Why don't advanced stats like Bradley's defense?

[mmmmm]

spurious correlation.

This should be the tag-line of ESPN as a whole.

A Tommy Point to you, sir.
 

[Smitty77]

Now, I could be off-base with this, especially because I'm not really all that competent when it comes to advanced stats, but I think it has to do mainly with a distinction between two types of great defenders.

There are two types of great defensive players: stoppers and defensive quarterbacks.

Smart, KG, Draymond Green - these are all examples of defensive quarterbacks. They're great individual defenders, but they also make their team better defensively simply by being on the court because they're great team defenders as well as individual defenders, which is why their advanced stats are generally very positive of them defensively.

People like Bradley, and to a lesser extent Tony Allen and Jae Crowder, are stoppers. They're phenomenal individual player/ball stoppers, and they can exceedingly limit their individual player that they're guarding. However, a lot of times this comes at the expense of some team defense, or at least they're so focused on limiting their individual guy that their team defense suffers.

I think this observation works well with Bradley, because you always see him in this type of defensive role. However, there are a lot of times that Bradley and Crowder get a little lost with their help/team defense; whereas, you hardly ever see that out of the defensive quarterbacks like Smart, Green, KG, etc. They're always in the right place at the right time.

Sound plausible?

Jpotter,

That is some astute analysis!!!  Hats off!!!  I had not thought of breaking it down like that, but it makes some sense.  But Jae and Tony still show up better than Avery, which is still a little odd.

Smitty77

[Smitty77]

I'm just taking a wild guess, but maybe when he is guarding bigger 2 guards verses opposing point guards his defense takes a hit.  I would be curious to know if the advanced stats can break it down by what position he is guarding, or even height of opposing player.

JBCat,

I think you are onto something regarding AB having to guard a lot of taller SG's!!!  I think if Avery was a little stronger, he could get away with it better like Smart does in guarding SF's, but then he'd likely lose some of his quickness.

Smitty77