Is team ORtg and DRtg the be all end all?

[nikomCH]

When people refer to how good an offense or defense is on this board 99% of the time you'll go back to points scored or given per 100 possessions. Do you think this really encompasses everything you need to know about how good a team is offensively or defensively? Or should we consider other stats before making that conclusion?

[Colbinii]

There is never one end all be all stat for anything basketball related, including rings.

I do think it is a good starting point.

[tsherkin]

It's an excellent starting point because it describes efficiency.


If you want to be especially particular, you can add SRS (to get an idea of total team efficacy, including defense), pace (ORTG is pace-neutral, but that doesn't mean the results/data are unaffected by pace) and then specific efficiencies and deficiencies: team shooting (eFG%, FG%, 3P%, FT%), foul draw (FT/FGA), their turnovers, etc. Those are all things that basically go into ORTG, but they can paint a better picture of HOW it's done. Volume 3pt shooting? Lots of fouls? Dominant FG%? Extreme lack of turnovers? Etc, etc, etc.

Then you can look at the roster, the coaching style, there are always more levels to examine.

The same sort of thing applies to defense: turnover generation, eFG% defense, foul rate, coach, player personnel, etc, etc.

But as a one-off look at value, sure, ORTG and DRTG are great summaries.

[Dr Positivity]

Literally? Yes. Points per 100 possessions scored and allowed straight forward shows the strength offense and defense.

But I've been banging the drum for years that offensive talent can lead to better defense, indirectly. For example when the Thunder "chose" Serge Ibaka over James Harden some justified it by saying Ibaka was their only defense first star, while they had 2 other offensive stars in Durant and Westbrook. I find this to be a huge mistake. Because having more offensive talent than everyone else, leads to easier built defensive teams. First off the entire rest of the roster can be filled with defensive specialists. Secondly it changes the style of play, such as allowing a team to go for offensive rebounds less so they can protect transition, not leak out, etc. It changes the lineups like going small less. But I think the biggest difference is just energy. On a team with 3 juggarnauts in Durant, Westbrook, Harden the role players are taking more plays off on that end and their responsibility and what their minutes depend on, is more likely to be defense. Put it this way, on the Warriors this year Klay Thompson and Harrison Barnes were depended on to be responsible defensively and on the defensive glass, they didn't need their scoring as much with other players like Curry and Lee higher in the pecking order. Klay especially is becoming surprisingly competent defensively for a guy everyone was writing in as a stiff on that end coming out of college. But if Klay gets drafted by the Cavs? Very good chance that while averaging point points and possessions, his defense is in "Don't care. mwahahah." mode. Klay and Barnes on the Warriors know they are getting pulled if they take defensive plays off. They can see that Ezeli, Green and Biedrins are in the rotation despite being 3 of the worst offensive players in the league. David Lee is suddenly playing the most respectable defense of his career on a team with the playoff caliber talent that needs him to and where everyone else is contributing defensively. I think all of this is connected. In Cleveland Byron Scott could be as hard on his team for defensive lapses, but then you have a situation like when Skiles and Brown are coaching bad teams and the offense is this horrendous mess that nobody wants to watch and the players are quickly checking out on.

In short, I trust that teams will play to their talent level more often than not, far more than I do the separated ORTG and DRTG numbers. Even if the team's talent is offensively dominated, they usually end up winning a ton of games because their defense is strong too. That talent figures out how to win by redistributing the strategy, lineups, energy, etc.

[Chicago76]

One thing to consider when taking Ortg and Drtg at face value is that you need to recognize that the two stats bleed into one another to some extent. It's pretty obvious that fast break opportunities generate baskets more efficiently than halfcourt opportunities.

A team can take very good care of the basketball offensively, which shows up in their Ortg. But it also shows up in Drtg because they aren't surrendering as many fast break opportunities for their opponents. In this case, good defense is somewhat a function of good offense. The opposite is true for teams that turn the ball over a lot.

On the other end of the floor, a strong defensive team can generate steals that lead to easy buckets that show up in their Ortg.

Two teams defensively can both surrender 120 pts/100 poss in transition and 103 pts/100 poss in halfcourt D. let's say one team is sloppy offensively and surrenders the ball such that their opponent gets 15% of their poss in transition, while the other team only allows 3% of dposs to occur in transition. The defensive team ability of both is equal, even though the Drtgs are not (105.6 vs. 103.5). Admittedly, this is an extreme example, but it does prove that point that you can't necessarily look at Drtgs of two teams and anoint one team or the other better defensively based purely upon a numerical comparison.

[islamovic]

i like ppg n fg% better, but each its own.

[tsherkin]

PPG and FG% alone are entirely insufficient for describing team offense because they don't account for pace, offensive rebounding, turnovers or 3pt shooting. They are super narrow in their descriptive ability, and must be qualified with the addition of far more statistical support than team ORTG.

[dice]

One thing to consider when taking Ortg and Drtg at face value is that you need to recognize that the two stats bleed into one another to some extent. It's pretty obvious that fast break opportunities generate baskets more efficiently than halfcourt opportunities

excellent point

Ortg and Drtg are superb starting points, but turnovers, blocks, steals need to be further examined

a team can have an Ortg that overstates how good their offense is if it is their DEFENSE that creates a lot of easy buckets. similarly, an Ortg might reflect too harshly on a team's offense if their defense is creating few turnovers and easy opportunities

if there was a halfcourt Ortg and Drtg widely available it would be very interesting to look at comparatively to standard Ortg and Drtg. of course, you'd then have to determine what constitutes a half court possession and there would be significant gray area there. there is no such gray area with the standard Ortg and Drtg, which are pretty much factual, verifiable measurements (like FG%)

[Chicago76]

if there was a halfcourt Ortg and Drtg widely available it would be very interesting to look at comparatively to standard Ortg and Drtg. of course, you'd then have to determine what constitutes a half court possession and there would be significant gray area there. there is no such gray area with the standard Ortg and Drtg, which are pretty much factual, verifiable measurements (like FG%)

A perfect halfcourt Ortg and Drtg would require some subjectivity, but a reasonable proxy isn't that tough to pull off. Count only possessions beginning with taking the ball out of bounds where game clock >- 24 seconds. That would ignore halfcourt possessions from a DRB, but statistically, there won't be any difference in halfcourt from DRB vs. halfcourt from out of bounds.

[Doctor MJ]

When people refer to how good an offense or defense is on this board 99% of the time you'll go back to points scored or given per 100 possessions. Do you think this really encompasses everything you need to know about how good a team is offensively or defensively? Or should we consider other stats before making that conclusion?

It's not everything, but for the most part those who don't like using it simply don't understand they are using something worse. Simply put: You've got to factor in pace when judge how good an offense or defense is.

Does this mean I rank a team's offense simply by it's ORtg? Nah. I want to factor in the state of the league when it took place, I want about the specific values that make up the ORtg, and I want to know there general method of attack among other things.