Best Defensive Big Men in the NBA (Synergy Sports)

crzy · 2011-03-25T19:42:10-07:00

http://www.mysynergysports.com/ So I started playing around with this Synergy Sports website (free demo) to try and quantify how bad David Lee is on defense. I arranged it in a table so you can see how Udoh, David Lee, and Biedrins compare to the other big men in the NBA. The table breaks down the overall defense of each player, and then it shows how they defend isolation plays, pick and rolls, spot-up shooters, and their post-up defense. PPP means Points given up per Play . How many points that the player gives up per defensive play. Overall though, the data probably has some shortcomings, because it doesn't account for help defense. Or the fact that certain players come off the bench, meaning that they are guarding opposing bench players rather than superstars. And the biggest shortcoming is that it doesn't account for team defense....since certain players look much better in a team defensive scheme than they do as individual defenders. Overall Defense Apparently Emeka Okafor is the most efficient defensive player in the NBA. It's kinda strange how some of these stats don't match up with certain player's defensive reputations. Robin Lopez gives up the most points per defensive play in the NBA. Kevin Love is a more efficient defensively than Marcus Camby? And so forth. Isolation Defense Post-Up Defense Pick & Roll Defense, guarding roller Spot-Up Defense [ Edited by crzy on Mar 25, 2011 at 20:31:05 ]

Mar 25, 2011 at 7:49 PM

valrod33
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What this tells me is that Darko Millicic is the DPOY

Mar 25, 2011 at 7:51 PM

crzy
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I'm gonna try to do something like this for perimeter players. But they're probably even harder to truly judge.

Mar 25, 2011 at 8:48 PM

SacRock14
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Boogie Cousins

Mar 26, 2011 at 8:15 AM

DarthNiner
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Wish we could get a bigger sample size for Udoh.

Mar 26, 2011 at 8:44 AM

crzy
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Al Jefferson is clearly the biggest statistical anomaly on the chart. But it seems that his post defense which accounts for the majority of the plays is the biggest stastitical weight. He's less impressive in Iso, Spot-Up, or P&R defense.

Utah is doing a very good job of making Jefferson look good defensivly. Maybe they're doubling teaming every time Al Jefferson is guarding someone in the post

Mar 26, 2011 at 9:30 AM

TheGoldenState
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Ekpe FTW

Mar 26, 2011 at 1:21 PM

DarthNiner
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One thing I did notice is how much better Udoh is compared to where Greg Monroe is, which is usually at the bottom of the chart! This reinforces the fact that Udoh was a better pick than Monroe (at least defensively).

Mar 28, 2011 at 9:50 PM

Super9er81
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Is there anyway to account for match-ups? Being a Kings fan I know that most of the time Dalembert or Thompson will take the tougher assignment on D in the post. I know that doesn't change everything, but I think it matters. Including opponents FG% might temper some of that noise, but then your PPP kind of captures that so there would be some conflict between the two.

Mar 29, 2011 at 6:58 AM