trex_8063 wrote:MyUniBroDavis wrote:trex_8063 wrote:Well, unless someone can convince me otherwise, I'm going to stick with my same top two picks from last thread (
mostly, but not entirely, same arguments). 3rd pick is new....
1st ballot: Kevin Durant '14I freely acknowledge the Durant is a completely average defender overall. But: very good to elite as both a rebounder and playmaker for a SF. And then GOAT-level pure scorer: 41.8 pts/100 possessions @ 63.5% TS
. fwiw, I'd also constructed formula founded on Moonbeam's Score+ rating (I called mine "Modified Score+").......'14 Durant is the 2nd-highest MS+ rating on record (just barely behind '88 Barkley, and just barely ahead of '83 Dantley).
He couldn't quite maintain that in the playoffs, but still......35.9 pts/100 poss @ 57.0% TS while playing 42.9 mpg; that's still very elite level scoring, and---collectively with the rs numbers---has him in contention for greatest ever pure scoring season. And bear in mind the defense he was facing in the '14 playoffs:
1st round: -2.1 rDRTG (ranked 7th of 30; being guarded primarily by Tony Allen, who I think is arguably the greatest perimeter man-defender of this generation)
2nd round: -1.9 rDRTG (9th of 30)
3rd round: -4.3 rDRTG (3rd of 30; being guarded by Kawhi Leonard)
fwiw, where portability is concerned, although obviously it's very speculative, I suspect Durant's is reasonably high, as he's primarily an off-ball player (takes less of the table), and---at least in the modern setting---provides a ton of floor spacing, which is quite important. I mean, his defender literally has to be glued to him even 25-26 ft from the hoop, and is basically taken out of help defense entirely.
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I wouldnt really say that he had completely average defense.
He is exceptional as an isolation defender. ( I only have data up to 2/3rds into that season though)
He gave up 0.52 points per possession, good for 4th in the league, including the players who only face those possessions once or twice, meaning that he was probably the best isolation defender in the league at that point.
For comparison, He completely blows Davis, Allen, Iggy, etc out of the water.
And he is also better than people like Draymond and Paul.
He was great at defending the P and R ball handler. gave up 0.52ppp again. that ranks better than
Kawhi, Allen, Draymond, etc.
He was reasonably good at defending the post up. ranked better than Draymond and Davis (0.73 ppp)
was solid at defending the spot up as well.
the only play that he really faced regularly and had trouble defending was off-screen plays.
of the 7 "defendable" plays, he was very good at 2 of them, beyond exceptional at 2 others, and below average at 3 of them. However, the 3 plays that he wasnt good at defending, he was faced with less than 20% of the time.
so in 80% of the plays he "faced" he was solid to exceptional.
Im using a different website for these next stats, since the site I used for the stats above (other than Lebrons ppp stats) came up wierdly for some stats. the ppp for the top of the stats seemed correct though. had a strong correlation with this year, and the site I will use now.
In his seasons, lebron gave up
2010 overall = 0.840 PPP
2011 overall = 0.770 PPP
2012 overall = 0.820 PPP
2013 overall = 0.840 PPP
2014 overall = 0.870 PPP
in those seasons. (0.787 in his legendary 09 season)
in 2014, Durant gave up roughly 0.78ppp (probably rounded down since it was a biased post)
Obviously not the best way to show defense, but I wouldnt call Durant average on defense
He isnt a better defender than lebron obviously, but I feel this is enough to say he was above average.
Interesting. It's almost kinda hard to believe, that he could be this elite isolation, yet be a marginal net negative defensive player (according to DRAPM and on/off stats). What is the source on this information? Or is this an independent study?
A OKC website and reddit had the info. Im pretty sure it was reliable since the stats were the same
(though some of reddits stats seemed really off).
As for his iso stats, they were around the same this year, so Im pretty sure its consistent.
The stats only go up to mid january. His defense, from a quick look at his DRTG, looks like it REALLY slipped during that period.
I know NPI rapm isnt perfectly accurate, but I believe that his impact was around + 0.8 on defense. not steller, but decent enough. (Ive heard some say his rapm is unfairly weighted or something)
I feel like though whats important is how good he is at isolation defense. Mainly because it seems like in late game situations, teams go iso more often than not, so I guess his defense would be more of a +1 based on that (if that makes sense, impact wise, since he would have more impact in the last 5 minutes of a close game than the first 43, since in the last 5 minutes he will face more isos)
I've heard players (namely Jordan and Kobe) say that Durant would be the hardest to get by.
A quote from another article
James finished 12 of 20 from the field in the Thunder's dominating win on Wednesday, with 34 points in all to go with three rebounds and three assists. But he was just two of seven from the floor when Durant was on duty, far worse than the 10 of 13 shooting performance that came against the likes of Thabo Sefolosha, Perry Jones, Serge Ibaka, Reggie Jackson, and Jeremy Lamb (the latter three matchups happened only because of defensive switches).
a quote from what he said a few days ago
“I think that’s an underrated part of my game,” Durant said Tuesday. “I feel like I can guard 1 through 4. I can switch with bigs and point guards, and I can use my length a lot….
“Shotblocking I think is one of my strong suits as well.
I just have to be totally focused every single possession on it, and I haven’t done a good job of that. But once I’m locked in and focused on what I have to do as a defender, I think I’m pretty good.”
What I take from this are 2 points
1) he might rise up from where we place him by his performance next year.
2) he had the same "inconsistency" as kobe, to a much lesser extent.
I feel like this makes him at least a good defender. I mean, I assume 0 in rapm is decent. I would consider anything from -0.25 to 0.25 to be average, 0.25-0.5 to bepretty good, and 0.5-0.8 to be pretty good, and 0.8-1 to be solid.
I think durant falls in teh pretty good-solid category.
In the playoffs, where, as the media puts it "every possession matters"
while his def rating and on-off numbers were average at best, his off-box plus number on defense was solid enough. now, its not exactly a very good measurement, but I cant find a pure playoff rapm for 2014.
In general, I feel like he was lacking in help defense, so I guess this is more of fitting in the right defensive system. (for example, the monty williams defensive system would pretty much make Javale Mcgee into the worse player in nba history on defense lol).\
The thunder defense improved a bit when Durant was healthy vs not injured 105.5 overall and 104.4 ish without.
15 of the 27 teams they faced with durant were in the top 14 on offense (top 13 would be more accurate, im sure pheonix's offense dropped off near the end of the season)
3 of the teams they faced were on "rolls" during this time period, so while the bball reference number might differ the teams were on rolls, and thats why 15 of the 27 teams were good offensively. actually, it might have been 16. in this span, they faced the GSW thrice, the clippers once, and the pelicans once (the pels a sidenote, they suprisingly had around a 109.2 offensive rating in the first half of the season, good for 5th in the league. on a nother side note, bball reference might be glitched, since taking the average of all the pelicans game has a different offensive rating than the actual rating shown in the season summeries) etc. so while facing argueably better competition than normal on defense, their defense actually improved a decent amount, especially considering he isnt a "big man"
So I would say he is a good enough defender. not world-beating, but solid nonetheless.
Not the best way to measure it, but interesting nonetheless.
Mysynergysports.com closed up last year, so it's hard to find.
