2012 'Pick Two' Draft Board

[StartOrien]

Man, can't believe the Biyombo dunking 75 times in a row video was taken off the internet.

[indeedproceed]

Know what I'm not skeptical about?

My team beating yours.

Lowry
Brandon Rush
Tay Prince
Paul Millsap
Dwight Howard

Yup.

It's hard to fault the front court.

The wings are a bit more questionable.  Brandon Rush's defense has been downright poor this year; he ranks 313th in points allowed per possession.  As for Prince, his defense has fallen to the mediocre range (168th in points allowed per possession), so his offensive deficiencies stand out even more.  

Lastly, after a hot start, Lowry hasn't looked so great.  He's ranked 182nd in points allowed per possession, which is pretty poor (although he is defending isolation plays well).  In terms of offense, he's been putting up around 15/7 on around 42% shooting over the last two months, which is decent but not great.

You have a good team, but it's flawed.  I think you're going to have some trouble with teams that have multiple good wings and guards.

I think the points allowed per possession stat for point guards is a plain joke. Who are the top 10?

Brandon Rush's defense on a team where nobody plays defense doesn't concern me. His defense on teams that ask him to play defense is better.

Prince's defense I'm just plain not worried about.

Honestly I see perimeter defense as a strength here, not a weakness, and I'd stack my perimeter defenders as a unit against anyone else's. Couple that with Howard's backstop help defense and I think its the strongest defensive unit in the league.

Yeah, synergy sports is known for being a joke.  It's not like they spend their days meticulously looking at individual plays and making assessments from there.  It's not like they craft their system to look at individual defense, rather than team defense.

Oh, wait, that's exactly what they do.

How we select the player - Synergy tracks the initial on ball defender for many playtypes. For example, an offensive player is in Isolation and blows by his defender (player A) and gets to the rim. A help defender (player B) rotates over to try and contest the shot. We attribute the defensive play to Player A, as he was the person was initially beaten on the play.

What happened to the other play types? - We do not attach an individual defender on offensive rebounds, cuts or transition plays as these are team defense concepts and fault/credit usually cannot be attributed to one person.

Lowry, Prince, and especially Rush have all been pretty mediocre to poor on defense this year.  If you've got a problem with that, take it up with Synergy, i.e., the best in the business.  

If you don't buy Synergy, though, go over to 82games.com.  Rush and Prince getting outproduced by opposing players, and Lowry is playing them about evenly.  Those aren't huge strengths for your team, unfortunately.

Well, snarkiness aside, who are the top ranked pg defenders according to synergy?

(Seriously, I don't know how to find this out)

Because aside from Lowry and Dalembert (and even Dalembert is no prince here), the rest of the team isn't all that great defensively. Scola is a bit too slow to guard opposing 4's, Budinger/Parsons are both average defenders, and Martin isn't very good. Because of Lowry's plus defense, the Rockets are middling defensively as a team. Look at his on/off the court stats. The defense gets a whole lot worse (from 'okay' to 'terrible' when he steps off the court.

[indeedproceed]

And for the record, I don't think synergy is a joke. I think its an amazing website and I'm thankful for all the free content they provide.

I just think the PPP stat can be flawed, especially concerning PG's with the way defense has to be played now.

[Roy H.]

Know what I'm not skeptical about?

My team beating yours.

Lowry
Brandon Rush
Tay Prince
Paul Millsap
Dwight Howard

Yup.

It's hard to fault the front court.

The wings are a bit more questionable.  Brandon Rush's defense has been downright poor this year; he ranks 313th in points allowed per possession.  As for Prince, his defense has fallen to the mediocre range (168th in points allowed per possession), so his offensive deficiencies stand out even more.  

Lastly, after a hot start, Lowry hasn't looked so great.  He's ranked 182nd in points allowed per possession, which is pretty poor (although he is defending isolation plays well).  In terms of offense, he's been putting up around 15/7 on around 42% shooting over the last two months, which is decent but not great.

You have a good team, but it's flawed.  I think you're going to have some trouble with teams that have multiple good wings and guards.

I think the points allowed per possession stat for point guards is a plain joke. Who are the top 10?

Brandon Rush's defense on a team where nobody plays defense doesn't concern me. His defense on teams that ask him to play defense is better.

Prince's defense I'm just plain not worried about.

Honestly I see perimeter defense as a strength here, not a weakness, and I'd stack my perimeter defenders as a unit against anyone else's. Couple that with Howard's backstop help defense and I think its the strongest defensive unit in the league.

Yeah, synergy sports is known for being a joke.  It's not like they spend their days meticulously looking at individual plays and making assessments from there.  It's not like they craft their system to look at individual defense, rather than team defense.

Oh, wait, that's exactly what they do.

How we select the player - Synergy tracks the initial on ball defender for many playtypes. For example, an offensive player is in Isolation and blows by his defender (player A) and gets to the rim. A help defender (player B) rotates over to try and contest the shot. We attribute the defensive play to Player A, as he was the person was initially beaten on the play.

What happened to the other play types? - We do not attach an individual defender on offensive rebounds, cuts or transition plays as these are team defense concepts and fault/credit usually cannot be attributed to one person.

Lowry, Prince, and especially Rush have all been pretty mediocre to poor on defense this year.  If you've got a problem with that, take it up with Synergy, i.e., the best in the business.  

If you don't buy Synergy, though, go over to 82games.com.  Rush and Prince getting outproduced by opposing players, and Lowry is playing them about evenly.  Those aren't huge strengths for your team, unfortunately.

Well, snarkiness aside, who are the top ranked pg defenders according to synergy?

(Seriously, I don't know how to find this out)

Because aside from Lowry and Dalembert (and even Dalembert is no prince here), the rest of the team isn't all that great defensively. Scola is a bit too slow to guard opposing 4's, Budinger/Parsons are both average defenders, and Martin isn't very good. Because of Lowry's plus defense, the Rockets are middling defensively as a team. Look at his on/off the court stats. The defense gets a whole lot worse (from 'okay' to 'terrible' when he steps off the court.

I don't think Synergy releases their rankings publicly; that may be something that subscribers can see.

However, some notable names:

Avery Bradley: 23rd
Jrue Holiday: 45th
Rajon Rondo: 50th
Derrick Rose: 84th
Chris Paul: 123rd
Tony Parker: 150th (t)
Brandon Jennings 150th (t)
Kyle Lowry: 182nd (t)
Russell Westbrook: 182nd (t)
Steve Nash: 182nd (t)
Ricky Rubio:  228th
Deron Williams:  356th

It's an interesting look.  The "points per possession" stats are rounded, which is why you see the ties than strict rankings.  It's interesting to see that Lowry doesn't stand out as an elite defender, though.

[Edgar]

Felton. Jackson. Pierce. Garnett. Varejao. Ty thomas. What not to love.       PS. Buying a 6th rounder offering a 7th and an 8th.

[indeedproceed]

Know what I'm not skeptical about?

My team beating yours.

Lowry
Brandon Rush
Tay Prince
Paul Millsap
Dwight Howard

Yup.

It's hard to fault the front court.

The wings are a bit more questionable.  Brandon Rush's defense has been downright poor this year; he ranks 313th in points allowed per possession.  As for Prince, his defense has fallen to the mediocre range (168th in points allowed per possession), so his offensive deficiencies stand out even more.  

Lastly, after a hot start, Lowry hasn't looked so great.  He's ranked 182nd in points allowed per possession, which is pretty poor (although he is defending isolation plays well).  In terms of offense, he's been putting up around 15/7 on around 42% shooting over the last two months, which is decent but not great.

You have a good team, but it's flawed.  I think you're going to have some trouble with teams that have multiple good wings and guards.

I think the points allowed per possession stat for point guards is a plain joke. Who are the top 10?

Brandon Rush's defense on a team where nobody plays defense doesn't concern me. His defense on teams that ask him to play defense is better.

Prince's defense I'm just plain not worried about.

Honestly I see perimeter defense as a strength here, not a weakness, and I'd stack my perimeter defenders as a unit against anyone else's. Couple that with Howard's backstop help defense and I think its the strongest defensive unit in the league.

Yeah, synergy sports is known for being a joke.  It's not like they spend their days meticulously looking at individual plays and making assessments from there.  It's not like they craft their system to look at individual defense, rather than team defense.

Oh, wait, that's exactly what they do.

How we select the player - Synergy tracks the initial on ball defender for many playtypes. For example, an offensive player is in Isolation and blows by his defender (player A) and gets to the rim. A help defender (player B) rotates over to try and contest the shot. We attribute the defensive play to Player A, as he was the person was initially beaten on the play.

What happened to the other play types? - We do not attach an individual defender on offensive rebounds, cuts or transition plays as these are team defense concepts and fault/credit usually cannot be attributed to one person.

Lowry, Prince, and especially Rush have all been pretty mediocre to poor on defense this year.  If you've got a problem with that, take it up with Synergy, i.e., the best in the business.  

If you don't buy Synergy, though, go over to 82games.com.  Rush and Prince getting outproduced by opposing players, and Lowry is playing them about evenly.  Those aren't huge strengths for your team, unfortunately.

Well, snarkiness aside, who are the top ranked pg defenders according to synergy?

(Seriously, I don't know how to find this out)

Because aside from Lowry and Dalembert (and even Dalembert is no prince here), the rest of the team isn't all that great defensively. Scola is a bit too slow to guard opposing 4's, Budinger/Parsons are both average defenders, and Martin isn't very good. Because of Lowry's plus defense, the Rockets are middling defensively as a team. Look at his on/off the court stats. The defense gets a whole lot worse (from 'okay' to 'terrible' when he steps off the court.

I don't think Synergy releases their rankings publicly; that may be something that subscribers can see.

However, some notable names:

Avery Bradley: 23rd
Jrue Holiday: 45th
Rajon Rondo: 50th
Derrick Rose: 84th
Chris Paul: 123rd
Tony Parker: 150th (t)
Brandon Jennings 150th (t)
Kyle Lowry: 182nd (t)
Russell Westbrook: 182nd (t)
Steve Nash: 182nd (t)
Ricky Rubio:  228th
Deron Williams:  356th

It's an interesting look.  The "points per possession" stats are rounded, which is why you see the ties than strict rankings.  It's interesting to see that Lowry doesn't stand out as an elite defender, though.

See I think interesting is a good way to look at it, but I also think you just showed how flawed it can be. Deron Williams is a good defensive point guard, I hope we could agree on that.

But he starts and plays big minutes for a poor defensive team. People score a lot of points against the Nets, and without solid defense behind him (with noteable holes like Kris Humphries, that sad degenerate, I pity the fool who drafted him), a lot of looks that should've been checked by help defense go through.

Westbrook's numbers are surprising though, because OKC is a good defensive team, and he's a pretty good defender, to my eyes at least.

Avery Bradley is a tenacious defender, but who are most of his minutes played against? How many elite PG's has he played big minutes against and checked? I bet he's got a few good games and a few bad ones as a starter.

But then, how did he do against the bad PG's he played against as a starter while Rondo was out?

And aside from that, he's facing a lot of second unit guys, and spot minutes against starters.

So while he is a promising defensive player, you'd have to think his number is a bit of an outlier there, due somewhat at least to circumstance.

I just don't think its that reliable.

[Roy H.]

I agree it's not a perfect system.  However, it generally does a good job of weeding out the good defenders from the overrated ones.

It also yields unexpected results at times.  For instance, Dwight Howard ranks 74th in terms of post-up defense.  That's still a respectable number, but not amazing.  Is that because Dwight gets help from double-teams less than a lot of guys?  Or is it that while his one-on-one defense is good, it's his help defense that makes him an amazing defender?  (Of course, even though he gives up a moderate number of points per possession, his FG% allowed is still below 40%, so rankings need to be relative.  Additionally, he's extremely good guarding his man on the pick-and-roll.)

(KG, in case you're wondering, is still 45th overall, and 30th on post-ups.  Dude can still bring it.)

EDIT:  Oh, and for Deron Williams, he's got defensive talent.  However, have you watched him play lately?  He's mentally checked out.  He plays defense a lot the same way Pierce did from about 2005 until 2007 (i.e., he's not playing any.)

[mgent]

Know what I'm not skeptical about?

My team beating yours.

Lowry
Brandon Rush
Tay Prince
Paul Millsap
Dwight Howard

Yup.

It's hard to fault the front court.

The wings are a bit more questionable.  Brandon Rush's defense has been downright poor this year; he ranks 313th in points allowed per possession.  As for Prince, his defense has fallen to the mediocre range (168th in points allowed per possession), so his offensive deficiencies stand out even more.  

Lastly, after a hot start, Lowry hasn't looked so great.  He's ranked 182nd in points allowed per possession, which is pretty poor (although he is defending isolation plays well).  In terms of offense, he's been putting up around 15/7 on around 42% shooting over the last two months, which is decent but not great.

You have a good team, but it's flawed.  I think you're going to have some trouble with teams that have multiple good wings and guards.

I think the points allowed per possession stat for point guards is a plain joke. Who are the top 10?

Brandon Rush's defense on a team where nobody plays defense doesn't concern me. His defense on teams that ask him to play defense is better.

Prince's defense I'm just plain not worried about.

Honestly I see perimeter defense as a strength here, not a weakness, and I'd stack my perimeter defenders as a unit against anyone else's. Couple that with Howard's backstop help defense and I think its the strongest defensive unit in the league.

Yeah, synergy sports is known for being a joke.  It's not like they spend their days meticulously looking at individual plays and making assessments from there.  It's not like they craft their system to look at individual defense, rather than team defense.

Oh, wait, that's exactly what they do.

How we select the player - Synergy tracks the initial on ball defender for many playtypes. For example, an offensive player is in Isolation and blows by his defender (player A) and gets to the rim. A help defender (player B) rotates over to try and contest the shot. We attribute the defensive play to Player A, as he was the person was initially beaten on the play.

What happened to the other play types? - We do not attach an individual defender on offensive rebounds, cuts or transition plays as these are team defense concepts and fault/credit usually cannot be attributed to one person.

Lowry, Prince, and especially Rush have all been pretty mediocre to poor on defense this year.  If you've got a problem with that, take it up with Synergy, i.e., the best in the business.  

If you don't buy Synergy, though, go over to 82games.com.  Rush and Prince getting outproduced by opposing players, and Lowry is playing them about evenly.  Those aren't huge strengths for your team, unfortunately.

Well, snarkiness aside, who are the top ranked pg defenders according to synergy?

(Seriously, I don't know how to find this out)

Because aside from Lowry and Dalembert (and even Dalembert is no prince here), the rest of the team isn't all that great defensively. Scola is a bit too slow to guard opposing 4's, Budinger/Parsons are both average defenders, and Martin isn't very good. Because of Lowry's plus defense, the Rockets are middling defensively as a team. Look at his on/off the court stats. The defense gets a whole lot worse (from 'okay' to 'terrible' when he steps off the court.

I don't think Synergy releases their rankings publicly; that may be something that subscribers can see.

However, some notable names:

Avery Bradley: 23rd
Jrue Holiday: 45th
Rajon Rondo: 50th
Derrick Rose: 84th
Chris Paul: 123rd
Tony Parker: 150th (t)
Brandon Jennings 150th (t)
Kyle Lowry: 182nd (t)
Russell Westbrook: 182nd (t)
Steve Nash: 182nd (t)
Ricky Rubio:  228th
Deron Williams:  356th

It's an interesting look.  The "points per possession" stats are rounded, which is why you see the ties than strict rankings.  It's interesting to see that Lowry doesn't stand out as an elite defender, though.

See I think interesting is a good way to look at it, but I also think you just showed how flawed it can be. Deron Williams is a good defensive point guard, I hope we could agree on that.

But he starts and plays big minutes for a poor defensive team. People score a lot of points against the Nets, and without solid defense behind him (with noteable holes like Kris Humphries, that sad degenerate, I pity the fool who drafted him), a lot of looks that should've been checked by help defense go through.

Westbrook's numbers are surprising though, because OKC is a good defensive team, and he's a pretty good defender, to my eyes at least.

Avery Bradley is a tenacious defender, but who are most of his minutes played against? How many elite PG's has he played big minutes against and checked? I bet he's got a few good games and a few bad ones as a starter.

But then, how did he do against the bad PG's he played against as a starter while Rondo was out?

And aside from that, he's facing a lot of second unit guys, and spot minutes against starters.

So while he is a promising defensive player, you'd have to think his number is a bit of an outlier there, due somewhat at least to circumstance.

I just don't think its that reliable.

I agree that it's a flawed stat to look at specifically for Bradley (and I'm sure many other players), but a guy like Lowry has a pretty big sample size against all types of PGs.

[Edgar]

Of course he can. Hes a narwhal. Where is varejao

[Edgar]

How good is my team deffensivly

[indeedproceed]

I do however think that there are some good things you can take from synergy stats. Ability to score in isolation, ability to score as a P&R ball handler, or a P&R roll man, for instance, as long as you try to replicate the talent on the other end of the equation.  

[indeedproceed]

I agree that it's a flawed stat to look at specifically for Bradley (and I'm sure many other players), but a guy like Lowry has a pretty big sample size against all types of PGs.

Right, so every night he's bringing a bunch of bad to average defenders against NBA caliber, and he's playing 35 minutes a contest.

When he's out there, the Rockets are allowing 101.5 points per 100 possessions. That's middle of the pack. When he's out, they're allowing 109 points per 100. That's second to last in the league.

Its not fair to say he alone is responsible for taking a league worst defensive team to middle-of-the-pack, but that number to me is a lot more telling, especially when you consider that when Lowry rests, its usually when the other starter is resting as well.

[Roy H.]

How good is my team deffensivly

Well, KG is still top notch, both statistically and observationally.  Pierce is also elite statistically.  Varejao has been worse than expected; he's allowing opponents to shoot 58.5% on post-ups.  Ty Thomas has been very good (top 100 overall).  Stephen Jackson has been a disappointment, but has been decent at defending isolation and spot-up plays, which is probably what you need him for.  Felton has been above-average.

In other words, your team is filled with above-average defenders, with some having elite seasons.  With the Celtics system, there's little doubt in my mind that you'll be a top-3 defense, and probably the best in our league.

[indeedproceed]

I agree it's not a perfect system.  However, it generally does a good job of weeding out the good defenders from the overrated ones.

It also yields unexpected results at times.  For instance, Dwight Howard ranks 74th in terms of post-up defense.  That's still a respectable number, but not amazing.  Is that because Dwight gets help from double-teams less than a lot of guys?  Or is it that while his one-on-one defense is good, it's his help defense that makes him an amazing defender?  (Of course, even though he gives up a moderate number of points per possession, his FG% allowed is still below 40%, so rankings need to be relative.  Additionally, he's extremely good guarding his man on the pick-and-roll.)

(KG, in case you're wondering, is still 45th overall, and 30th on post-ups.  Dude can still bring it.)

EDIT:  Oh, and for Deron Williams, he's got defensive talent.  However, have you watched him play lately?  He's mentally checked out.  He plays defense a lot the same way Pierce did from about 2005 until 2007 (i.e., he's not playing any.)

Fair point on Deron Williams, but I'm sticking to my guns on Lowry. You obviously think he's overrated (and with his shooting slump earlier in the year after that hot start, its hard to argue that on the offensive end, I'm an optimist though) but I think he's the best defensive PG in the NBA, and I'm not alone, PPP numbers or no.

[KCattheStripe]

You have a good team, but it's flawed.  I think you're going to have some trouble with teams that have multiple good wings and guards.

Which is Spanish for, The Miami Heat.