That's right on the money. And that's why I AM PRAYING for any shotblocker, any 7 footer there is available. Philly has just signed Brezec, he would have been good for us. We HAVE TO MAKE SOMETHING.
Due to age/injury, the Rockets have logged plenty of minutes with the likes of Pig Miller, Thomas Hamilton, Juwan Howard and Chuck Hayes at center over the past decade. It's not as dramatic a change as you believe.
Right, it's kind of like how Deion Sanders was such a great cornerback even though he didn't get that many interceptions. The only reason he didn't get more interceptions is because teams didn't throw at him. He was a hugely important player on defense even if his numbers didn't necessarily reflect that.
Verse, one of the best posts this offseason. With the current roster its going to be a layup drill during the season. Battier and Ariza are phenomanal defenders, but they'll be dead by mid season with having to play lock down type defense without a shotblocker behind them. Losing Yao and Deke is really going to hurt and change the dynamics of the rockets defense. This is why you have to think Morey is not close to being finished with this current roster and changes will have to come.
Now take away the only player that will block some shots. And you will see how important for rox to have a replacement for Yao.
I honestly miss Yao's offensive efficiency more than his role as an "eraser" on defense. I feel Yao's liabilities on defense (foul proneness, inability to defend the pick and role, which happens to be the bread and butter play of NBA offense) negate his defensive strengths (post presence/position). As far as the loss of Deke goes, his liability on offense somewhat negates his defensive prowess. Shot blocking is a nice luxury to have, but we still have a pretty sound defensive team. I say that the Rockets' defensive ranking will suffer, more so because of their shift in their offensive philosophy to adjust to and compensate for not having Yao's offensive efficiency, which will result in more exhange of possesions and more transition (easy) baskets for both sides. This isn't to say that they won't be "defensive" sans an eraser. Morey reminded us of this after Budinger and Taylor were drafted. That we have a good defense, and to get playing time, the rooks have to play defense. My main question/problem is, have we done enough to make up for Yao's offense?
Your analogy is all wrong. Sanders was a primary defender. The basketball analogy is a good defensive guard/forward, like Battier, who you put on someone to try and shut them down. The center in this analogy is a help defender. He's like a free safety. Guy goes deep on the CB, the FS comes over to help on the guy, double cover, break up the pass, INT, etc. A good FS can definitely help erase mistakes made by a CB. But if you've got a great CB, you need less help from the safety. In the same way, a great helper like a shot blocker is essential if your wing players are getting beaten to the basket on a consistent basis. But if your defender isn't getting beaten off the dribble, you don't need the help. Put another way, you needed a shot blocker badly when Kenny Smith was getting beaten off the dribble by every KJ and Timmy Hardaway and Rod Strickland in the league. But put a guy like Lowry back there who can stay in front of the guy and the help isn't as crucial.
Carl: I stated before that I think we'll relinquish our hold as a top 5 defensive team. If i had to venture a guess as to where we'll fall this season, I'd say somewhere between 8-12. Off the top of my head, I anticipate the following teams definitely ranking ahead of us: CLE (no debate) BOS (see above) SAS ("") LAL ("") POR (debatable, but i think this is the year they start 2 focus on it) UTAH (equally adept defenders as rox with brewer/kiri, but more exp in their system at key slots - pg, c) An argument could be made for ORL, but I think their 3 point style hurts them defensively. Too many long rebounds to give up. DEN is finally starting to understand the benefits of playing defense, as well. Credit Chauncey, Dahntay, Birdman, and NeNe. That's off the top of my head and, I considered us last year with Yao to be top 5, possibly number one overall. As for Battier last year vs Lakers, I think he did a good job on Kobe. I also think the Lakers when focused and beating the daylights out of us in the middle, blew us out the water. Pyrite series, IMO. Battier's Memphis team, imo, exceeded their talent, yes. I also never considered them great defensively. Never. Kidd was an overrated defender to me. Same for Marion. He did have good hands, yes, an was a big PG that wouldn't be bullied. Plus he was an excellent rebounder. All those things get bunched together and the media pronounces these guys good to great defenders. But on an island, without a presence in the middle? They get burned frequently. Bell i like as a rugged, annoying defender. That said, he got lit up many times on the Suns.
I'm going to attempt to address as many people, individually, as possible, but I really am craving some Pad Krapao and the Thai restaurants here still have that annoying little siesta between 3 and 5pm (as if no one wants to eat during off hours). Besides, there are a few posts that raise the same arguments, so I can consolidate those responses before I consolidate some Level 9 flames in my cast iron stomach. First, thanks for the compliments on the writing, cabbman, et al. I try to keep up with you guys and offer something better to digest and, hopefully, encourage some critical thinking and analysis. My point is not to be right...moreso to analyze, and look for truer understandings of how this all comes together (hopefully in a Rockets championship. Btw, for a great read on life and the mechanisms of it, check out an old classic: Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. People just don't take "care" anymore...) For those stuck on the statistical aspects of shotblocking, keep in mind that statistics are a growing lifeform. Yes, lifeform. We all feed into it, re-shape the context in with we view them, and they grow and expand with our efforts. PPG is an appendix, I swear. Shotblocking stats are absolutely limited in their public understanding. Kind of like our frontal lobes (I don't want to harp on that, though. I'm still disturbed from reading Hannibal last night. Dudes having a sitdown dinner date snacking on frontal lobe. And he gets the girl. I see now why I'm single.). They don't tell how many Lebron/Howard-esque blocks sail out of bounds to the popcorn vendor only to be tossed back to the offense. Those mean little...except the intimidation factor, which certainly has a value (though unquantifiable). They don't tell how Hakeem's greatest defensive asset wasn't the number of shots blocked. It was the amount he changed. They don't tell that Shawn Bradley's blocks inspired more drives and posterizations than they discouraged. Does anyone doubt that McG's "saddle-up-cowboy" dunk on Stickman effectively ended that game with one fatal, career ending act of teabaggery to Shawn's frontal lobe? The layup line will surely be in vogue against the Rox, as will the 2 foot jumphook or pivot and tear-the-rim-down dunk anytime Andersen is in the game. I'd give Hulk a hyphenated defensive description, but he won't be in the game long enough to warrant one (Tyson Farms should have so many fouls). TheFreak, you brought up a good point about the 2nd 3-peat Bulls, with 2 of the greatest perimeter defenders ever, and possibly the best defensive power forward ever. They were outstanding and had no shotblocker. Unfortunately, Shane/Ariza/Scola are not in those categories. Shane and Trev are top 5 at their positions, but not shutdown dominant. On an island, for a single possession? I'm fairly sure they have a 50/50 chance to succeed. And there's a 10% chance of that. Over an 82 game season, 35 mpg, without ever having a mistake eraser? Forecast is dark and cloudy with a chance of a dunk-by.
Sammy, The Spurs have incredible chemistry on both sides of the court and are anchored by a top notch shotblocker. Stats will NEVER illustrate the effect of Duncan in the middle. Another factor is the pace at which they prefer to play - molasses - which reduces the number of possessions per game. Is there any doubt that if Pop went D'Antoni, that their defensive efficiency, shots blocked, and shots altered wouldn't change? Keep in mind, the Rox have already made statement about playing at a faster tempo. That's going to put a premium and both rebounding (as someone astutely pointed out) and defending the rim. We stand to be horrible at BOTH this upcoming season. Don't read me as simple as requesting a person who can get 3 empty blocks per game to lead us to the finals. What I'm saying is we have no one...NO ONE...who will protect the basket. As transparent as Marcus Camby is, even he would be an upgrade and beneficial towards this issue (though I'd prefer a younger, cheaper player w/long term prospects). As for us being outsized, make no mistake, that's a problem, as well, but following your train of thought, simply getting bigger guys should solve that problem. Anderson's big. So is 2 Sammiches. But none of those guys command an ounce of respect in the paint...and it is there that we will get crushed. Now to crush this Pad Krapao...
I believe there will be a drop off in defense without someone to replace the big guy in the paint. Im not suggesting they'll become a horrible defensive team by any means. Shots not attempted are more important than the actual blocked shots. But beyond that Hayes is the only "good" post defender on the team. IMO Landry & Scola are average man defenders and none of these guys are big enough to actually anchor a defense. This team is crazy small upfront and i've yet to see a team be good with this kind of size problem unless they were exceptional offensively. As it currently stands I dont think this team will be anything close to great offensively (LAL, ORL, PHX, DEN CLE & BOS great). They'll obviously play a faster tempo. But what will the increase in possessions do this team defensively? What will happend against teams who actually play inside out? Against teams who really attack off the dribble?
That's like saying that a defensive scheme emphasizing a big man in the paint is going to fail if the center is Yao Ming instead of Hakeem Olajuwon. Yao's no Hakeem, and Shane's no Michael, but they can get the job done. Any defensive scheme works great with great players, good with good players, and poorly with bad defenders. What in the world??? I'm fairly sure that your statistical analysis here is 50/50 correct, and maybe a 10% chance of being right.
Hey Sammy, Lol. I thought I could slip that ingenious statistic by you...alas I was foiled. 80% of the time, it works every time. As for the Bulls post you referenced, TheFreak posited the Bulls as an example of a team without a major shotblocker that succeeded (that's a Bubba Gump underbite sized understatement). In fact, they were a juggernaut. In no way would I disagree with your post about players making the system...at least when it comes to the great ones, which is exatly what those Bulls defenders were. Truthfully, they could have implemented just about any defensive scheme and been successful since, again, they were alltime great defenders. None of this is ultimately relevant to our current team, though, since our defenders are not alltime greats. Again, I didn't bring them up as some sort of historical reference point that the Rockets could emulate, expecting similar results. I believe TheFreak was simply mentioning them in response to my statement about nba champions having an paint patroller in their hip pocket. He's right, but it really just underscores my point: those guys had to be all-world chastity belt defenders. You simply weren't getting any against those guys.
Just because a team does not have a shot blocker that does not means they will be a bad defensive team. This team is a good defensive minded team. dont need to block shots you just have to make the opponent take hard/bad shots plus we got plenty of people to take charges and disrupt passing lanes. Blocking shots just a highlight.
Lack of shotblocker = more players eager to drive to the rim, which = us getting more team fouls, which = them going to line and shooting 25-30 FT per game.
The most intriguing way of quantifying defense, to me, is defensive adjusted +/-. Recently over on APBRMetrics, 82games contributor Steve Ilardi posted his computed adjusted +/-, split into offensive and defensive ratings, based on 6 years worth of data. He weighted the seasons based on how recent they were like this: weight = 1/(2^(YearsAgo +1) http://www.sonicscentral.com/apbrmetrics/viewtopic.php?t=2294&sid=626fa4a128dd05d45ebf7c6049fa6da9 You can look at his plus/minus numbers for all players that played last season in the link above. Here they are specifically for the players who'll be on our roster next year; Code: [B]Team Player Min off_apm def_apm stderr tot_apm[/B] HOU Ming, Yao 2,454 +1.58 +4.38 0.85 +5.97 HOU McGrady, Tracy 1,075 +5.47 -0.33 0.95 +5.14 HOU Battier, Shane 1,983 +0.33 +3.92 0.85 +4.26 HOU Hayes, Chuck 786 -4.02 +7.28 1.38 +3.26 LAL Ariza, Trevor 1,904 -0.68 +2.87 1.08 +2.19 HOU Landry, Carl 1,416 -0.85 +0.59 1.93 -0.26 HOU Barry, Brent 809 +0.32 -1.32 0.93 -1.0 HOU Scola, Luis 2,374 -1.81 +0.37 1.5 -1.44 HOU,MEM Lowry, Kyle 1,669 -1.89 -0.04 1.57 -1.92 HOU Brooks, Aaron 1,915 +0.30 -6.75 1.91 -6.45 And here's a offense vs. defense graph for those who like 'em for each of our players. X-axis is their defensive ability according to adjusted +/-, and Y-axis is offensive ability. Pretty cool how the results fall in line with our subjective perception of these players, without being based on any boxscore numbers (e.g. ppg, rpg, bpg, spg, etc. are not looked at for the ratings). You can see the collection of players we'll be putting on the floor are not particularly good on offense (unless McGrady should return and be functional). A number of above-average defenders though. Not so much Brooks, of course. Ron Artest, by the way, scored very well by this metric. +2.2 on offense, and a +5.1 on defense. Not sure how much of that was last season, versus prior years.
I think length helps with that more than anything else. Any player can take away the space/option simply by having the height.
Question: Does the "adjustment" intended to show where the player stands in comparison with the "average lineup" on his team, or in comparision with the "average lineup" in the entire league? I am also trying to figure out how he's using the 6 years woth of data. I think he says he uses them as "baseline." I am not sure how exactly to failrly apply them since, obviously a player's abilities can change quite a bit from year to year.
If I understand the question correctly, I think entire league. Ordinary plus/minus is how much his team outscored the other when he was on the floor. Adjusted plus/minus is trying to capture how much his team would outscore the other if his four teammates, in sum, were neither a positive nor negative influence on the margin. I think maybe he calculate the adjusted +/- for each of the last 6 years, and then take a weighted average (i.e. 07/08 being 1/4th as relevant as 08/09, 06/07 being 1/8th as relevant, 05/06 being 1/16th as relevant, and so on).
Please reference my response to TheFreak on this topic. MJ's original 3peat team (how sick is that description? That's like saying, well on my first year staying at the Playboy mansion...), he had Ho Grant and "Razor" Cartwright (Donovan Ruddock genuflects to ya Bill. You took out Hakeem's orbital socket with one blow. Donovan made a good showing against Iron Mike, but ultimately got KTFU). On the second set of 3peatdom (when Hef invited me back to the mansion, and asked me for sex tips), he was still DPOY-worthy (rightfully so, not like LeFraud and DHoward), and was flanked by stalwart Pippen (a ho by any other name would be as cheap) and Rodman (will go down as possibly the most deserving HOF to never get in). How is this relevant to our current team, unless your juxtaposing the two in effort to solicit an "if we only..."(Speaking of, can you imagine an allstar Hef visitation lineup of Wilt Chamberlain, Calvin Murphy, and Shawn Kemp? More seeds than a watermelon patch...)
