CrushAlot wrote:

ChuckBuck wrote:

dk7th wrote:bonn i have no idea what defensive numbers you are referring to. i use two, the DBPM on basketball reference and ESPN's RPM. as chuckbuck alluded to, melo is 51st among small forwards on defensive rpm and on basketball reference he is below average.

it does not mean that i was not overjoyed with the level of his play for 30 of the total number of games he played, and you could make a case for saying that during those 30 games he played average or better defense.

one has to wonder how his body is going to hold up. he'd be so much more effective at 26-28 minutes a game off the bench.

I can get behind that if he accepted that 6th man role. (He wouldn't) A minutes restriction would do wonders for him and the Knicks. At least to squeeze some value out of the remainder of his contract. Sorta like we tried to do with Amares last years.

His frail body can't stand the rigors of an 82 game schedule, let alone a referees soft running sneaker. Wonder if we'll be able to use a medical exception for him in the last year of his Albatros contract. I truly dont see him playing more than 100 games in a Knicks uniform at his current pace.

They were supposed to manage his minutes last year and they played him a ton. Remember when he came back from his injury and they played him 49 minutes his first night back and then 41 the second night back? He isn't going to be the sixth man and they didn't win a game without him. However, managing his minutes would be nice. Rambis played him 35+ well after there was any hope of making the playoffs.

why are these two assertions in the same sentence? are they somehow connected?

Bonn1997 wrote:

Bonn1997 wrote:

dk7th wrote:bonn i have no idea what defensive numbers you are referring to. i use two, the DBPM on basketball reference and ESPN's RPM. as chuckbuck alluded to, melo is 51st among small forwards on defensive rpm and on basketball reference he is below average.

it does not mean that i was not overjoyed with the level of his play for 30 of the total number of games he played, and you could make a case for saying that during those 30 games he played average or better defense.

one has to wonder how his body is going to hold up. he'd be so much more effective at 26-28 minutes a game off the bench.

That's a mistake IMO. Defense is so hard to measure. There is no one measure that tells you everything you need to know.
I was referring to the opponent production stats on 82games and the NBA player tracking data on nba.com. Both of these directly measure the production of the man you're guarding. You may get other useful information from DBPM, RPM, etc. but it is non-overlapping information that compliments the types of stats I cited. There is no benefit I can think of to looking at only DBPM/RPM and ignoring the other data. They're different types of information. It would be like saying you'll look at a baseball player's RBIs but refuse to look at his HRs. There's no reason to pick just one.

I went back to the data. Melo's opponents shot 42.1% when he guarded them, whereas their seasonal averages were 45.1%. This is the most direct measure of a player's man to man defense that there is. The plus minus stats (BPM and RPM) are not direct measures of your man-to-man defense. Instead, they are *attempts* to measure the impact of the player on the team's defense. They have a lot of criticism, which I think we've discussed before. I know I've read that they tend to have large confidence intervals, which often overlap with zero. So even if it says a player's plus minus is 2.0, his actual impact may be anywhere from -1.0 to positive 5.0, for example. I'd give more weight to direct measures of the player's defense, although I wouldn't necessarily ignore the plus minus data. (I'd have to read more about them.)

also hard to judge how much having KP and Rolo behind him helped. How did the same players do against the knicks with melo off the floor? Lots of variables on defense that make it hard to quantify.

That being said, Melo did seem more inspired on defense this year.

Bonn1997 wrote:

mreinman wrote:

Bonn1997 wrote:

Bonn1997 wrote:

dk7th wrote:bonn i have no idea what defensive numbers you are referring to. i use two, the DBPM on basketball reference and ESPN's RPM. as chuckbuck alluded to, melo is 51st among small forwards on defensive rpm and on basketball reference he is below average.

it does not mean that i was not overjoyed with the level of his play for 30 of the total number of games he played, and you could make a case for saying that during those 30 games he played average or better defense.

one has to wonder how his body is going to hold up. he'd be so much more effective at 26-28 minutes a game off the bench.

That's a mistake IMO. Defense is so hard to measure. There is no one measure that tells you everything you need to know.
I was referring to the opponent production stats on 82games and the NBA player tracking data on nba.com. Both of these directly measure the production of the man you're guarding. You may get other useful information from DBPM, RPM, etc. but it is non-overlapping information that compliments the types of stats I cited. There is no benefit I can think of to looking at only DBPM/RPM and ignoring the other data. They're different types of information. It would be like saying you'll look at a baseball player's RBIs but refuse to look at his HRs. There's no reason to pick just one.

I went back to the data. Melo's opponents shot 42.1% when he guarded them, whereas their seasonal averages were 45.1%. This is the most direct measure of a player's man to man defense that there is. The plus minus stats (BPM and RPM) are not direct measures of your man-to-man defense. Instead, they are *attempts* to measure the impact of the player on the team's defense. They have a lot of criticism, which I think we've discussed before. I know I've read that they tend to have large confidence intervals, which often overlap with zero. So even if it says a player's plus minus is 2.0, his actual impact may be anywhere from -1.0 to positive 5.0, for example. I'd give more weight to direct measures of the player's defense, although I wouldn't necessarily ignore the plus minus data. (I'd have to read more about them.)

also hard to judge how much having KP and Rolo behind him helped. How did the same players do against the knicks with melo off the floor? Lots of variables on defense that make it hard to quantify.

That being said, Melo did seem more inspired on defense this year.

That's a fair point too.

That's how its supposed to be. Ideally you want to be allowed to play overly aggressive to smoother shooters as your front court makes it hard to penetrate. You have to figure Carmelo felt very comfortable upping the pressure on defense because he wasn't as worried about getting beat. And since most teams want there wings and forwards to shoot 3s anyway rather then penetrate, probably makes it a little easier for him.

Bonn1997 wrote:

newyorknewyork wrote:

Bonn1997 wrote:

mreinman wrote:

Bonn1997 wrote:

Bonn1997 wrote:

dk7th wrote:bonn i have no idea what defensive numbers you are referring to. i use two, the DBPM on basketball reference and ESPN's RPM. as chuckbuck alluded to, melo is 51st among small forwards on defensive rpm and on basketball reference he is below average.

it does not mean that i was not overjoyed with the level of his play for 30 of the total number of games he played, and you could make a case for saying that during those 30 games he played average or better defense.

one has to wonder how his body is going to hold up. he'd be so much more effective at 26-28 minutes a game off the bench.

That's a mistake IMO. Defense is so hard to measure. There is no one measure that tells you everything you need to know.
I was referring to the opponent production stats on 82games and the NBA player tracking data on nba.com. Both of these directly measure the production of the man you're guarding. You may get other useful information from DBPM, RPM, etc. but it is non-overlapping information that compliments the types of stats I cited. There is no benefit I can think of to looking at only DBPM/RPM and ignoring the other data. They're different types of information. It would be like saying you'll look at a baseball player's RBIs but refuse to look at his HRs. There's no reason to pick just one.

I went back to the data. Melo's opponents shot 42.1% when he guarded them, whereas their seasonal averages were 45.1%. This is the most direct measure of a player's man to man defense that there is. The plus minus stats (BPM and RPM) are not direct measures of your man-to-man defense. Instead, they are *attempts* to measure the impact of the player on the team's defense. They have a lot of criticism, which I think we've discussed before. I know I've read that they tend to have large confidence intervals, which often overlap with zero. So even if it says a player's plus minus is 2.0, his actual impact may be anywhere from -1.0 to positive 5.0, for example. I'd give more weight to direct measures of the player's defense, although I wouldn't necessarily ignore the plus minus data. (I'd have to read more about them.)

also hard to judge how much having KP and Rolo behind him helped. How did the same players do against the knicks with melo off the floor? Lots of variables on defense that make it hard to quantify.

That being said, Melo did seem more inspired on defense this year.

That's a fair point too.

That's how its supposed to be. Ideally you want to be allowed to play overly aggressive to smoother shooters as your front court makes it hard to penetrate. You have to figure Carmelo felt very comfortable upping the pressure on defense because he wasn't as worried about getting beat. And since most teams want there wings and forwards to shoot 3s anyway rather then penetrate, probably makes it a little easier for him.

It's not a criticism of Carmelo. It's just a question of how much his defense improved vs. his teammates' help defense improved (or both).

People always reply with this. We just having open dialog, basketball talk. I don't take most of the stuff said as attacking Melo or critique, just open discussion.

To me its the same principals of having a quality shooting stretch 4 & or 5 who makes the Guards job easier especially in the PNR with the extra space.