters in average. Try to find a single lineup during those quarters in a non-blowout game, where only bench players are on the court!
That is not that suprising once you realise that about 68% of the minutes is taken by starters. Also, the Top30 lineups in terms of minutes this season have played about 7 minutes per game, which completely destroys your idea that Bryant would have had played 38 min with 1st units vs. 1st units. Bryant has the majority of his minutes against lineups with at least one bench player of the opponents playing. In fact, in average a starting player has about a 65/35 split, a bench player with the exception of the pure garbage time players has essentially the same split.

Their offense & defense wer horrible. One would expect their offense to suffer without Kobe, but by your logic, their defense should have been better....

No idea what kind of math you used, but the Lakers' defensive rating during those 4 games was 101.2. And that while playing against teams with an average ORtg of 106.4 (colts18's numbers are correct here!), that is 5 points better than average. So, no idea which 4 games you are referring to, but those which happened in reality did not have a horrible defense, but quite the opposite.

And Colts18 presented the numbers, and in each of those instances the players with other teammates on the court than Bryant were able to have a better defense in average. Now we can believe that this is just coincidence, but those numbers are pretty much confirm what every objective viewer of Lakers' games could tell, that Bryant was a bad team defender, looked bad in transition and was really weak in terms of recovering from help.

Nonetheless, Bryant's offensive impact can be illustrated by the missed games as well. Even though just one game was horrible, they are were in average just at 100.4 ORtg. But it was enough to go 3-1 in those 4 games including important wins against the Spurs (the Spurs were playing full force that game, just didn't have quite the opportunities to use their perimeter shooting as they used to (more contested shots) and the Rockets, also an important game where the Rockets played at full strength in order to secure a better seed.

And during the playoffs the Lakers were +3 against the Spurs with Gasol/Artest/Nash on the court, unfortunately for them that were only 50 minutes, because they lost Nash to another injury and Artest also missing game 4. The Lakers played at a +5 level (taking the strength of the Spurs into account here) with either Nash or Artest on the court. That they would fall apart when playing Goudelock and Morris (-33 in 57 min) is not surprising at all. The Lakers lacked the depth to compensate for that (Blake also missed two games). But they had very little trouble to compensate for Bryant missing.

At the end, Bryant was overall helping the Lakers to win more games due to his offensive impact, but the amount of wins he added was clearly lowered due to his bad defense! And there is really no denying that, everyone who watched him play defense in average should have noticed it. It is seen in your shift of argumentation towards defense.

[ardee]

mysticbb,

Your criteria for being a good defender is Defensive RAPM. This is the same stat that has Tony Parker has a better defender than LeBron James, and Taj Gibson as the best defender in the league.

Could you provide some other assertions as to why you think Nash and Pau are positive defenders other than line-up formulae (because as I just showed, they are horribly flawed).

[mysticbb]

What I have a huge problem with is Gasol having a positive impact and Nash breaking even. Both of those guys played horrible individual and team defense, especially Gasol.

Maybe it is the point of reference here or you have a bias, but the results are clearly showing that the team with Gasol or Nash in while Bryant was not in, was able to generate pretty good defensive numbers. Maybe Bryant's failures are reflecting on to those two as well? As I see it, Bryant in made it really tough for the Lakers to keep the rotation and get set in transition. He constantly caused chaos among his teammates. But when Bryant was off, such things happened clearly less often. So, it is pretty true that Nash was not able to cover for Bryant's failures as much as Blake was able to, or Fisher done that before (heck, even Duhon looked better to me in that regard), but the issue actually started with Bryant here and not Nash. Those numbers are per se adjusted for teammates and opponents, and the sample size is sufficient for my taste. And it is overall not completely away from previous results, where Bryant did not show some high defensive impact, even in his best seasons (2001 and 2002) his defensive RAPM is merely at +1.5 (in my dataset this is), in other seasons he is below average or at best at average level.
He always had those issues, but in his younger days he was way better to compensate for that with increased forced turnovers for his opponents due to his intial help, playing really tough 1on1 defense against ball handlers and being one of the best guards at that, and he was quicker which helped with the recovery from help. In transition he always looked a bit disoriented at first, switching from defense to offense in transition seemed to be something Bryant was way quicker to do than the other way around, but in that area as well it helps to be quicker on the feet.

Also, Bryant was usually accompanied by a good team and help defender in the backcourt or on the wing. Well, Artest lost a step there as well (which is most certainly the reason why his defensive RAPM dropped as well), and his backcourt partners this season weren't great in that aspect and had to take care of their own failures in terms of 1on1 defense. That's also the reason why I'm in complete agreement that this would likely be less of an issue with a team like the Heat, but not because Bryant would be better, but that the teammates would be better in covering up for that.

Kobe's struggles have been well documented, and I've been called a hater quite a few times on the Lakers board for calling out his poor defense, but it's hard to believe that he is solely responsible for the Lakers playing that poor defensively and magically improving when he's out. There has to be more to it.

He is not solely responsible, as the numbers show at least Jamison is on par here. Then we have the change in terms of coaching (and probably that D'Antoni lacks the strength to give Bryant more than a small slap on the wrist (remember, even D'Antoni called Bryant out for his defensive effort)), which obviously doesn't help. The injury problems added to that, and I guess the additional offensive load were not helpful for Bryant's defensive effort as well. As I said, from my impression and the way the numbers developed over the course of the season, Bryant's defensive impact got worse. But his additional offensive load did not lead to a higher offensive impact by him.

Again, my point overall is, that Bryant's overall impact does not suggest a Top5 player this season. Top5 in terms of offense, if we take production, efficiency and impact in to account? Yeah, that's something I can even agree with (taking minutes played into account as well), and when you believe that Bryant had no negative impact on defense, you may consider him Top5 overall. But the reality is that others in the conversation (perimeter players for that matter), while being sometimes worse 1on1 defenders than Bryant, are not causing such problems for the overall team defense than thereby do not have such big negative defensive impact. Something to consider as well.

My Top5 would look like this:

1. James
2. Paul
3. Durant
4. George
5. Westbrook

After that, Harden, Howard, M. Gasol, Aldridge, Curry. Among guards, Bryant would follow ahead of Wade and Parker (slightly). I think some are underrating Paul George's defensive impact, Westbrook had really big offensive impact, Howard was essentially back to his typical impact in the 2nd half of the season.
Westbrook obviously is debatable due to his injury. He wouldn't be a good choice for a playoff run and I would replace him with Harden.

[mysticbb]

Your criteria for being a good defender is Defensive RAPM. This is the same stat that has Tony Parker has a better defender than LeBron James, and Taj Gibson as the best defender in the league.

In v-zeros approach until March? Yeah, but in my approach until the first two playoff rounds it does not! Parker is +1 defensively, and James is +2.5. Gibson is per possession at +4.5, behind Garnett's +5. and on par with George and Tony Allen. But what exactly is the point? Gibson is one of the best defenders in the league. Would you want to deny that?

Could you provide some other assertions as to why you think Nash and Pau are positive defenders other than line-up formulae (because as I just showed, they are horribly flawed).

Nash is NOT a positive defender, he has 0! Gasol is also a good 1on1 defender according to Synergy. Being pretty good as post defender, p&r defender and spot-up defender.

And I really laugh about your notion, that you showed anything like that. Picking out players, where you really don't know much about their defense (like Gibson) or simply disagree with the numbers, does not show a flaw at all. You would need to prove that those numbers would fail to predict lineup performances in terms of defense on a constant basis. Good luck with that. ;)

[GSP]

How come Dwight over Kg and Timmy? They played same minutes in playoffs but b/c of blowouts u take minutes in regular season that much? Dwight was worst one in playoffs. Nash out so he not get the good post entry passes but Kg lost Rondo and play point center sometimes even for us and had big rebound series and better defense than Dwight. Youre overrating George IMO Hibbert had the better plus minus numbers in the playoffs and the pacers werent the same team in regular season with his and injury. The pacers had strong starting lineup and george cant be top 5

[MeloMIracle]

What I have a huge problem with is Gasol having a positive impact and Nash breaking even. Both of those guys played horrible individual and team defense, especially Gasol.

Maybe it is the point of reference here or you have a bias, but the results are clearly showing that the team with Gasol or Nash in while Bryant was not in, was able to generate pretty good defensive numbers. Maybe Bryant's failures are reflecting on to those two as well? As I see it, Bryant in made it really tough for the Lakers to keep the rotation and get set in transition. He constantly caused chaos among his teammates. But when Bryant was off, such things happened clearly less often. So, it is pretty true that Nash was not able to cover for Bryant's failures as much as Blake was able to, or Fisher done that before (heck, even Duhon looked better to me in that regard), but the issue actually started with Bryant here and not Nash. Those numbers are per se adjusted for teammates and opponents, and the sample size is sufficient for my taste. And it is overall not completely away from previous results, where Bryant did not show some high defensive impact, even in his best seasons (2001 and 2002) his defensive RAPM is merely at +1.5 (in my dataset this is), in other seasons he is below average or at best at average level.
He always had those issues, but in his younger days he was way better to compensate for that with increased forced turnovers for his opponents due to his intial help, playing really tough 1on1 defense against ball handlers and being one of the best guards at that, and he was quicker which helped with the recovery from help. In transition he always looked a bit disoriented at first, switching from defense to offense in transition seemed to be something Bryant was way quicker to do than the other way around, but in that area as well it helps to be quicker on the feet.

Also, Bryant was usually accompanied by a good team and help defender in the backcourt or on the wing. Well, Artest lost a step there as well (which is most certainly the reason why his defensive RAPM dropped as well), and his backcourt partners this season weren't great in that aspect and had to take care of their own failures in terms of 1on1 defense. That's also the reason why I'm in complete agreement that this would likely be less of an issue with a team like the Heat, but not because Bryant would be better, but that the teammates would be better in covering up for that.

Kobe's struggles have been well documented, and I've been called a hater quite a few times on the Lakers board for calling out his poor defense, but it's hard to believe that he is solely responsible for the Lakers playing that poor defensively and magically improving when he's out. There has to be more to it.

He is not solely responsible, as the numbers show at least Jamison is on par here. Then we have the change in terms of coaching (and probably that D'Antoni lacks the strength to give Bryant more than a small slap on the wrist (remember, even D'Antoni called Bryant out for his defensive effort)), which obviously doesn't help. The injury problems added to that, and I guess the additional offensive load were not helpful for Bryant's defensive effort as well. As I said, from my impression and the way the numbers developed over the course of the season, Bryant's defensive impact got worse. But his additional offensive load did not lead to a higher offensive impact by him.

Again, my point overall is, that Bryant's overall impact does not suggest a Top5 player this season. Top5 in terms of offense, if we take production, efficiency and impact in to account? Yeah, that's something I can even agree with (taking minutes played into account as well), and when you believe that Bryant had no negative impact on defense, you may consider him Top5 overall. But the reality is that others in the conversation (perimeter players for that matter), while being sometimes worse 1on1 defenders than Bryant, are not causing such problems for the overall team defense than thereby do not have such big negative defensive impact. Something to consider as well.

My Top5 would look like this:

1. James
2. Paul
3. Durant
4. George
5. Westbrook

After that, Harden, Howard, M. Gasol, Aldridge, Curry. Among guards, Bryant would follow ahead of Wade and Parker (slightly). I think some are underrating Paul George's defensive impact, Westbrook had really big offensive impact, Howard was essentially back to his typical impact in the 2nd half of the season.
Westbrook obviously is debatable due to his injury. He wouldn't be a good choice for a playoff run and I would replace him with Harden.

You must seriously be delusional putting George at 4........ with his numbers he could be the best defender ever invented and still he wouldn't be deserving of top 10, let alone top 5. Melo not in top 10? Dude was 4th in PER.
By far the worst list I have seen yet, your bias is way too obvious.

[ardee]

Your criteria for being a good defender is Defensive RAPM. This is the same stat that has Tony Parker has a better defender than LeBron James, and Taj Gibson as the best defender in the league.

In v-zeros approach until March? Yeah, but in my approach until the first two playoff rounds it does not! Parker is +1 defensively, and James is +2.5. Gibson is per possession at +4.5, behind Garnett's +5. and on par with George and Tony Allen. But what exactly is the point? Gibson is one of the best defenders in the league. Would you want to deny that?

Could you provide some other assertions as to why you think Nash and Pau are positive defenders other than line-up formulae (because as I just showed, they are horribly flawed).

Well, this is the one I use:

https://sites.google.com/site/rapmstats ... d-march-30

So if you have access to some numbers that cover a greater span, would you be able to share it?

Gibson is a good defender in Chicago's scheme, no doubt about that. I'm impressed with his ability to fake crashing into the paint to discourage a driver, and then get back to his man very quickly. He handles pick and roll switches very well. However he's not an anchor like Marc or Sanders, two guys who RAPM ranks him ahead of. My opinion, he's a terrific team defender in Chicago's scheme but he's overrated here. Not someone who can build a defense around.

Nash is NOT a positive defender, he has 0! Gasol is also a good 1on1 defender according to Synergy. Being pretty good as post defender, p&r defender and spot-up defender.

And I really laugh about your notion, that you showed anything like that. Picking out players, where you really don't know much about their defense (like Gibson) or simply disagree with the numbers, does not show a flaw at all. You would need to prove that those numbers would fail to predict lineup performances in terms of defense on a constant basis. Good luck with that.

I can throw out a huge number of absurd assertions that RAPM makes, if that'd make you blink, but you seem to adore the stat so much that it wouldn't, so I won't expect anything.

1) Nash is a better defender than Durant (0.1 to 0)
2) Vince Carter is a better defender than LeBron (2.4 to 1.4)
3) Amir Johnson has more offensive impact than Kobe (1.9 to 1.8)

Maybe these are just sample size errors that are cleared up by the new ones you have access to, in which case I'd like to see it.