Announcement

Collapse
No announcement yet.

Everything Bargnani

Collapse
X
 
  • Filter
  • Time
  • Show
Clear All
new posts

  • Matt52 wrote: View Post
    Each season the bar keeps getting lowered for Bargnani with regards to rebounding and/or defense. Very early in his career it was 9-10, then 8-9, then 7-8, now we are hoping for 6.5.
    lol thats true. Well i guess there's only one option... trade him

    Comment


    • It's bleach report guys. I mean I don't take Doug's words seriously, yet you guys have managed to make a 4 page thread about this -_-

      Comment


      • RAPresenting wrote: View Post
        For the arguments that Dre guards the other teams weaker big this is only relevant this past year.
        The funny thing is the people who advance this "theory" are the same people who point out how high the opponent's center PER is.

        If Bargnani is really guarding the weaker of the opponent's bigs, why the heck are they blaming Bargnani for the good offensive centers performance against the Raptors when in their own words, he is guarding the other big?

        It's all BS from people who will contradict themselves every other sentence by stating a non-fact to advance their own personal agenda. The same people who claim defense is a team's game but yet refuse to consider how the presence of Bargnani on the court impacts the offensive performance of his teammates.

        Comment


        • Hugmenot wrote: View Post
          The funny thing is the people who advance this "theory" are the same people who point out how high the opponent's center PER is.

          If Bargnani is really guarding the weaker of the opponent's bigs, why the heck are they blaming Bargnani for the good offensive centers performance against the Raptors when in their own words, he is guarding the other big?

          It's all BS from people who will contradict themselves every other sentence by stating a non-fact to advance their own personal agenda. The same people who claim defense is a team's game but yet refuse to consider how the presence of Bargnani on the court impacts the offensive performance of his teammates.
          Umm I think you are highly missing the point. Bargnani is covering the weaker check and YET that same player is still putting up ridiculously good numbers. I don't think Jay checked Harangody's or Speight's PER part way through the game and said, "oops, we better put Andrea on Garnett/Brand" His check put up ridiculously productive numbers DESPITE being the weaker player. Now alot of that had to do with offensive rebounds, easy put backs and him out of position rather than their offensive skills, but thats still his responsibility.

          I don't think anyone refuses to acknowledge his offensive impact... its just that is defensive impact outweighs that offense.

          Comment


          • Hugmenot wrote: View Post
            The funny thing is the people who advance this "theory" are the same people who point out how high the opponent's center PER is.

            If Bargnani is really guarding the weaker of the opponent's bigs, why the heck are they blaming Bargnani for the good offensive centers performance against the Raptors when in their own words, he is guarding the other big?

            It's all BS from people who will contradict themselves every other sentence by stating a non-fact to advance their own personal agenda. The same people who claim defense is a team's game but yet refuse to consider how the presence of Bargnani on the court impacts the offensive performance of his teammates.
            Well, I've never contradicted myself on this subject, and if I have, I'd like you to show me where. I've consistently, all season long, said that Bargnani has usually defended the weaker frontcourt player. Not always, but most of the time. And Bargnani's man usually ends up being more productive being defended by Bargnani than usual. That's not opinion, those are actual stats. And that doesn't mean he doesn't defend the center. Often times Bargnani does defend the center because the center position isn't exactly one of strength in the NBA at this time.

            Speaking of agendas, what exactly is YOUR argument? Are you arguing that Bargnani isn't, in fact, a bad defender? I don't think you can find a person connected with the NBA who would say he's anything BUT a bad defender. And I think everyone here understands Bargnani's impact on the offensive end. Unfortunately when you try and defend someone's defense by saying he makes a big impact on offense, that pretty much sums it up. And unfortunately the impact Bargnani makes on offense doesn't make up for the negative impact he has on defense. And the stats back me up on this, unfortunately.
            Read my blog, The Picket Fence. Guaranteed to make you think or your money back!
            Follow me on Twitter.

            Comment


            • Breaking down Speights performance

              Following up on the post of Hugmenot I have to say that there has been too little evidence presented for the arguments made. I'm not going to state that Bargnani isn't a bad defender, but I think that the argumentation could be improved upon. There have been statements about the play of opponents and I've decided to break down one of those, the 23-point performance of Speights (10 of 12) on january 26th. That performance has been ascribed to Bargnani in this thread, but the evidence will show that this certainly is not the complete story.

              From the evidence presented below we can conclude that Bargnani wasn't the one defending Speights all the time. Furthermore, many of his points came off missed rotations and a weakness on defending the P&R. In the examples below from this game Bargnani was right in rotating to defend the P&R ballhandler.

              So, from this moment on I suggest the performance of Speights on jan 26th of 2011 will no longer be used in posts trying to prove how bad Bargnani is in relation to the other (frontcourt) defenders on our team.

              I've given quarters and time (+/-) so it can be verified.

              quarter: 2
              time left:10.50
              what?: post up
              result: made basket
              description: defender Ed Davis

              quarter: 2
              time left: 10.20
              what?: transition lay-up
              result: made basket
              description: There was nobody back...

              quarter: 2
              time left: 9.40
              what?: offensive rebound
              result: free throws
              description: Calderon is beat on a screen. Bargnani comes over to prevent a free shot. Davis is defending Young. Calderon goes with Speights, but is just too small to challenge him for the rebound.

              quarter: 2
              time left: 9.14
              what?: cut > layup
              result: made basket
              description: Iguodala goes bye Weems pretty easily. Davis is behind him and should step in to help on the penetration, but is too late. Bargnani leaves Speights to prevent a layup but like Davis doesn't really commit enough. Iguodal throws the ball up to Speights who has a free layup.

              quarter: 2
              time left: 8.55
              what?: Layup
              result: made basket
              description: Iguodala gets the ball from Young close to the basket. Young walks to the weakside under the basket. Amir Johnson, who was defending Young, decides not to follow him but to help on Iguodala trying to tie him up. A the moment Young comes over, Speights, who was guarded by Bargnani, goes to just below the free throw line. Bargnani decides to stay with Young. Iguodala uses his body to create passing space and gets the ball to Speights who has an easy lay-up

              quarter: 2
              time left: 8.10
              what?: P&R > layup
              result: made basket
              description: Speights sets a pick for Holiday. Calderon loses him and Bargnani picks up him. Calderon tries to recover on Holiday, Young creates space by getting out of the paint, Speights rolls to the basket. There is no help or rotation and Speights gets the easy 2.

              quarter: 2
              time left: 6.04
              what?: offensive rebound
              result: extra possession
              description: Bargnani defendes Young, Johnson is on Speights who is also fronted by DeRozan. Johnson doesn't box out and Speights gets the offensive rebound.

              quarter: 2
              time left: 4.45
              what?: P&R
              result: free throws
              description: Exactly the same play as at 8.10. Again no rotation or help on Speights after Bargnani has to pick up the guard. Johnson frooze but tries to grab him as he blows by.

              quarter: 3
              time left: 1.20
              what?: Spot-up Jumper
              result: made basket
              description: defended by Ed Davis

              quarter: 3
              time left: 0.48
              what?: something
              result: turnover
              description: Speights is defended by Davis. He tries to make a move (or something) and loses the ball.

              quarter: 4
              time left: 10.40
              what?: dunk
              result: made basket
              description: Bargnani leaves Young to try to trap Lou Williams with Bayless. Young is completely open at the free throw line; Williams passes to Turner. Davis leaves Speights to defend Young and Speights gets the ball for an easy dunk.
              Last edited by Soft Euro; Fri Jul 29, 2011, 01:14 PM.

              Comment


              • Very interesting read thanks for putting in the work. More interesting should be the responds of the posters that were bringing this game up several times. Peoples memories of games are usually bias to there favorite players or in this case most hated. It's a typical trend for people to use the guy as a scape goat for the teams lack of success on the defensive end. Is the guy a Great defender definitely not but he's not nearly as bad as most are making him out to be.

                Advanced stats are interesting but not always a way of describing ones affect on the game. If our guards/wings are constantly being blown by it's going to break down the defense. When help comes and the pass is dumped off for dunks and layups it can't always be pinned on the big. I'm not defending the guy and saying he's perfect (not near) but our team as a whole needs to be better on that end of the court not just him.

                Comment


                • I usually hate saying things like this, but anyone who thinks that Bargnani is anything better than a bad defender knows little to nothing about basketball, or has simply not watched him play.
                  Read my blog, The Picket Fence. Guaranteed to make you think or your money back!
                  Follow me on Twitter.

                  Comment


                  • And we all agree, but that does not mean bad arguments are ok.

                    Edit: and btw I don't like arguments like the the one you just made as well, but i guess you're getting worn down.
                    Last edited by Soft Euro; Fri Jul 29, 2011, 06:18 PM.

                    Comment


                    • Soft Euro wrote: View Post
                      And we all agree, but that does not mean bad arguments are ok.
                      Without people making bad arguments, I wouldn't have any fun!
                      Read my blog, The Picket Fence. Guaranteed to make you think or your money back!
                      Follow me on Twitter.

                      Comment


                      • Tim W. wrote: View Post
                        Without people making bad arguments, I wouldn't have any fun!
                        Way to show some class. Great job preying on the weak.

                        Comment


                        • Prime wrote: View Post
                          Way to show some class. Great job preying on the weak.
                          It's how you thin out the herd.
                          Read my blog, The Picket Fence. Guaranteed to make you think or your money back!
                          Follow me on Twitter.

                          Comment


                          • Bargnani’s isolation defense

                            Just for fun I thought I’d research some of the statements that were made or questions that were asked about Bargnani in this thread. I still have some vacation left and almost no social life to speak of, so why not. My goal is not to prove or disprove Bargnani’s stature as a bad defensive player, but just to see if the statements were correct and to answer some of the questions.

                            Last week I looked at the statement that some very good performances by opposing players were because of Bargnani. I only looked at one of the named performances, the 23-point performance by Speights. I looked at those plays and had to conclude that this performance good not be blamed on Bargnani. Unfortunately there were no reactions (so far) of the people who used this performance as evidence against Bargnani.

                            GarbageTime wrote: View Post
                            "When faced with isolation situations, Bargnani is in the top 17% of the NBA in terms of Points Per Possession (PPP) allowed, giving up just 0.684 points per possession on 29.7% shooting"

                            ok now we a number that offers a comparison, but how many times did that happen? How often did the team not send help? Again, who is this isolation against.... Ryan Hollins/Brandon Bass/Chuck Hayes/Biendrins?
                            I wondered about this myself, so I went to Synergy and examined all the isolations plays. According to Synergy 22,5% of Bargnani’s defensive plays were Isolation plays. That comes down to 133 plays.

                            On those isolation plays Bargnani’s opponents make 0,684 ppp (according to the article of Pruiti). In my calculations I get 0,674 ppp, but that won’t make too much of a difference.

                            To get an idea of the level of competition and how Bargnani did in comparison to the rest of the league I decided to take a look at the ppp his opponents normally make in isolation plays. For this I’ve take each play, looked at the opponents average ppp and took the average of all the plays. That gives me a number of 0,793. That number is not completely indicative of the average opposition because there are some plays by opponents who almost never play isolation (e.g. Ben Wallace and Trevor Booker) which makes their isolation ppp very unreliable. Because these players tend to be on the high or low side of ppp I also looked at the average opponents ppp of the middle 80% of the plays. That comes down to 0,815 ppp.

                            Against the opponents Bargnani faced he outperformed the league by at least 0,11 ppp, which is about 14% better than the league.

                            This is while taking the least favourable numbers (otherwise it would be 0.14 ppp better for a 17,3% better performance than the league average against the same opponents).


                            How does the level of his opponents compare against the league average? Were his opponents bad or good players?

                            First of all, 13(!) of all isolation plays were against a scrub called Lebron James. That’s a significant amount against a very good isolation player. James had a season average of 0,92 ppp.

                            The Raptors as a team had an isolation offense ppp of 0,85, which was 12th in the league. Bargnani’s opponents are around the level of the 20th team in the League (0,81 ppp) and the 18th team in the league (0,82). At 0,81 ppp those teams were the Nets, Pacers and Charlotte and at 0,82 we had the 76ers. That’s slightly below average, but because of the relative weakness of the Eastern Conference I think Bargnani’s average is about the average for the teams they faced.

                            Nevertheless, taking the ‘raw’ number of 0,79, an argument could be made that the competition he faced was (slightly) below the average of the league. So I decided I’d look at all the players Bargnani had faced with a ppp of 0,8 or higher and see how he did here. Bargnani faced an isolation against players with an isolation ppp of at least 0,8 80 times this season and his results were quite surprising:

                            Against the better isolation players, with an average isolation ppp of 0,89 Bargnani allowed only 0,64 ppp, meaning he outperformed the league by a staggering 0,25 ppp or 28%..


                            How does he do it? How come Bargnani has good defensive stats on isolation plays?

                            One thing I noticed when going over the defensive plays of Bargnani is that he’s late a lot on rotations to spot-up shooters. Pruiti pointed this out in his article and from what I’ve seen when I checked this he is spot on. It seems that when Bargnani has to recognize the play when there is quite some ball movement he’s too late seeing where he needs to go and stays in his position too long. One of the main results being him closing too late on shooters. On the other hand, when he is already in position because of the zone, or when he has an easily recognizable switch (when e.g. a screen is set) and is able to get in position without much trouble he does a good job using his length allowing him to keep some distance and by also moving his feet pretty well he prevents from getting beat off the dribble too often.

                            Unfortunately I don’t have the right Miami games on my PC, so I can’t show any of the Lebron plays. So I’ll end this post with another example, and, to appease the people who are offended because I didn’t trash Bargnani’s defense in this post, I’ll end with an example where somebody scores on Bargnani.

                            Basically one of two things can happen (when isolation play ends in a fieldgoal attempt): either the player tries to take Bargnani of the dribble or the player tries to shoot over Bargnani. Bargnani keeps his distance to the other player so it’s not easy to blow by. If they do try to attack him, a lot of times he is still able to challenge the jumper.

                            In this example Joe Johnson gets an iso against Bargnani on the top of the key. Bargnani keeps his distance, moves his feet well (really, he does), Johnson takes off to the rim, but Bargnani is still able to make the shot difficult by using his length. On this possession Johnson scores; he creates contact very well to create some room and prevent Bargnani from contesting his shoot even better. The defense was very solid, Johnson had to make a difficult jumper and he did.

                            Last edited by Soft Euro; Mon Aug 15, 2011, 06:27 PM.

                            Comment


                            • Some silence going on around here...

                              Comment


                              • Great posts SoftEuro. Solid research.

                                Comment

                                Working...
                                X