Quantifying how bad Kyrie's defense was last season

[Somebody]

That is why I'm still iffy on the trade: Kyrie needs to be a legit top 2 MVP candidate in order to justify the package.

I disagree, I think the Nets pick simply has to land outside the top 5-7 picks. If we weren't going to resign IT which seems obvious, then 2 role players and a tier 2 prospect for an Olympian closer on an NBA champ who won all star MVP at age 21 (!) is a pretty [dang] good trade for us.

Except we traded with our chief rival who was coming apart at the seams.  If IT and Crowder work out well this season, Lebron may well decide to stay.  We could end up looking up at the Cavs for the  next 3 or 4 seasons.

With a top prospect learning from Bron to make our lives miserable in the future.

[Mr October]

Among all starting PGs:

* Kyrie was worst in FG% allowed;
* Kyrie was worst in defensive FG% differential

Among all starting guards:

* Kyrie was worst in 3PT% allowed
* Kyrie was worst in defensive 3PT% differential
* Kyrie was 6th worst in defensive 2PT% differential

Notably, Kyrie ranked behind IT in each of those areas.

Additionally:

Kyrie allows opponents to shoot 70.2% with 6 feet of the rim

Kyrie ranked in the bottom 12% of all NBA players in points allowed per possession on isolation plays last year

How do Irving and Thomas's defense stats in the playoffs compare? This past spring Irving's defense looked better than Tnomas.

[GC003332]

Yes Kyrie's regular season defensive stats look bad/really bad.
The Cavs as a team ranked 21st /22 nd in the league during the regular season.Worse among-st all 16 teams that made the playoffs.

http://stats.nba.com/teams/defense/#!?sort=DEF_RATING&dir=-1
https://www.basketball-reference.com/leagues/NBA_2017_ratings.html

Part of that is due to their pacing themselves for the playoffs.Conserving their energy for a long playoff campaign.

Just got to hope that with more peer pressure from Smart and the Celtics that he will be more concerned with playing both sides of the ball.

Hopefully he does.

[tarheelsxxiii]

Among all starting PGs:

* Kyrie was worst in FG% allowed;
* Kyrie was worst in defensive FG% differential

Among all starting guards:

* Kyrie was worst in 3PT% allowed
* Kyrie was worst in defensive 3PT% differential
* Kyrie was 6th worst in defensive 2PT% differential

Notably, Kyrie ranked behind IT in each of those areas.

Additionally:

Kyrie allows opponents to shoot 70.2% with 6 feet of the rim

Kyrie ranked in the bottom 12% of all NBA players in points allowed per possession on isolation plays last year

How do Irving and Thomas's defense stats in the playoffs compare? This past spring Irving's defense looked better than Tnomas.

While IT's were a bit worse, Kyrie's were the same as in the regular season.

[crimson_stallion]

How exactly do these stats stack up in comparison to the team defense?  I am not saying that Kyrie wasn't a bad defender, only that he was a bad defender on a bad defensive team that didn't give a care about defense.  IT was a bad defender on a good defensive team that did care about defense.

I never expect Kyrie to be a top tier defender, but you have to admit his defensive floor is probably higher than IT's is, right?

Since Kyrie was a worse defender, no, his floor isn't lower.

I disagree that Kyrie was a worse defender.

First of all, Kyrie did not rank second last in the entire NBA in Defensive Real Plus Minus - Thomas did.

But more importantly is the fact that Kyrie is actually CAPABLE of playing defence when he really wants to, he just doesn't.  But the fact that he is at least capable of it suggests that there is some chance (however slim that may be) that if you can channel his defensive desire he might actually be able to improve on that end.

Isaiah Thomas simply is not capable of playing defence because his size just makes it impossible.  It doesn't matter how hard he does / doesn't want it, he cannot play D and he will never be able to.

You can somewhat cover for Kyrie's defensive issues but IT's size mismatches create so many problems that you cannot cover for it without making major defensive sacrifices elsewhere. Jae Crowder and Avery Bradley spent half of their time on the court covering for Isaiah's defensive assignments.  Irving sucks, but not that badly.

[Mr October]

I look forward to seeing Irving's defense improve as a Boston Celtic. He has the body to do it. And playing along side a bunch of motivate defenders I think defensive energy will be contagious:

Smart, Hayward, Rozier, Morris, Baynes, Horford (at least as a team defender), Brown

Tatum and some of the other rookies look to have defensive promise as well.

[CelticsElite]

How exactly do these stats stack up in comparison to the team defense?  I am not saying that Kyrie wasn't a bad defender, only that he was a bad defender on a bad defensive team that didn't give a care about defense.  IT was a bad defender on a good defensive team that did care about defense.

I never expect Kyrie to be a top tier defender, but you have to admit his defensive floor is probably higher than IT's is, right?

Since Kyrie was a worse defender, no, his floor isn't lower.

I disagree that Kyrie was a worse defender.

First of all, Kyrie did not rank second last in the entire NBA in Defensive Real Plus Minus - Thomas did.

But more importantly is the fact that Kyrie is actually CAPABLE of playing defence when he really wants to, he just doesn't.  But the fact that he is at least capable of it suggests that there is some chance (however slim that may be) that if you can channel his defensive desire he might actually be able to improve on that end.

Isaiah Thomas simply is not capable of playing defence because his size just makes it impossible.  It doesn't matter how hard he does / doesn't want it, he cannot play D and he will never be able to.

You can somewhat cover for Kyrie's defensive issues but IT's size mismatches create so many problems that you cannot cover for it without making major defensive sacrifices elsewhere. Jae Crowder and Avery Bradley spent half of their time on the court covering for Isaiah's defensive assignments.  Irving sucks, but not that badly.

this

The only player with worse defense than IT in the entire league was Doug McDermott

[KGs Knee]

Not worse than Thomas, so, whatevs.  A lot of top end PGs are bad on defense.  It's the toughest position to play defense in today's NBA.

[RLewis35]

Here's the difference.  In the playoffs, teams would target Isaiah and there was nothin we could do about it. He was not just a defensive liability on the floor but the target and gameplan of the other teams offense.   The same cannot be said for kyrie. He played decent D at times against curry in the finals.  He played at Duke, albeit for a few games, and coach K loves him so he has to be able to bring the D when it's part of the team concept and focus.  I have a feeling there was a lot of dysfunction with the cavs team and that contributed to kyrie lackadaisical D.

Joining the Celtics wth brad and a strong culture of defense, I expect his effort and D performance to go up.  And if we need to always hide him on the second worse guard like we did with Isaiah (or even a wing like oubre or porter), due to his size he won't get completely abused like Isaiah.

For the record I love Isaiah and he always gave effort - but he couldn't do anything else on d due to his size.

[Roy H.]

Not worse than Thomas, so, whatevs.  A lot of top end PGs are bad on defense.  It's the toughest position to play defense in today's NBA.

That's the point: he was quite a bit worse than IT. The only starting guard worse than Kyrie was Nick Young.

Fans seem to believe that Kyrie simultaneously will become an adequate defender while upping his scoring. That's simply unrealistic.

[Roy H.]

Among all starting PGs:

* Kyrie was worst in FG% allowed;
* Kyrie was worst in defensive FG% differential

Among all starting guards:

* Kyrie was worst in 3PT% allowed
* Kyrie was worst in defensive 3PT% differential
* Kyrie was 6th worst in defensive 2PT% differential

Notably, Kyrie ranked behind IT in each of those areas.

Additionally:

Kyrie allows opponents to shoot 70.2% with 6 feet of the rim

Kyrie ranked in the bottom 12% of all NBA players in points allowed per possession on isolation plays last year

Where are you getting these stats (source)? I agree that doesn't look good at all, but I also agree that the Cavs team D / rim protectors were terrible. Horford was easily better on D than anyone on the Cavs and he was our 4th best defender.

I also went to just about every home game and watched IT let seemingly every opposing PG nearly double their season scoring average. I'd be willing to bet that if you looked up opposing PG points per game, Kyrie did better than IT.

The stats are all via NBA.com. They've got some awesome tools over there.

As for the last paragraph, that's what these stats cover: how opponents did when covered by a particular player.

[Roy H.]

How exactly do these stats stack up in comparison to the team defense?  I am not saying that Kyrie wasn't a bad defender, only that he was a bad defender on a bad defensive team that didn't give a care about defense.  IT was a bad defender on a good defensive team that did care about defense.

I never expect Kyrie to be a top tier defender, but you have to admit his defensive floor is probably higher than IT's is, right?

Since Kyrie was a worse defender, no, his floor isn't lower.

I disagree that Kyrie was a worse defender.

First of all, Kyrie did not rank second last in the entire NBA in Defensive Real Plus Minus - Thomas did.

But more importantly is the fact that Kyrie is actually CAPABLE of playing defence when he really wants to, he just doesn't.  But the fact that he is at least capable of it suggests that there is some chance (however slim that may be) that if you can channel his defensive desire he might actually be able to improve on that end.

Isaiah Thomas simply is not capable of playing defence because his size just makes it impossible.  It doesn't matter how hard he does / doesn't want it, he cannot play D and he will never be able to.

You can somewhat cover for Kyrie's defensive issues but IT's size mismatches create so many problems that you cannot cover for it without making major defensive sacrifices elsewhere. Jae Crowder and Avery Bradley spent half of their time on the court covering for Isaiah's defensive assignments.  Irving sucks, but not that badly.

Do you know what DPRM contains in it's "formula"?

It doesn't look purely at production and results. It includes things like height, age, and the prior year's RPM. Seriously, look it up. It's not an accurate measurement of anything other than the biases of the formula's creator.

[Celtics4ever]

Does he have the athleticism to be a good defender?    I would say "yes"

Does he have the metrics to be a good defender?  Normal length arms 6'4", decent standing reach but lacks elite length.

http://www.draftexpress.com/profile/Kyrie-Irving-5735/

A lot of defense can be taught even guys with poor Athletics and bad metrics can be decent if they have the right attitude.

[The Oracle]

Not worse than Thomas, so, whatevs.  A lot of top end PGs are bad on defense.  It's the toughest position to play defense in today's NBA.

That's the point: he was quite a bit worse than IT. The only starting guard worse than Kyrie was Nick Young.

Fans seem to believe that Kyrie simultaneously will become an adequate defender while upping his scoring. That's simply unrealistic.

Those DFG% statistics are extremely problematic and should not be used in any way to define a player as a bad defender nor a good one.  What the cameras do is nothing more than mark the closest defender as responsible for defending the shot attempt.  Many times a help defender is just as responsible if not more so for the quality of shot attempt that was taken and many times the closest defender was not responsible for the result at all. 

If you stick Kyrie on the Warriors playing with an entire team of solid help guys and the ultimate help guy in Draymond his numbers would be far far better.  Kyrie was surrounded by some very poor help defenders in Cleveland, not saying he is great by any stretch but the way a player defends or is able to defend is highly dependent on who he is on the floor with.  He will certainly be a lot less problematic than I.T. was.

[kozlodoev]

A lot of it is individual, at least when looking at FG% allowed. If it was all team based, you'd expect all the Cavaliers to have poor defensive stats. They didn't.

That would be true if a basketball game was a 48 set of 1-on-1s. It isn't. The Celtics went to great lengths to hide Thomas on defense last season, especially in the playoffs. Remember the endless switching so that he can stay in the corner at all times?