Growing up in Baltimore, I didn’t really have a natural NBA team. Sure, I watched a few Wizards games, and I always watched the Finals, but by and large I gravitated more towards the sport with a true hometown team: baseball. Being a fairly bright kid, I of course took an interest in advanced stats. Once I started following the NBA more in earnest, that interest in advanced stats carried over. While I’m certainly not an expert, I always take a keen interest in every new metric, seeing what it tries to measure and if it passes the eye test.
Today, we’ve got a really cool one. Click through to the article from Matt Moore of CBSSports.com for the full chart:
Nylon Calculus has a new metric they’ve developed called Rim Points Saved per 36 minutes. The idea, briefly, is that if opponents make 79.1 percent of all shots at the rim on average (which they did last season), and you multiply all attempts at the rim times the two points they score, then take 79 percent, you see what an “average” opponent would score on a players’ given number of attempts defended. Subtract how many they actually are allowing this season, and you have the number of points they save against the average defender.
In short, the metric tells you how good a player is at defending the rim with consideration to the average number of misses you can expect a player to create just by showing up.
Then you adjust per minute to give you a better indication of how they’re doing when they’re actually on the floor.
Lot of surprises there, including Lopez’s teammate Mason Plumlee ahead of Tim Duncan. Then again, Hollins is mostly using Plumlee only against bench players so he’s boosting numbers that way. Same might be true of Gobert. Omer Asik, Roy Hibbert, Gasol … those are all established. Maybe most impressive is Robin Lopez and Chris Kaman’s numbers together. That’s a big deal for Portland, which was atrocious last year on defense. The Blazers finished 16th in defensive efficiency, but had outlier performances against the West that were much worse. They’ve ticked up to 10th this season.
DeMarcus Cousins’ spot here is important, as he’s become maybe the most underrated big man defender in the league, along with Timofey Mozgov who’s right below him.
Want a good explanation for why the Clippers have struggled so much? Spencer Hawes was the worst of any qualifying player, and Blake Griffin isn’t far from him. But one thing with Griffin, along with, you’ll notice, Anthony Davis right above him, is that:
Scheme plays a huge roll in “Contest%” one of the more important stats. Last year, power forwards and centers (broadly defined) had an approximately 11% gap between contest percentages, 44% for C’s and 33% for PFs. Hopefully that will forestall any “but Anthony Davis?!?” questions.So your typical power forwards are going to struggle in this scheme, which also shows why Noah is so low on this list.
Interesting? I think so. Now, obviously, it’s not trying to measure all aspects of big man defense, but considering you hear so much talk about “rim protection,” it’s interesting to see who’s the best at that specific skill.
Now here’s the latest news and rumors from around the NBA:
BEAL HOPES TO RETURN FRIDAY
Good news for the Wizards, from Jorge Castillo of the Washington Post:
Washington Wizards shooting guard Bradley Beal, out since Oct. 10 with a fractured left wrist, is expected to return to practice this week and is “hoping” to make his season debut Friday night against the Cleveland Cavaliers, according to a person with knowledge of the situation.
Beal’s return date will ultimately depend on how the wrist responds this week and if it feels 100 percent. A day after doctors evaluated his fractured left wrist and concluded he has avoided any setbacks, Beal exhibited no limitations during a dribbling and shooting drill with assistant coach David Adkins following the Wizards’ shootaround Saturday morning. The Wizards likely won’t practice Sunday so Beal would have to wait until Monday to practice for the first time.
MUDIAY DRAWING SCOUTS TO CHINA
Granted, this isn’t a huge surprise, if you’re at all familiar with Emmanuel Mudiay. But what is of interest is this passage of Scott Howard-Cooper’s NBA.com story:
He has started well for Guangdong, a team in the Chinese Basketball Association with a long history of players from the United States, including Aaron Brooks, James Singleton, Fred Jones, Lester Hudson, Lamond Murray and Smush Parker. His fast start is enough to spark speculation from front offices that Mudiay will leave before the regular season ends in mid-February to keep him healthy and keep his Draft standing high — and keep him from the prying eyes of NBA scouts.
“They could,” an executive said of the decision to shut down that Mudiay’s inner-circle may face. “They could for sure.”
Said an NBA general manager: “I could see, if his stock is raised, him saying, ‘I’m checking out.’ I could see that. Does he do it? I don’t know. But look what happened with [Dante] Exum last year. It didn’t really hurt him, did it? There’s an argument to be made that [Mudiay] doesn’t have to do anything.”
Exum spent the second half of the 2013-14 NBA season working out in private in the United States, mostly in Los Angeles. But that was because his high school career had ended in Australia, not because he wanted to dodge inspection. Agents know by now, though, that a highly regarded player disappearing from sight raises the level of interest.
SVG: BRANDON JENNINGS ‘STARTING TO GET IT’
The Pistons’ roster is still a bit of a mess, but Stan Van Gundy doesn’t have a track record of failure. Based on that alone, you have to think they’ll get better… right? Either way, Brandon Jennings turning the corner would have to help.
“You look at his shooting percentages, particularly over the last five or six games, you look at his assist-to-turnover ratio, and he’s only 25 years old and he’s starting to get it now,” Van Gundy said after the Pistons’ 96-89 overtime win at Oklahoma City. “He’s starting to play efficiently, not just throwing up a lot of shots and getting points. His shooting percentages are going up.”
Oklahoma City guard Reggie Jackson, who missed a potential game-winning jumper at the end of regulation tonight, certainly noticed Jennings’ superior play.
“Anybody who watches the game, Brandon Jennings definitely destroyed Reggie Jackson,” Jackson said. “We lost the matchup and that’s why we lost tonight.”
Jennings saw limited playing time in the Pistons’ first two games, both losses, as D.J. Augustin got the preponderance of the point-guard minutes.
“Usually, if I was younger, I’d just pout and I’d just say, ‘Whatever, like it is what it is.’ But I just stuck with it,” Jennings said. “Regardless what was going on in the first two games, not playing, I kept coming in every day, working hard, just kept my mind focused on the main goal, and that was to lead this team.”
MICHELE ROBERTS ‘WILL CHANGE SPORTS,’ SAYS ESPN
This interview is stellar. Roberts has already gotten praise from SH’s own Danny Schayes, and it’s hard to see the players being anything but happy with the stances she takes, starting with these big ones.
Pablo Torre: The Collective Bargaining Agreement is a really long document. Have you read all of it? And, if so, what are your big takeaways?
Michele Roberts: Initially it made my head explode. And I think it’s still the kind of thing that you need to keep reading and reading and reading for it to make some sense. But the current CBA makes better sense now that I’ve read the preceding two. Because it appears to be an interesting narrative of what the league has been interested in having happen, in terms of its relationship with players, over a period of years. It wants, clearly, to do some things a) to protect itself, from itself; and b) to limit — and it’s almost the same thing — to limit player salaries because it’s unable to somehow get the owners to behave in a way that makes sense from an owner’s perspective. In terms of some of the salary structures, it’s a way to rein in the owners because they can’t otherwise rein in themselves.PT: So what are your thoughts on the notion of a salary cap?
MR: My world was such that you made as much as you could, frankly. No partner I ever knew went into a comp meeting and said, I know I’m worth X, but yeah, that’s fine, I’ll take X minus 10. I don’t know of any space other than the world of sports where there’s this notion that we will artificially deflate what someone’s able to make, just because. It’s incredibly un-American. My DNA is offended by it.PT: Then there’s the max contract: that the best player cannot be paid what he’s worth, that there’s a ceiling on what he can make.
MR: I happen to believe that the owners are really smart people. So when they make decisions on what they want to pay a player — I have no reason to second-guess them. I don’t buy the notion that they will spend all their money on one player and have nothing left to fund the rest of their bench.
JOE HARRIS GETTING KEY MINUTES FOR CAVS
When I saw the Cavs’ first preseason game, Harris caught my eye and I figured he’d at least make the roster and maybe play some minutes, though I didn’t want to get too carried away with praise for someone I’d just watched carve up my beloved Maryland Terrapins on several occasions. Now it loos like the Cavs are catching on.
Jason Lloyd of the Akron Beacon-Journal:
With the way he is progressing and as well as he is playing, Joe Harris will be the starting shooting guard sooner rather than later. Much sooner. As in within a couple of weeks (or less), one source with knowledge of the team’s thinking said. At least one member of the Cavs’ brain trust is already in favor of the switch.
It was the rookie second-round pick – not Dion Waiters or Mike Miller – playing the final six minutes of Friday’s tight game. The Cavs closed the night with Kyrie Irving and Harris in the backcourt, Shawn Marion and LeBron James in the frontcourt and Kevin Love at center. That’s a lineup they could use more and more going forward.
Harris plays with high energy. He defends, he keeps the ball moving, he cuts hard to the basket. He does everything the Cavs need him to do, including knocking down open shots. He is a great fit with this starting lineup because he doesn’t need the ball, but he’s more than capable of knocking down open shots.
“Joe Harris is going to be a big piece for our team,” James said. “He’s going to have his rookie mistakes, we know that, but mistakes can be covered when you play hard. That’s one thing that kid is doing.”
According to the Cavs’ stats, he shot 57 percent on corner 3-pointers one year at Virginia. That shot will be available to him all night on this team, just like the huge corner 3 he made in the closing minutes Friday to pull the Cavs within 116-113.
WHY METTA WORLD PEACE DIDN’T GET INVITED BACK TO THE KNICKS
This seemed like a no-brainer: a former Laker, reunited with Phil Jackson and Derek Fisher, a veteran presence with experience running the Triangle? Hard to see how that would be something the Knicks would pass up. But they did. And Metta knows why.
Marc Berman of the New York Post:
With World Peace’s knee healthy as he plays in the Chinese Basketball Association for the Sichuan Blue Whales, and the Knicks flailing with their new offense, team president Phil Jackson may have blown it in not bringing back World Peace for a redo.
However, the Queensbridge product thinks he knows why.
“I’m too direct,’’ said World Peace, who will return from China in March and may try to sign with a contender such as the Clippers.
The former Ron Artest disclosed he and J.R. Smith had a heated incident in the locker room after a game last season because World Peace was trying to get Smith to play harder on defense.
World Peace’s agent, Marc Cornstein, spoke to the Knicks during the summer, and World Peace reached out personally to Jackson, who never returned his phone call.
“I don’t understand why they didn’t [sign] me,’’ World Peace said. “But then again, I’m very direct. I think I was too direct in the locker room, too direct to J.R. Smith. It wasn’t from a bad place. I’m older, been on great teams in Sacramento and L.A.
“If someone is not playing defense or not giving effort, that’s my specialty. I don’t hold back on my words. Nobody wants to talk direct to them. We don’t give it to them straight.
“I said some things directly to J.R. Smith in the locker room and he challenged me back, said some direct things to me. But he understood where we came from.”