Comments on: Quality of Teammates Revisited

By: MCT

MCT — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 02:41:31 +0000

A disporportionately large number of players on the "weakest teammates" lists are guys who spent most or all of their careers in the ABA. I'm wondering if this is just a by-product of docking the ABA numbers by 25%. Their teammates may have been weak relative to the NBA norm, but they weren't necessarily that weak relative to the competition these teams faced on a day-to-day basis, which makes their inclusion a little bit misleading.

By: Raj

Raj — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 21:40:03 +0000

"It may also bear mentioning that some teams actually require their guards to funnel drivers at shotblockers as a defensive strategy. So Tony Parker looks terrible, but his man gets introduced to Tim Duncan instead of the rim in the Spurs defensive system, actually increasing the apparent value of Tim's D (not that he needs any help!)." I have a hard time believing many coaches would actually have their guards funnel people towards their shotblockers (though I will acknowledge that a lot of coaches might be that dumb). Just looking at the names at the top of the list of great big men, most of those guys such as Admiral and Hakeem were the type you wouldn't want to risk picking up the foul going for a blocked shot. Plus these were also your best defensive rebounders so forcing them to block shots also hurts that element of your defense. If anything I think guys like Kenny Smith (who if I remember correctly has routinely been called by Barkley, "The reason Hakeem Olajuwon is the all-time blocks leader". And to note I say this as someone who grew up in Houston and believes the '95 Rockets are the greatest assembly of clutch players ever assembled) probably suffered a bit from moral hazard: knowing you have a guy like Duncan, Robinson or Olajuwon probably makes you more likely to relax on defense because you have that safety net back there even though doing so hurts the time overall (as a contested layup is probably still a better shot than a contested jumper)

By: Jason J

Jason J — Sun, 11 Oct 2009 15:29:40 +0000

I think there's pretty clearly an issue around underrating perimeter defenders rather than this just being a case of Dumars being overrated. BJ Armstrong was a good defender who got no stats to show it. Trenton Hassell the same. Kenny Smith was at worst average, and he's up there. Stackhouse and Antonio Daniels are far from terrible as defenders. It may be that the bigs these guys played with like Rodman, Grant, Garnett, & Hakeem are assigned so much of the credit by the system that these smalls are left looking worse in hindsight. It may also bear mentioning that some teams actually require their guards to funnel drivers at shotblockers as a defensive strategy. So Tony Parker looks terrible, but his man gets introduced to Tim Duncan instead of the rim in the Spurs defensive system, actually increasing the apparent value of Tim's D (not that he needs any help!).

By: Jason J

Jason J — Sun, 11 Oct 2009 06:22:22 +0000

Fascinating work, Neil. I'm going to be pouring over these numbers for a long time.

By: P.P.

P.P. — Sat, 10 Oct 2009 19:16:34 +0000

You guys going to do anymore Keltner lists. I love those things. And I don't think one was done on Mullin yet? Looking at these lists also makes me think of doing one on Rodman and Sikma, etc.

By: Robert August de Meijer

Robert August de Meijer — Sat, 10 Oct 2009 15:24:54 +0000

Most interesting!

What surprises me is that Patrick Ewing is not listed among "Those who single-handedly helped their teammates reach new heights".

By: Anon

Anon — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 22:38:12 +0000

Good work Neil. I thought this topic was a good idea the last time you tried your hand at it...love these in-depth lists. About Joe Dumars: I hear you about DWS not capturing his defensive contributions, but I think you already looked at him from a SPM standpoint in your all-time SG list and concluded that he wasn't exactly impressive using that metric either. I'm not saying he didn't do ANYTHING for those Pistons squads of course, but do you think it's one of those cases where his exploits as a defender were just a little bit overhyped (perhaps benefiting from the fact that he usually took on the task of guarding a certain high-profile player named Michael Jordan during his heyday)?