Defense team: Al Jefferson, Monta Ellis, Kobe Bryant and more
Tim Kawakami
Stats, defensive stats, defensive stats everywhere! Since I’ve complained about the lack of D-stats so frequently in the past, I can only applaud the recent proliferation of smart analysts trying to put qualitative and quantative measurements on individual NBA defensive play. (Maybe they’ve… Continue Reading →
Talking Points
Stats, defensive stats, defensive stats everywhere!

Since I’ve complained about the lack of D-stats so frequently in the past, I can only applaud the recent proliferation of smart analysts trying to put qualitative and quantative measurements on individual NBA defensive play.

(Maybe they’ve been doing it for a while now, but I’ve only recently noticed

the analysis regularly popping up from places like basketball-reference.com, basketballvalue.com, Synergy Sports and several others.)

It’s still tough to do.

A lot of it remains subjective–breaking down each possession as a + or – for individual defense takes a value judgment on what the player was supposed to do, in relation to four other teammates and countless mini-decisions.

Which means I’m still using a lot of my own peculiar and oft-derided subjectivity for what is now the fourth edition of my NBA No-Defense team.

As always, I use the Eye-Ball Test first and foremost, maybe best summarized by two questions:

–Do opponents’ eyes light up when they realize they’re being guarded by one specific player?

–Do coaches have to change the defensive system strictly to protect one player, and if they do, does the guy still screw up, and do those issues show up on the team’s defensive performance?

Sometimes I grade on a curve, sometimes I don’t, sometimes I punish a player for severe defensive regression from his recent past, sometimes I believe stats tell the story, sometimes I don’t, and I will always try to explain why or why not.

-My usual quick No-Defense philosophical review: Offensive skills are swell, but I think the value of defense is often overlooked; I definitely think that the cost of lousy individual defense is never highlighted enough. Lousy defense hurts just as much, or more, as lousy offense.

Here’s my Mid-Season Watch List from earlier this year.

Here’s last year’s team: Hedo Turkoglu was the 2010 No-Defense POY. In 2009, it was Kevin Martin. The inaugural NDPOY was Steve Nash in 2008.

-Also: These are my opinions. You may not like some of them. Odds are, many people will dislike many of them. So it goes.

I always try to tie my No-Defense awards to the announcement of the great defenders. Earlier this month,the NBA announced its All-Defensive teams (and we will get into ONE PARTICULAR member of the first team almost immediately).

Long wind-up. Here are my 2011 NBA No-Defense Teams (generally trying to go C-F-F-G-G, but like the All-Star teams, maybe not quite getting there)…

—–FIRST TEAM/

* No-Defense Player of the Year: Al Jefferson, Utah. Congratulations, Al! You’ve been headed towards this award for most of your up/down career and you’ve finally gotten it.

Sure, it looks like a tough selection when the stats say that Jefferson was one of the more productive shot-blockers in the league this season (153 blks). But there’s more to defense than blocking shots, and Al didn’t do ANY of them…

Can’t tell you how many times I was watching a Utah game, saw the Jazz give up an easy bucket in the half-court, and figured out it was Jefferson who turned his head at the wrong time or just decided to leave the weak side totally unprotected.

Raw stat: He had the worst defensive differential per 100 possessions than any player in the league (among regulars, that I could find)–Utah gave up 6.8 more points per 100 possessions when Jefferson was on the court than when he was off. 113.3 when he was ON, 106.5 when he was off.

(I’ll get into Devin Harris’ stats a bit later, but keep him in mind, too.)

In the big picture, I don’t think there’s any player that 100% caused Jerry Sloan’s retirement as Jazz coach.

But if you watched Utah play last season, it’s probably not wrong to conclude that Big Al was maybe 80% of it.

Lead-footed, doesn’t rotate correctly (or sometimes, at all), looks only for the big shot block and if it’s not there he loses interest, doesn’t exactly sprint back on transition D, and often gets walloped by anybody on the post with some quickness…

Yep, if I’m Sloan and I’ve built my great career on intensity, and I’m stuck with Al Jefferson on the post, which guarantees that Utah will be a lousy defensive team, maybe I would’ve quit, too.

* Andrea Bargnani, Toronto. Amazingly, Bargnani has never won NDPOY.

If Toronto dumps him this summer–as it should–maybe we’ll see Bargs tune it up on D in a better situation, or maybe we’ll see him forever prove that he should’ve won two or three NDPOY’s by now.

I’ll say this: I think Bargnani has been the league’s worst defensive player, play for play, over the last four seasons combined. There’s no bigger invisible man on help at the rim, period.

In the NDPOY race, Bargnani just always just gets beaten out by others in a single season–kind of like Dwyane Wade and the MVP, yes sir.

The Raptors were a horrendous defensive team again, they were at their worst with Bargnani on the floor again (116.3 points per 100 possessions, the highest total I could find among regulars, including Warriors and Cavalier players), and this is just who he is.

Stat snapshot: He plays center, yet Bargnani had 45 blocked shots this season; Wade, who is 8 inches shorter, had 87 blocks.

* Amare Stoudemire, New York. He’s a bit of an Al Jefferson echo–lots of offense, lots of shot-blocking, yet his team just plays terrible defense specifically when Stoudemire is on the floor.

The Knicks gave up 112.9 points per 100 poss’s when Amare was on the floor this season, only 107.1 points per 100 when he was out of the game–even on a team that wasn’t exactly loaded with stoppers, the Knicks were always much better on D when Amare was on the bench.

As with Jefferson, I don’t think opponents precisely look at Stoudemire

and think “easy pickings.” I think it’s more that these two big guys get out of position more than most and once they’re out of position, they remain out of position.

Which leads to easy baskets. Look at how many times Garnett, Duncan, Noah or Kendrick Perkins get out of position and stay out of position. Almost never.

Snapshot: For all of Stoudemire’s offensive talents, which are substantial, he was just a +68 in the plus/minus on the year–his per-game +0.8 rating was exactly the same as the Knicks’ point-differential.

Which means his plus/minus ratio (per game plus/minus vs. his team’s) was 0.00.

Amare giveth, and he giveth up, too. In almost identical volume.

* Monta Ellis, Warriors. Ellis was looking halfway decent on the defensive peripherals at mid-season, with his usual two or three markedly good D efforts per month tossed in… then everything spun back down to his usual poor stat-pack.

(His offense, however, was very good all year, if you are prepared to discount his turnovers and all those missed shots. I don’t always.)

Now, as I’ve said repeatedly, I blame much of the defensive retrograde on Ellis playing out of position on defense–with Stephen Curry alongside, Ellis has to defend the 2-guard, which Ellis doesn’t always love to do.

He is not physically able to go up for long minutes against big wings and often just gives up early on when things go awry in the match-up (go back and check the tape on Ellis vs. Grant Hill in the Phoenix games).

But bad is bad, unfocused is unfocused, and there’s no doubt Ellis could just as likely be giving up big numbers if he was defending the PG regularly, too.

The fact of the matter is that the Warriors were at their worst defensively this season when Ellis was on the floor–they gave up 6.4 points more per 100 possessions with Ellis playing, worse than with David Lee, much worse than with Stephen Curry.

Last snapshot: Like Stoudemire, Ellis’ offensive talents are prodigious, but he ended up as a -232 in the plus/minus, worse than any Warrior except Biedrins (-234).

Curry was -15 on the season. The Warriors were slightly worse defensively when Curry was on the floor than when he was out. They were much worse defensively when Ellis played.

* Ramon Sessions, Cleveland. Does not appear that he even tries to play D and gets the unofficial Guard-Who-Can’t-Stop-Penetration award, following the lead footsteps of Jose Calderon and Monta Ellis, the two previous winners.

The Cavaliers–the CAVALIERS–were immensely worse defensively when Sessions played than when he didn’t. That’s really bad. All he does is think offense, he’s under-sized and he is terrible defensively: Yes, Sessions does seem born to be a Warrior.

Snapshot: Sessions is 6-3 (maybe), but only had 60 steals this year. Kevin Garnett had 95.

——-SECOND TEAM/

* David Lee, Warriors. My guy.

Lee’s probably a partial definition of why I do this list–with few exceptions, players get reputations & contracts strictly because of point/rebound totals, or how much pub they get, and the defensive wreckage is almost never recognized by PR-minded GMs or the fan bases.

I like to circle the defensive wreckage. Sorry about that DLee and every player who is like DLee.

So of course Lee’s on this team–I wouldn’t have it any other way, and yes, the stats back it up.

Some stats I see rank Lee right behind Ellis as the GSW’s 2nd-worst defensive player (as in basketballvalue.com), and the true measurables say the Warriors were decidedly worse on D when he played than when he didn’t (opponents shot 51.5% EFG, counting 3-pters, when he was on the court, and shot 49.6% when he was off).

I’ll say that, in the Eye -Ball Test, Lee was better in straight up isolated post situations than I’ve seen in the past. He had that good game against Dwight Howard and wasn’t a one-on-one sieve, usually.

But as usual, Lee was the worst rotater on the Warriors and was non-existent protecting the rim (31 blocks in 76 games)–he just doesn’t do that and never will.

* Corey Maggette, Milwaukee. He had to drive Scott Skiles just insane this season.

Why did the Bucks want him from the Warriors in the first place? Don’t they read the NDPOY annuals? Guess not.

It should surprise nobody that Maggette registered a mere 5 blocked shots in 1,401 minutes (up from 4 in 2,081 minutes last season) and a woeful 21 steals this season.

He’s the essence of a one-way player: If he’s not scoring A LOT, Maggette’s killing his team. And sometimes even when he is scoring a lot, he’s a killer.

This isn’t quite a defensive measure, but it’s my favorite Corey stat: Maggette had more turnovers this season (127) than assists, steals, blocked shots combined (110 total).

Other players have done this, before, I know. (But Maggette hadn’t in 11 previous seasons.) Heck, Eddy Curry did it practically every year of his career.

But for a small forward to rack up that that many TO’s without doing anything else positive and playing horrendous defense? That belongs in the Atrocious Hall of Fame.

Nobody deserves it more than Corey, once again one of the least valuable players in the league.

* DeMar DeRozan, Toronto. He’s a lousy defensive player who theoretically could be a very good one, if he ever decides he’s interested in that. Through two seasons–thoroughly uninterested.

Sometimes the player gets sucked into the Raptor way. Sometimes the player’s laziness helps create the Raptor way. DeRozan’s right in the middle of that right now.

* Devin Harris, Utah. He was my mid-season NDPOY… then got traded from NJ to Utah and put in maybe the worst 17-game stretch of defense I can remember.

He didn’t end up as the NDPOY or even on the first team because it’s difficult to fully analyze a player’s season when it’s spread over two teams–and you have to considder the adjustment period after any trade.

But let’s just go over those last 17 games: Granted, it came while Utah was in a daze after trading Deron Williams and watching Sloan quit, but… whew!

In those games, the Jazz gave up a harrowing 117.4 points per 100 with Harris on the floor and 110.5 with him off. When you watch Harris play D, it’s basically 5 on 4–it’s like he’s not ever there.

* Kobe Bryant, Lakers. OK, I will immediately agree that Bryant is almost assuredly not one of the 10 worst defensive players in the league and I don’t imagine any opponent’s eyes light up when he sees Kobe guarding him.

I will stipulate that putting him on this list is, in large part, grading Kobe against his past performances on D, and that’s not entirely fair.

So what.

His imploding effort on defense this season forced me to put him on this list, just to make sure we remember how good he used to be and how shaky the Lakers get on D when Bryant is as bad as he was this season.

Despite the Lakers’ excellent record, during the regular season it was clear that Kobe regularly took defensive possessions off, got stuck on screens, got lost in the flow, and didn’t get back in transition–often to complain about not getting a foul call on the offensive side.

In the playoffs, it only got worse. Why did Dallas get so many open 3s? Derek Fisher was one reason, sure, but Bryant, by my view, was blatantly lazy rotating after a couple of Mavericks passes.

Even when Bryant tried to summon his old lock-down self against Chris Paul for a few possessions in the middle of the New Orleans series, Bryant was no match for CP-3 and habitually allowed himself to get knocked off by a screen.

Which is what bad defenders do when they know they can’t stay in front of penetrator and want somebody else to guard the damn guy.

We saw Bryant cross that fateful line this year: From good defender to a bad defender, just like that.

Overall, Bryant was statistically the Lakers’ worst regular on defense–the Lakers gave up 4.1 more points per 100 with him playing than with him out and opponents shot 48.9% EFG when Kobe played vs. 45% when he was out.

In the basketball-card stats, Bryant blocked a career-low 12 (!) shots and had only 99 steals in 82 games, his lowest total since 2004-05, when he played only 66 games.

Obvious point: Bryant has a bad knee and various other nagging ailments; at 32, having just finished his 15th NBA season, he’s wearing down and now the toll is showing.

One stat that illuminates the accumulation: Bryant is only a few months younger than Stephen Jackson (both born in 1978), yet Bryant has played 21,186 more minutes, regular-season and playoffs, than Jackson has.

That’s the equivalent of seven 82-game seasons averaging 40 minutes a gam (which nobody does) that Bryant has played MORE than Jackson, who himself has shown signs of wearing down for a few years now.

Bryant was voted on the first team All-Defense this year, as he is most years. Most years he has deserved it. Not this time. Not even close.

–Also considered:

* Gordon Hayward, Utah, who beat out the Clippers’ Blake Griffin for the No-Defense Rookie of the Year. (Jonny Flynn was last year’s winner.)

Hayward wasn’t a terrible player by the end of the season, but he definitely was a guy opponents attacked with gusto.

* Jamal Crawford, Atlanta. One of the worst defensive players of this era, but like many others bad perimeter players, he gets a lot of errors covered up by his great low-post helpers.

* J.J. Hickson, Cleveland. Hickson, Sessions and Antawn Jamison in the line-up together? Whew. Automatic 112 points and 52% EFG for the opponent.

* Brook Lopez, New Jersey. Maybe he just didn’t like playing with Devin

Harris because Lopez was on track for a 1st team berth, then seemed to turn it up bit in the last few months. Still had a big regression on the defensive side this season.

* Martell Webster, Minnesota. During the season, I heard somebody say Webster was one of the Timberwolves’ best defenders–or was trying to be. Fact: He wasn’t. On a team of terrible D-men, Minnesota gavae up 5.9 points more per 100 when Webster played than when he didn’t.

* Jonny Flynn, Minnesota. Last year’s No-Defense rookie of the year.

Seriously, Minnesota put Flynn, Wayne Ellington, Luke Ridnour and Webster out there and called it an NBA backcourt rotation. Seriously.

* Mike Bibby, Miami. Again, the trade screwed around the numbers. But no good team has to hide a starter more than Miami does with Bibby He’s the No. 1 Attack-with-Gusto-when-he’s-out-there guy in the league right now.

* No-Defense Coach of the Year: Toronto’s Jay Triano. Opponents shot 48.2% from the field vs. the porous Raps, and that’s after the Raptors shed

last year’s NDPOY, Hedo Turkoglu. Something is wrong here.

——Kudos to:

* Hedo Turkoglu, Orlando. He’s not even an average defensive player, but ending up with the Magic helped out Turkoglu’s stats enormously. Yeah, that Dwight Howard guy does help. Plus, getting back to Orlando seemed to spark whatever’s left of Hedo’s drive to try on D. I said “try,” not excel, of course.

* Kevin Love. Doesn’t block shots or move laterally, but Minnesota was a better percentage D when he was out there. Those stats are helped enormously, of course, by the fact that hardly anybody ever gets easy-second chance points vs. the T-Wolves when Love is out there–but that is a part of this.

* Steve Nash, Phoenix. We should all continue to be amazed by his turn-around from his 2008 NDPOY level to a point where he’s just a neutral D-player.

We know what he still brings to the table offensively and it’s still massive. But by all some statistical measurements, Nash is one of the Suns’ best better defensive players and has been for the last few years. (Thanks to the commenter for reminding me I had to edit this one a bit. Nash is NOT a good defensive player. But he’s covering it up brilliantly these last few years.)

(Turkoglu and Jason Richardson were horrendous for Phoenix before they were traded to Orlando.)

* Zach Randolph. Added to his development into a dominant low-post scorer, Randolph is now a neutral defender. Huge jump. Huge, huge jump.

* Greg Monroe, Detroit. Monroe was possibly the best two-way rookie in the league this season, even counting Blake Griffin. (I’m NOT saying he’s better than Griffin overall. Just saying Monroe immediately is a two-way impact player, and Griffin isn’t yet.)

Monroe was a very efficient offensive post player and a slightly-better-than-average defensive player, which is saying something, because he was in the middle of Piston defensive awfulness.

*Blake Griffin. Potential dominant all-around player, but definitely not a good defensive player yet. He did get better as the season wore on. Some teams still attack him as much as possible on the post–but some of that is also just to wear him down or try to get him in foul trouble.

* Stephen Curry. A neutral defensive player. Which means something because he’s one of the top Attack-with-Gusto guys in the league.

Credit to Curry for figuring some of this out.

What he hasn’t figured out–his slow footwork often gets him into early foul trouble, so his replacement is the one who suffers statistically when the Warriors are giving up those free throws. So do the other starters.

* Ekpe Udoh, Warriors. You saw it with your own eyes and the visual evidence does not lie: Udoh was by far the Warriors best defensive player

this year and their best overall D-player since Stephen Jackson cared about that kind of thing.

Udoh protected the rim, guarded his own guy, gave great help, knew the proper rotations… just played real D, and on this team, that truly stood out.

The Warriors gave up 113.6 points per 100 when he was out. And gave up 106.1 when he was in. That’s a +7.5 difference–if he keeps that up, that’s very, very valuable stuff.

Funny how this happens: Despite his clear offensive short-comings, Udoh was also the Warriors’ top plus/minus guy, at +105 for the season.

Defense means something. It’s not what the Warriors usually value, but they should.