Stats that matter: PF/C Defense

In the next few posts I will discuss some of the statistical components that translate into winning basketball.  Players who inhibit these characteristics are also fairly available and some players who may damage teams due to their inability to help contribute to any of the below could be overrated etc.

These are four main factors that attribute to a winning basketball team (in order):

1. PF/C combo has good help defense

2. High Rebound Rate

3. High Assist to Turnover Rate

4. High 3 point attempt rate

Now it is rare that any team excels in all of these attributes.  

Upon doing further research some of the better (or worse teams) in the league simply excel at the first two items and are just average on the bottom two.  Let's take the Boston Celtics for example with our first metric.

PF/C Defense 

This is the hardest metric of the four to measure simply because there's no exact stat that specifically tells you if players are indeed good defensively or not.  There are items like block, steals, or a combination of the two (CHG aka defensive plays include charges taken), but they still do not tell a complete story of one's defensive prowess.

The best tool available for such an item is plus-minus.  Using basketballvalue.com we can find these numbers for any team over the course of the season.  For defensive purposes, a telling sign is if someones Net defensive +/- (i.e. the team's defensive rating for a certain player that is on the court vs when he is off it) is negative.  This indicates that the team allows a decreased opponent offensive rating (points per 100 possessions) when that player is on the floor vs. off it.  Obviously the more negative this number is the more it shows how much of an impact that player makes on the defensive end.

One of the major attributes to Boston's success (they did have 56 wins) was their front court rotation excelling in defensive net plus minus.

Now the reason I chose Boston here is simply because they were not stellar in any of the other metrics.  

Boston ranked 20th in rebounding rate, 11th in assist to turnover rate and 27th in 3 point attempt rate.

The reason for Boston still being able to have a solid season was indeed their PF/C front court defense (dealing Perkins did not help).

Below is a list of the net defensive +/- for Boston's PF/C combos (sorted by minutes played):

Glen Davis: 1.52

Kevin Garnett: -6.19 

Nenad Kristic: 2.85

Shaquille O'neal: .22

Kendrick Perkins: -3.72

Luke Harangody: -1.1

Semih Erden: 2.58

Jermaine O'neal: -1.57

Troy Murphy: -0.57

What we really see above is the impact KG had on the team's PF/C defense.  No other big in the team's top 4 minutes played came close to his -6.2 net defensive plus minus.

Seeing the above it is no reason to see how the team's decline after the Perkins for Green/Kristic deal was so glaring.  The team dealt away an over -3 net defensive plus minus for a 5 in Nenad who's number was over +2, a whopping 5 point swing.