Trae Young vs Pat Bev GDT

[kekgeek]

I think we're giving Beverley too much credit... and not enough credit to Young.

Young started the game off horribly, with some very lazy passes/play. Maybe some of it was because of Beverley? But not THAT much. Again, Atlanta was still getting great looks. And Trae Young is miles better than Patrick Beverley at this point.

There are very real reasons why Young is 5th in the league in scoring... and 3rd in assists.

Trae Young deserves a ton of credit for turning this game around...he's an extraordinary offensive talent and really fun to watch. And you're right that Atlanta was still getting some great looks at the start of the game...Young is an amazing facilitator, and facilitating rather than trying to score seemed to make more sense to him when Pat was on him. But having watched most of almost every game game this year (this team just seems a lot more fun to watch this year) I disagree that we are giving PatBev too much credit. What we saw last night was not a one-time thing...night after night our defense is very, very good when Beverley is out there, and meh (or in the case of last night...terrible), when he's not. It's clear to me we need him on the court to be successful on defense.

(Closed circuit to kekgeek, since you seem to be the best here at researching revealing data. The paragraph above is based solely on my eye test. If there's data out there that shows we are almost as effective on defense when PatBev is off the court, I'd love to be corrected on this.)

From a peer statistical standpoint there is actually 0 effect on the wolves defense when it comes to Beverly. It is literally a 0.0 pt difference with him on and off the court when it comes to defense

Wow...thx Kek. that certainly doesn't meet my eye test!

In term on just On/Off defense what has context issues but here are the Wolves most important defenders of our top 9

Tier 1: Russell and Ant
Tier 2: Vando
Tier 3: Beverley, Naz, Mcdaniels
Tier 4: Towns
Tier 5: Nowell and Beasley

[FNG]

I think we're giving Beverley too much credit... and not enough credit to Young.

Young started the game off horribly, with some very lazy passes/play. Maybe some of it was because of Beverley? But not THAT much. Again, Atlanta was still getting great looks. And Trae Young is miles better than Patrick Beverley at this point.

There are very real reasons why Young is 5th in the league in scoring... and 3rd in assists.

Trae Young deserves a ton of credit for turning this game around...he's an extraordinary offensive talent and really fun to watch. And you're right that Atlanta was still getting some great looks at the start of the game...Young is an amazing facilitator, and facilitating rather than trying to score seemed to make more sense to him when Pat was on him. But having watched most of almost every game game this year (this team just seems a lot more fun to watch this year) I disagree that we are giving PatBev too much credit. What we saw last night was not a one-time thing...night after night our defense is very, very good when Beverley is out there, and meh (or in the case of last night...terrible), when he's not. It's clear to me we need him on the court to be successful on defense.

(Closed circuit to kekgeek, since you seem to be the best here at researching revealing data. The paragraph above is based solely on my eye test. If there's data out there that shows we are almost as effective on defense when PatBev is off the court, I'd love to be corrected on this.)

From a peer statistical standpoint there is actually 0 effect on the wolves defense when it comes to Beverly. It is literally a 0.0 pt difference with him on and off the court when it comes to defense

Wow...thx Kek. that certainly doesn't meet my eye test!

In term on just On/Off defense what has context issues but here are the Wolves most important defenders of our top 9

Tier 1: Russell and Ant
Tier 2: Vando
Tier 3: Beverley, Naz, Mcdaniels
Tier 4: Towns
Tier 5: Nowell and Beasley

And for those interested in the on/off numbers (for players with 300 minutes or more):

Okogie: -10.3
DLo: -7.4
Ant: -3.1
Vando: -2.0
PatB: 0
Naz: +.1
Jaden: +1.0
KAT: +2.0
Prince: +4.0
Nowell: +6.2
Beas +7.3

Who would have thought PatBev would have a better on/off on offense (+6.2) than defense! If I had to venture a guess, his positive impact on offense is primarily due to the easy baskets his disruptive defense leads to, as well as his excellent assist to turnover ratio (5 assists to only 1.2 TOs per game is by far the best of his career).

[Camden [enjin:6601484]]

Respectfully, where did you pull those numbers from? They don't match what I'm seeing anywhere.

[kekgeek]

Respectfully, where did you pull those numbers from? They don't match what I'm seeing anywhere.

It's from cleaningtheglass.com also it's defensive numbers FNG posted so a -7.4 means teams are scoring 7 pts less per 100 possessions. So in this case a - number is a good thing

[Camden [enjin:6601484]]

Respectfully, where did you pull those numbers from? They don't match what I'm seeing anywhere.

It's from cleaningtheglass.com also it's defensive numbers FNG posted so a -7.4 means teams are scoring 7 pts less per 100 possessions. So in this case a - number is a good thing

Thanks.

[Coolbreeze44]

I'm not picking on anyone here, but you really should be able to tell who can play defense by watching the game. All of these numbers can be helpful, but they can also lie. If you want to know if a player can play defense, ask me and I'll tell you.

[Camden [enjin:6601484]]

I'm not picking on anyone here, but you really should be able to tell who can play defense by watching the game. All of these numbers can be helpful, but they can also lie. If you want to know if a player can play defense, ask me and I'll tell you.

I agree with this, sorta. Ideally, the numbers would match the eye test and vice versa. For example, Malik Beasley is a terrible defender. That's a claim that's proven with the eye test and the numbers. Similarly, Jarred Vanderbilt is a pretty good defender. We see this on a nightly basis and it's baked into the numbers. The truth is usually a mix of both and if something doesn't add up we can figure out why with contextual analysis.

[Coolbreeze44]

I'm not picking on anyone here, but you really should be able to tell who can play defense by watching the game. All of these numbers can be helpful, but they can also lie. If you want to know if a player can play defense, ask me and I'll tell you.

I agree with this, sorta. Ideally, the numbers would match the eye test and vice versa. For example, Malik Beasley is a terrible defender. That's a claim that's proven with the eye test and the numbers. Similarly, Jarred Vanderbilt is a pretty good defender. We see this on a nightly basis and it's baked into the numbers. The truth is usually a mix of both and if something doesn't add up we can figure out why with contextual analysis.

I think a lot of the contextual analysis has to do with who you are tasked with guarding. For example, if we're playing Cleveland and Vando has to guard Mobley all game long, and PBev is checking Rubio, isn't Vando's job a lot harder? And thus more valuable even if he shares the exact same court time as PBev?

[Camden [enjin:6601484]]

I'm not picking on anyone here, but you really should be able to tell who can play defense by watching the game. All of these numbers can be helpful, but they can also lie. If you want to know if a player can play defense, ask me and I'll tell you.

I agree with this, sorta. Ideally, the numbers would match the eye test and vice versa. For example, Malik Beasley is a terrible defender. That's a claim that's proven with the eye test and the numbers. Similarly, Jarred Vanderbilt is a pretty good defender. We see this on a nightly basis and it's baked into the numbers. The truth is usually a mix of both and if something doesn't add up we can figure out why with contextual analysis.

I think a lot of the contextual analysis has to do with who you are tasked with guarding. For example, if we're playing Cleveland and Vando has to guard Mobley all game long, and PBev is checking Rubio, isn't Vando's job a lot harder? And thus more valuable even if he shares the exact same court time as PBev?

Yep. Who they're defending, who they share the court with, what their role is, etc. -- all of that is worth considering. That's also typically why I don't value plus-minus metrics in a vacuum because they rarely tell the entire story, but that's a discussion for another time.

Using your example, if PatBev is defending Darius Garland and Vando is matched up with Lauri Markkanen, then doesn't the former become more valuable? The matchups can change on a dime in the NBA. There's just a lot of factors that, admittedly, won't be included in these quick reference statistics.

Switching gears a bit, but there's also different kinds of good defenders nowadays. The sticky man-to-man, the roaming helper, the chaser, the rim protector, etc. For example, Robert Covington has never been a lockdown man defender, but at one point he was as good as it gets as a helper and his impact was obvious and measurable.

[FNG]

I'm not picking on anyone here, but you really should be able to tell who can play defense by watching the game. All of these numbers can be helpful, but they can also lie. If you want to know if a player can play defense, ask me and I'll tell you.

Do Jaylen Nowell. When I watch him, I like a lot of what I see from him on defense, but his metrics are consistently bad. So he's a tough one for me to evaluate. Can he play defense?