06-20-2022, 02:15 PM
(06-20-2022, 01:55 PM)Kammrath Wrote: JC is a plus defender according to EPM. Christian Wood is as well (not counting this past season). And both are plus defenders from my personal eye test FWIW.
JB holds his own IMO most of the time. Luka is a HUGE negative at times, but CAN hold his own when focused and lighter.
They both are roughly average looking at multiple years (which I think is a good practice with defense because there is so much noise in even the best stats like EPM). I also think bigs generally rank higher defensively than smaller players so for a big to be average or slightly better than average is not particularly high praise.
Also a comment on the term "average". It can mean a couple of different things. There is even two different concepts of "average" on EPM. Where you see the percentages they show, that is relative to every NBA player. That includes guys on the back of the bench that don't get many minutes. But the zero baseline for EPM is based across total minutes played. That is a higher bar for average. That is why an EPM of zero is in the 68 percentile. That means that player's minutes are average impact across all NBA minutes, but the player is better than average because there are a lot of backups out there.
When I think of the term "average" I am generally thinking per NBA minute vs across all players on a roster.