was tweeting back and forward with Alex Rucker a bit today. Thought I would share the exchange.
Alex Rucker @Alex_Rucker
There is almost nothing about a player's on-ball or help defense that you can glean from the box score.
Timothy Hedden @trhedden
@Alex_Rucker doesn't blocked shots point towards good help defense?
Alex Rucker @Alex_Rucker
@trhedden Yes, it absolutely suggests that. But there are plenty of players who get blocks and are very poor help defenders, esp in the post
Naveed @NaveedDawg
@Alex_Rucker Are there better publicly available stats for this? http://82games.com has opponent PER, JJ was ok, anything else?
Alex Rucker @Alex_Rucker
@NaveedDawg No...public stats are based on data which does not support accurate defensive analysis.
Timothy Hedden @trhedden
@Alex_Rucker what do you look at then in order to evaluate great defenders? Points against, +/-
Alex Rucker @Alex_Rucker
@trhedden None of the above. We have orders of magnitude more data than the public sphere.
Alex Rucker @Alex_Rucker
There is almost nothing about a player's on-ball or help defense that you can glean from the box score.
Timothy Hedden @trhedden
@Alex_Rucker doesn't blocked shots point towards good help defense?
Alex Rucker @Alex_Rucker
@trhedden Yes, it absolutely suggests that. But there are plenty of players who get blocks and are very poor help defenders, esp in the post
Naveed @NaveedDawg
@Alex_Rucker Are there better publicly available stats for this? http://82games.com has opponent PER, JJ was ok, anything else?
Alex Rucker @Alex_Rucker
@NaveedDawg No...public stats are based on data which does not support accurate defensive analysis.
Timothy Hedden @trhedden
@Alex_Rucker what do you look at then in order to evaluate great defenders? Points against, +/-
Alex Rucker @Alex_Rucker
@trhedden None of the above. We have orders of magnitude more data than the public sphere.
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