Charting the “Thabo effect”
Defense is one of the most difficult things to quantify in basketball. It’s not as simple as just figuring out how much the guy a certain player is guarding scores and then you have a number to with which to judge. In basketball the team context in unavoidable. The schemes teams run rely on “teamwork” defense, helping, rotating, switching, double teaming, etc., making player defensive evaluation sort of a nebulous concept.
But we acquired Thabo in late February at the deadline and he came with a defensive reputation. I don’t claim to know everything there is to know about playing defense in the NBA, but when you see a player like Thabo get after it defensively for the first time, you know your seeing aggressive, intense defensive effort. Great defense may be a little difficult to quantify, but you sure know it when you see it; especially after some of the porous performances we saw in December.
I’ve been keeping a spreadsheet of our offensive and defensive numbers broken down by months since the beginning of the year. They are kind of fun to look at and remember where this team has been and what it has gone through in the last five months. Again, realizing that Thabo started just three games at the end of February, and then looking at the defensive improvement in March, I think you can actually see the Thabo effect on the defense in the numbers.
January was our finest month by far, where we had seven wins and actually had a positive differential between our offensive efficiency and defensive efficiency, yet January also had our easiest slate of opponents-just half of them were at or above .500 ball when we met them. The level of competition greatly increased in February, and our efficiency noticeably suffered on both sides of the ball. March on the other hand was actually a reasonably good month for us all things considered. Seven wins out of 15 games (six of them without Durant, four without Durant or Green). Our offense took a big dip in March without those two, and the team adjusting to playing without any “go to” guys, but the defense compensated and kept us within striking distance in most games.
A picture is worth a thousand words:
With Thabo defending the wing for the full month of March, notice the huge drop in opponent 3 point field goal percentage. From 40.5% allowed in February to 32.5% in March. That is huge. Overall field goal percentage allowed and defensive efficiency all dropped in March.
I think there has definitely been a “Thabo effect” on defense.
Nice chart – Unfortunately it hasn’t had too much of an effect on overall defense, but we went over that in the Spurs thread – he can’t do it by himself – if he runs guys off threes and the ball is rotated, those guys have to D it up as well. We also need a legitimate shotblocker (not Thabeet) to help – there is no resistance at the rim . . .
Yeah, w/o even thinking you notice the perimeter defense has improved greatly.
Oh, I completely agree. Our defensive efficiency while below average for this last month, is still above average for the season. We’re not a good defensive team at this point, but what is encouraging to me is that it seems like we can get stops against good teams at times. Not for the whole game that’s for sure, as evidenced by the Boston game, and lots of lapses in the San Antonio game. But I’m hoping that this is a baby step.
To your point about the interior, how many times did Ginobli get to the rim against us? Parker? Our interior defense is just not very good.
I have to say also that Brooks did a very good job coaching this team earlier this month with the two big guys out. The team could have folded, but he got away from the jumpers and had the guys go to the rack a lot and play the best defense of the season.
Weaver and Krstic may be contributing almost as much as Thabo now that they are sorta of used to playing.
If you look at player raw on /off team offense and defense and their overall adjusted it looks like Thabo has the biggest impact on defense. When he is on the court the offense goes some down but in OKC his defensive impact is bigger. Krstic is about neutral on offense and second best on D, Weaver third best for on /off defense and 2nd best for on /off offense. The latter two played a weaker set of opponents so their adjusted +/- rating isn’t as strong. Westbrook is the leader on that. Green is up to neutral. Durant is lower than anyone not named Wilkins. Both Durant and Green are still weak by on /off defense (can’t play together and expect to be even average defensively even with all the best at the other spots) but Durant is weaker and Green is stronger by on/off offense too and it looks like Green faces a tougher set of opponents on average as well. No improvement in Durant’s adjusted rating from last season to this season. Still -7 per 48 minutes. http://basketballvalue.com/teamplayers.php?year=2008-2009&team=OKC
Green improved by 3 pts. All of Durant’s weakness is on team defense.
Krstic-Collison-Sefolosha has been strong in limited use. Played about 50 minutes and won by 25 points. Strong on offense and defense. Mainly tried as Krstic-Collison-Sefolosha-Weaver-Westbrook and that isn’t likely to get used much but replace Weaver with Durant or Green and it might still work. Durant and Green is one to many.
Want interior D? You probably ought to go with two of Kristic-Collison and wait n see but probably White. Rose has done well. If White can play tough like that it would be welcome and a change from Green at PF. Green’s numbers are looking slightly better at SF again.
Thabo – Rose win 80% of the time. T and Nick 61%, T and Krstic 37%. Green 23%, Durant 11%.
Thabo likes to have bruise brothers with him. Weaver isn’t a bruiser but he plays D and wins 71% with Thabo.
Seeing the chart made me thing back to the recent discussion about the importance of the 3-point shot. Could it be that preventing (or hampering) the 3-pointer is just as important defensively?
According to Hollinger, you don’t get as big of a boost in win% by defending the three as you do in shooting it. Wierd.