The pick and roll is much of the league’s bread and butter, easily its most common offensive play type, and no one shuts it down like the Stifle Tower. The picture is the same when looking at situational data. Gobert’s current campaign rating at or near the top of every single one is hard to ignore, especially with so many of the game’s defensive greats sitting alongside him. Each of them is calculated with different variables and weights a quirk in one could, theoretically, inflate a given player’s value somehow. Gobert’s consistency across metrics stands out. “I think those metrics, which are all different but all similar in a way - when you combine all of them, I think you have a pretty precise idea of how a player impacts the game of basketball on the court.” “I think it goes way deeper than the box score,” Gobert told FiveThirtyEight, speaking of modern analytics, which both he and the Jazz are open about embracing. Sources: NBA Advanced Stats,, ESPN, Dunks & Threes, BBallIndex Minimum 1,000 minutes played for a single team in the season for all metrics except Dunks & Threes (minimum 1,200 minutes). Top five player-seasons in four defensive metrics FiveThirtyEight defensive RAPTOR, since 1977ĮSPN defensive Real Plus-Minus, since 1996ĭunks & Threes defensive Estimated Plus-Minus, since 2004 There’s no consensus on defense … except for Rudy Fellow Jazzman Mike Conley, for instance, holds the NBA’s second-highest defensive on/off differential this year among those high-volume players - but that’s partially because Conley has played over 90 percent of his minutes alongside Gobert. Raw on/off figures, though, don’t account for additional context like teammate or opponent performance, which can be significant. Minimum 1,000 minutes played for a single team in the season. High-volume NBA players by greatest difference in team points allowed per 100 possessions when that player is on the court vs. In fact, Gobert’s defensive on-off split is one of the largest of any high-volume player over the past 15 years: That’s the largest such gap in the NBA among players with at least 1,000 minutes. This season, the Jazz are 11.9 points per 100 possessions better defensively when the Frenchman plays compared with when he sits, per Cleaning the Glass. Gobert’s play is the primary driver behind Utah’s top-ranked per-possession defense outside garbage time. While his competitors may disagree, the data suggest that not only is Utah Jazz center Rudy Gobert running away with this year’s award, he’s having one of the best defensive seasons in modern NBA history. The 2020-21 Defensive Player of the Year Award serves as one such instance. Certain seasons are so exemplary that viewing them only in the context of same-year contemporaries sells them badly short. End-of-year NBA awards are a good lens through which to evaluate the league’s best performances, but the framing isn’t always quite right.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |