GAME 3: DAL (1-2) @ NOP (3-1) | 111-113 loss

[dirkfansince1998]

I don’t typically see Dwight Hater’s posts unless someone quotes them.  But here, you are referencing me, so it made me click into the post to see what was going on.

I didn’t quote +/- at all.  I quoted D Rating.  Phoenix was a very good defensive team and he had the best D Rating among their regulars (as I recall).  I made the logical leap that he at least had something to do with the team holding opponents to a lower scoring output when he was in the game.  You know, great D gets even better when he plays, then maybe he’s contributing positively to that rating.  BTW, that was a D-Rating of 102 last year and he’s at 100 (his career best) in three games with Dallas.

I think you have to be careful about +/-, especially with a bench player who subs in for a near all-star max player.  Phoenix won the minutes that McGee was on the floor last year.  But, Phoenix won the minutes Ayton was on the floor for by even more.  Does that make McGee bad?  Or, Ayton good?  I used to point this out as relates to Shawn Marion.  He was always a fantastic +/- guy until he got to Dallas.  Then, year after year he was negative.  Did Marion become a dog here or was it because when he played PF it meant Dirk was sitting?

Everyone looked like garbage defensively against NO, so I’m not jumping to conclusions about any of this until we see a few more games.  McGee’s job right now is to help shut down opponent scoring the first six minutes each half.  Obviously, he doesn’t do that by himself, but a D-Rating of 100 says that is largely happening.

I just don´t think that boxscored based metrics are a good way to evaluate defense. D-Rating would tell you that Andre Drummond has been on of the greatest defenders in the world because he gets a lot blocks, rebounds, steals. If you look at the formula that´s more or less what it is. Or to be more accurate. The player that gets the most steals, blocks, rebounds contributes the most to the team defense.

https://www.basketball-reference.com/about/ratings.html

If your conclusion is that McGee getting a lot of blocks makes him a good defender I disagree but that´s fine. Just wanted to clarify what you are saying because the way you use the stat is not how I would do it. Someone getting boxscore numbers isn´t telling us what happened when he was on the floor. That´s actually what +/- based metrics do.