2020-2021 ROSTER TALK: Archived

[mvossman]

It was probably too much to expect people would connect the assertion made in this thread with a similar one made the day before in the "Let's be Real" thread that contained more data.  That post contained the methodologies that rate Powell more highly as a defender including:

D-Lebron
D-Raptor
LA-DRAPM
D-LeBron Box
Box Plus Minus
On Court Defensive Points Allowed 
On Court Defensive EFG% Allowed. 
D Rating

This wasn't on the original list, but BBall Index tracks nine values in a category they call Perimeter Defensive Activity (like Deflections Per Possession).  Powell ranks higher in 8 of them. 

I mean literally the only thing that supports Maxi as the better defender this year (besides the eye tests of some people on some other board) is DRPM.

I did not see your prior post, but the main point of my argument is that because defense is so hard to capture in a stat, you need a very large sample size.  I would not expect a defensive stat to do a very good job in the relatively small sample that we have this year (that's why I went over 3 years).

I mean lets look at some of the context of this year.  Powell started the first 9 games and was terrible, both offensively and defensively.  He clearly was not ready to play anywhere near his prior level.  Yet the defensive rating of the team looked good.  Why is that?  Likely because opponent 3 percentage was abnormally low (another stat that needs a big sample to be of any value).  Then he played sparingly vs bench units as he tried to get back to his old self, only recently starting to get decent minutes.  He is still averaging less than 15 a game.

Maxi, has not looked the same since Covid.  Not sure if this is going to be a problem for the rest of the season.  He seemed to recover after the all star break but has really struggled the last several games he has played in (don't know if that is injury related).

The point is this is not really a good season to evaluate these guys as they have both been dealing with unique circumstances.  The question is who is the better defender in general, and for that I think it would be more useful to look at a multi year sample.

Also, not all stats are the same.  Some are more useful than others.  I'm a particular fan of RPM because it takes about as much context in account as you can.  There are others that I found useful, not as an overall stat, but something to contribute (like Raptor or the stat someone posted earlier showing the quality of offensive opponent).  I would be curious to see some of those stats over the last couple of years instead of just this year.