How Does Boogie Compare On D To Famously Defensive Centers?

[Amit149]

A PER test is VERY much about team, not individual. Defensive schemes can make a difference, defensive philosophies. Teammates.

Watch what happens behind Gasol when he steps up to stop penetration.

Then watch what happens when Boogie does the same.

See how many fast break chances an opponent gets vs. Memphis as opposed to the Kings.

You can't isolate a specific player in any comlex stat, Minnesota is dead last at defensive efficiency- but Pekovic still stops his man better than Cousins.
The 76ers are the same team with Noel at PF or at Center but you can see the huge difference between him being a bad man defender on Centers and a good one on PF's.
And some guy with the initials JT, playing in a team named Kings, who we all know is a good man defender keeps his opponent PF at a great 13.6 PER mark.

we all know it ain't perfect but it does show you things- the gap may not be as big as the stats suggest but it is still valuable information.

You can't just dismiss any Stat that gives a result you don't like just by discrediting it, ignore your inner lawyer.

 

[kingsboi]

Just a thought: if we draft WCS, the guards would be more willing to terrorize the perimeter without worrying too much about drives. With WCS and Boogie and to an extent JT, we're having decent rim protection

and plenty of size too.

 

['89 Kings Fan]

Per 48 min his player produce- 15 FGA, 0.585 eFG%, 5.3 FTA, 56% iFG, 12.8 Reb, 2 Ast, 9.1 PF (Cousins is amazing at that), 2.6 TO and 21 PTS to achieve a total PER of 20.1. 20.1 isn't a good mark.

You really can't use 82games.com anymore as a reference.

1. The kings page hasn't been updated since 2/18 a month and a half ago.

2. They rely on volunteers to chart games:
http://www.82games.com/charting.htm
which is prone to error. It was good back in 2003, but that time has past. I mean they still have Bobby Jackson in their header.

3. People have been complaining about players being marked in the wrong position for years.
http://thereal2kinsider.blogspot.com/2009/11/82games-fake-stats.html

In Cousins and Gasols two head to head match ups this year, Cousins dominated him:

Player +/- Reb Blks DFG%
Cousins 28  21  4   35%
Gasol   -4  14  5   61%

DFG% stands for Defensive Field Goal percentage.

My issue with trying to determine a players defensive impact on team defense, is you have to take into account a players teammates as well. Gasol gets to play with Tony Allen and Mike Connelly. Cousins has been playing with McCallum and Casspi (who I like, but is the worst player in the league at guarding pull up jumpers who has guarded > 100. As in dead last.) I don't think you can construct an argument that Cousins has an above average defender playing with him at any position any time he is on the court.

 

[Padrino]

something to consider when mulling over cousins' defensive performance this season is the 35 games in which tyrone corbin was the kings' head coach. would it seem unfair to say that cousins' absolutely dominant defensive performances to begin the season under the defensively-minded mike malone would have been sustainable, given that he's still managed to play well defensively under one sad sack interim coach in corbin and one offensively-inclined coach in george karl? this is not another post bemoaning the firing of mike malone, but rather a hypothesis that cousins' defensive performance would have been even stronger had this team not been subjected to so much unnecessary in-season turmoil by a dysfunctional front office. the statistics say that cousins is already an elite defensive center--and i say he can be even better...

 

[IfAt1st]

Agreed - using PER of Demarcus' opposing center is misleading, because:

1) Many many times Demarcus has to switch off his man to stop penetration, leaving his man to pick up the easy baskets. That's not Demarcus being bad against his man, but it sure counts as PER against him.

2) This year consists of many games under Corbin, where Demarcus seemed to deliberately allow his man (even scrubs) to get huge games against him (remember that play where he stood bolt-still at the elbow and allowed his man to get the dunk uncontested?)
The Corbin era was a mutiny against the front office, led by Demarcus.
Throw in the fact that Demarcus was recovering from viral meningitis for a big stretch of the season, and opposing PER is very misleading this season for Demarcus.

 

[captain bill]

Great thread idea!

I went through the numbers that Brick put up and tried to cobble together an actual ranking (spoiler alert: Cuz takes 5th).

Brick used the following stats: DRB/100, Blocks/100, Steals/100, Charges Drawn, OPP FG% at Rim, and DRPM.

I’ll start with the stats that should be tossed:

1- DRPM: this is some ESPN proprietary statistic. As its own ranking, I think it should be taken for what it’s worth, but someone else’s formula shouldn’t really play in an objective ranking of players.

2- Blocks/100: this is rather simple. A block automatically should be factored into FG% at the rim. As such, this stat will be disregarded (which may be unfair to certain players who might get blocks at the high post, but that should not, in my view, be part of the “best defensive centers” ranking.)

3- Charges. This is about sample size. Cuz is #1 at 25 charges over the season, while the #2 spot is a tie between Noah and Gasol with 6. Simple put, when we’re talking per 100 and bulk stats, these numbers are just too low (and probably unreliable) to make a real difference in ranking the players.

That leaves us with: DRB/100, Steals/100, and OPPFG at the rim.

Steals SHOULD be factored in- fortunately, the per 100 makes an easy correlation to FG%. I.e., 2 steals in 100 = 2 extra possessions denied; for Boogie, you have .474 at the rim plus 2.3 steal/100, so if you want to benefit those steals, you adjust the DFG at the rim by +2.3 possessions: .474/1.023 = .463 adjusted %.


I ran these numbers through for the list, and the ranking is mostly the same, except around the 6-12 in %, which shakes out as follows:

6. Duncan .455 (.462/1.014, previously 7th)
7. Val .458 (.468/1.008, previously 6th)
8. Cousins .463 (.474/1.023, previously 9th)
9. Lopez .468 (.471/1.006, previously 8th)
10. Whiteside .472 (.479/1.014, previously 11th)
11. Adams .474 (.479/1.011, previously 10th)


I re-ranked the players based on adjusted % at the rim (factoring in steals), and then averaged the ranking against their rank in DRB (assuming that both rebounding and at the rim % are equally important, which I think is a fair place to *start* a comparison), resulting in the following rankings (average rank in parentheses):

1. Gobert (4)
2. Bogut (5)
3 (tie). Cousins, Whiteside, D. Howard (5.5)
6. D. Jordan (7.5)
7 (tie). Drummond, Duncan (8)
10. Val (9)
11. Noel (11- ranked heavily on %, weak in DRB)
12. Asik (11- ranked heavily on DRB, weak in %)
13. Gortat (13)
14. Adams (13.5)
15. Lopez (14.5)
16. Gasol (15)
17. Noah (16)
18. Horford (17)
19. Dieng (19.5)


Based on these raw numbers, there is a clear top 10 (Gobert through Valanciunas) of guys who are both great defensive rebounders and have good combined FG + steal numbers. Past that, you get guys like Noel and Asik, who are good in one segment but bad in another, and then from Gortat down - some decent players, but no one that jumps out in any segment statistically.


The last piece of the puzzle is personal fouls. Cousins has lead the league in PF/G in 4 out of 5 years now, and is number one this year. This is pretty hard to mix in with everything else (on account of the game vs. per 100 difference, as well as parsing between out of bounds fouls, and-ones, and 2 shot fouls), but I think it’s safe to say that the PF/G should be included, somehow.


Now, since we are dealing strictly with averages, it is useful to break out our “top 5” stats, on the basis of adjusted % (steals + at rim) versus DRB, MPG, and PF/48:

Gobert: .391 / 12.6 DRB / 26.0 MPG / 4.0 PF48
Bogut: .404 / 12.5 DRB / 23.6 MPG / 5.6 PF48
Whiteside: .472 / 15.6 DRB / 23.0 MPG / 5.4 PF48
Howard: .450 / 12.8 DRB / 30.4 MPG / 5.4 PF48
Cousins: .463 / 13.9 DRB / 34.1MPG / 5.7 PF48
Jordan: .478 / 14.7 DRB / 34.4 MPG / 4.2 PF48
Drummond: .477 / 13.6 DRB / 30.5 MPG / 5.5 PF48
Duncan: .455 / 12.2 DRB / 28.9 MPG / 3.6 PF48
Valanciunas: .458 / 11.7 DRB / 26.5 MPG / 4.9 PF48


The point of looking at the across-the-board numbers is to be able to see who relies on rebounding versus %, rebounding traditionally having a weaker correlation with actual defensive numbers. Cousin’s has great % numbers, but Bogut, Gobert, and Howard are solidly ahead of him. However, this should be weighed back by the higher minutes played by Cousins – it’s sort of unfair to compare DMC to a player who plays 10 minutes fewer per night (Bogut, Whiteside, and, to some extent, Gobert).


In my eyes, Whiteside is the anomaly / cast-off of the top 5. (limited minutes and gaudy rebound numbers masking weaker efficiency). Bogut and Gobert also play limited minutes, but I think their efficiency numbers make them solid 1-2 players. Similarly, Duncan at .455 and Val at .458 are good enough numbers that they should be elevated, despite lower rebounding averages. I think Howard gets a slight nudge on Cousins (based on percentages) which results in me ranking the top 10 as follows:

1. Gobert (no. 1 with a bullet)
2. Bogut
3. Howard
4. Duncan (fewer fouls and better efficiency in only 6 minutes fewer than Cuz)
5. Cousins
6. Valanciunas (a great % adjusted can’t make up for weak rebounding)
7. Whiteside (despite his insane rebounding numbers, pedestrian percentages keep him down)
8. Jordan
9. Drummond


However, I think it should be underlined that in that top 10, Tim Duncan is the only other "all-around" player, the others being (to my knowledge) defensive and rebound specialists only. So for a Center known for his prolific offense, finishing right smack in the top 5 on defense (along with a bunch of specialists) is a damn fine ranking.

 

[captain bill]

Ironically this thread was created precisely because "we" don't know its true. We know a bunch of junk, some of it media created, old stats, old reps, this guy is on TV, this guy is on a good team etc. etc.

1a) did you use % of TOTAL contested rebounded for Drummond? Because if you did the very simple explanation would be all those offensive baords Drummond goes after. Most offensive boards are going to be contested, and for he and DeAndre, that is their thing.

1b) to the degree the percentage of contested DEFENSIVE rebounds is difference, the purpose of defensive rebounding is not to gather contested rebounds, its to end possessions. If there were a "percent of contested rebounds won" stat, that would be situationally helpful, but the mere act of grabbing contested ones is not inherently advantageous. If you've got the instincts, or the reputation, or the quickness to gobble rebounds out in space and nobody even bothers challenging you, those still count just as much. Nobody bothers contesting Reggie when he goes for a board, because they know its Reggie. Its his, might as well just get back up court. And Boogie has such great instincts, hands, and a rep, that he gets to the right space and snatches them and guys just give up. That's a good thing. I don't know but I could easily imagine Drummond being slower to react, but then recovering to grab the board on pure athleticism. Hence more contested rebounds, at least under one theory.

Thing is that is especially true for a center -- that's exactly who you want to be grabbing uncontested rebounds. Even if you assume that anybody on the team could grab them, the only person with any claim to being better to do it would be a PG, because a big PG like Tyreke can then just take that board and immediately head out leading the break. But of course with Boogie's own ballhandling and now even PGing, I'm not sure even our PGs have much of an edge there. Certainly not our wings, who would be better off streaking up court as long as they have the big board masher back behind them eating all the d-boards.

2) I of course included both block and rim% stats, and in both cases Boogie ranked in the middle to upper middle of all these anchors, certianly well within the range of anybody but the handful of superelite Whiteside/Gobert/Boguts.

3) Steals are actually a GREAT thing to see from a center so long as they are sitting there alongside blocks rather than replacing them. A great many of the greatest defensive centers of all time (Hakeem, Admiral, Big Ben) have had amazing hands and instincts and racked up big disruptive numbers across the board. Combined with the charges he draws, Cousins is flat earning us 2 extra possessions a game that a guy like Hibbert is not. And its just flat disruptive. Cousins is a menace in there.

4) DBOM is by its own creators admission not really built for defense and its polluted by factoring in team stuff and dumping it on Cuz's lap as a negative modifier. I don't play those "advanced" muck games, although I must congratulate their creators for creating a whole cottage industry justifying their continued employment.

P.S. having seen your next post, agreed on Bogut. I think he's probably the league's best. Given some time to establish himself I think Gobert may join him. I also think Bogut is at this point a 25min a night guy with few offensive responsibilities who's entire focus can be on one end of the floor. He's also surrounded by numerous strong defensive teammates, and a team which discovered and heavily features defense ever since Michael Malone taught it to them. In short I think he may be the most effective, but he's got every possible advantage in being so. For the league's most dominant and hardworking offensive center to even be in the conversation on the other end too is remarkable.

On contested boards, I would add two things:

1- rebounding is all about position, an innate sense of knowing where the ball is going and being there, making sheer volume a little more meaningful (there's a lot of stuff floating around about Rodman's rebounding that talks about his sense for the ball and it's bounce trajectory being so key); and

2- like a great safety in football, who at a certain point stops putting up stats when teams stop throwing his direction, I think NBA players won't work as hard to contest a board when it's heading towards the direction of an elite rebounder.

Getting fewer boards but more contested just isn't very impressive - the best rebounders find more balls all to themselves as a virtue of position combined with the sheer dominance that's leads other players to run back on D rather than fight for a board against a force like Cousins.