Since we’re now a few games in, I thought I’d check some of the advanced statistics for our guys so far and see who have been our best players so far on both ends of the floor, and whether the reality matches what it looks like from afar. Some of the results are surprising, while some are pretty expected.
Here we go…
Starters
Player | Offensive Rtg | Defensive Rtg | Overall Rtg
K Garnett | 102.9 | 94.3 | +8.6
J Terry | 103.3 | 99.7 | +3.6
P Perce | 105.0 | 103.1 | +1.9
R Rondo | 102.8 | 102.0 | +0.9
B Bass | 101.7 | 102.3 | -0.6
Bench:
Player | Offensive Rtg | Defensive Rtg | Overall Rtg
C Wilcox | 105.5 | 102.4 | +3.2
C Lee | 102.1 | 103.4 | -1.2
J Green | 101.5 | 105.1 | -3.6
J Sullinger | 100.3 | 103.9 | -3.7
L Barbosa | 100.0 | 107.4 | -7.4
J Collins | 88.9 | 119.4 | -30.4
Some of my findings…
KG’s dominance
It’s no surprise to me that KG still has more positive impact on our team than anybody else - and it’s not even close. Not only is he BY FAR our most important player defensively, but he’s also our 4th best player offensively as well. To put into perspective just how good KG is defensively, here are the ratings of some of the best defensive front court players in the league:
- Tyson Chandler: 102.7
- Shane Battier: 99.7
- Serge Ibaka: 97.7
- Dwight Howard: 98.4
- Tim Duncan: 98.8
- Lebron James: 104.0
That’s elite company, and none come close to KG’s Def Rtg of 94.3 – even at his age, Garnett is clearly one of the best (if not THE best) frontcourt defenders in the game.
Jet
If you are one of those guys who’s been criticising Terry for being a terrible defender, being too passive on offense and for generally being a downgrade compared to Ray Allen, then these numbers may keep you quiet.
Among our starters Terry has the second best offensive rating (behind Pierce) and the second best defensive rating (after KG). Defensively his rating of 99.7 is better than Tyson Chandler, identical to Shane Battier and only slightly below Dwight Howard. That is VERY good defense.
With those numbers It’s not surprise that he has the second best net rating on this team after KG. That’s pretty impressive for an undersized SG who’s 35 years old and playing for the MLE.
As for the Ray Allen debate, Terry’s net rating of +3.6 is superior to Ray Allen’s net rating of +2.7, and this has a lot to do with Ray Allen’s horrendous defensive rating of 107 – only two players on our team (Barbosa, Collins) have a worse defensive rating than Allen does right now, and luckily neither of those guys spends enough time on the court to make it a big concern.
The Captain
Among starters Paul Pierce is our worst defensive player, allowing 103.1 points per 100 possessions on that end of the floor. He does more than make up for that with his offensive rating of 105, which is the best among our starters by a significant margin.
Tho Pierce’s defence looks poor among our starters, he still allows less points per possession then any of our bench players except for Chris Wilcox – more on him later.
Rondo
Contrary to popular belief, Rondo doesn’t seem to be as horrible on defence as the eyes would suggest. His defensive rating of 102 is actually the third best on the team, with only KG and Terry having better numbers.
The surprise for Rondo is his offensive rating, which is currently ranked fifth on the team behind Wilcox, Pierce, Terry and Garnett. Even Courtney Lee (at 102.1) is not far behind.
It’s generally accepted that Rondo is our most important player on offense and horrible on defense, but it looks like his offense actually hurts us more than his defense.
Wilcox
If anybody’s numbers surprised me it’s Wilcox. Not only does he have the 5th best defensive rating on our team (102.4) but he has the highest offensive rating of anybody on our team. His overall net rating of +3.2 is good for 3rd on our team behind Garnett and Terry. Wilcox always seems to make a positive impact when he enters the game, but I never realised his impact was THIS strong.
Wilcox is our only reserve with a positive net rating, and Bass is our only starter with a negative net rating – the two happen to play the same position. If he weren’t our only useful backup center I’d probably say we should start him at PF.
Back court defense
There is a strong opinion out there that our perimeter defense is our biggest problem, and the Courtney Lee is our only decent defender at the guard spot as long as Bradley is out. Based on the eye test I would have agreed as well, but the stats tell another story.
According to this data our best perimeter defender right now is Jason Terry, with Rondo being second and Lee ranking third.
We have a four-man guard rotation, and our 4th guard
(Barbosa) happens to rate as the second worse defensively player on the team – only Collins is worse.
When Bradley comes back and replaces Barbosa in our 4-guard rotation, we should then be able to throw four solid perimeter defenders out there every night. Our perimeter D should get MUCH better.
Front court
As mentioned previously, Paul Piece ranks the worst among our starters defensively with a rating of 103.1 – this is roughly on par with Courtney Lee so it’s solid, if not spectacular. His backup - Jeff Green – is doing not so well with the third worst defensive rating on the team (105.1). Sullinger has been pretty weak as well (but better than Green), while Bass and Wilcox have been our best front court defenders after KG.
The big surprise here is not the defense though – Sullinger (100.3), Green (101.5) and Bass (101.7) rank 3rd, 4th and 5th last [respectively] on our team on the offensive end of the court. Aside from KG and Pierce it looks like Wilcox is the only frontcourt player who is actually putting the ball in the basket for us.
JC - The Scrub
Most ironic of all is Jason Collins – the guy brought in here to give us solid interior defense has thus far been our worst defensive player…by a mile. He’s allowing a team high 119.4 points per 100 possessions when he is on the court. That’s a full 12 points worse than Barbosa, who is statistically our next worst defensive player.
To rub salt into the wound Collins’ offensive game has been just as bad, with his rating of 88.9 also being a good 12 points worse than our next worse offensive player (also Barbosa).
His overall net rating of -30.4 is beyond bad, it’s hideous. The Celtics team is essentially getting beaten by 30 points per 100 possessions whenever this guy steps on the floor. To put things into perspective, here are the net ratings for some ex-Celtics bigs who never took off:
* Ryan Hollins currently has a net rating of +9.9
* Rasheed Wallace has a net rating of +9
* Jermaine O’neal has a net rating of +14.3
Hollins in particular is a guy we could have VERY easily re-signed, and it obviously would have been a far better move than picking up Collins. Hard to believe but we may be better off if we traded Collins + Barbosa in return for Hollins once Bradley returns…a bench frontcourt of Hollins + Wilcox actually probably wouldn't be that bad.
Conclusions
1. All season long I’ve been saying that our only consistently solid players have been Rondo, Pierce, Garnett and Terry. No surprise to me that (aside from Wilcox) they are the only four guys on the team with a net positive rating. As long as these guys are on the floor we should be playing winning basketball on the whole.
2. Chris Wilcox is too good to be playing 12 minutes a night. When his conditioning gets better he needs to be giving us at least 20 minutes (preferably more like 25) if we are to start winning games consistently. If not for our lack of a backup centre, he probably should be starting for us at PF.
3. Courtney Lee and Brandon Bass have been ‘ok’ for us. Both have a negative net rating, but only by a small degree. This means that although they won’t EXTEND the lead while they are on the court, we should be able to more or less maintain a lead with them out there.
4. Jeff Green, Jared Sullinger and Leandro Barbosa have all had a negative impact on this team when they are in the game. Sullinger (being a rookie) has an excuse, but the other two don’t. If Danny does plan a midseason trade, it wouldn’t surprise me to see Green + Barbosa among the candidates (unless their play improves).
5. Bradley’s impact on this team should be HUGE. His def rating last season was 92.9 which would rank him first on this team, even better than KG’s current rating. With a starting lineup of Rondo, Bradley, Pierce, Bass and KG we should be DOMINATING opposing starters.
6. Bradley’s return would also allow us to send both Terry and Lee to the bench. That should be a solid backcourt defensively, and with a lineup of Terry, Lee, Green, Sullinger and Wilcox our second unit should be pretty solid. The net positives of Terry and Wilcox should neutralise the net negative of Green and Sullinger, while Lee is overall fairly neutral. Overall this bench should be good enough to at least maintain leads while our starters rest, which is really all we need.
7. We need to axe Collins and call Fab Melo up from the D-League. Collins has been so incredibly horrendous for us that I can’t see how Fab could possibly be any worse. At least Fab should have a positive (or at least neutral) impact on the defensive end of the floor, and that alone would make him better than Collins who has been equally horrible on both ends of the floor. Fab’s offense will be terrible, but I don’t see how it could be THAT much worse than Collins has been so far.
8. The net ratings of some of the guys who have been mentioned in trade threads:
* Josh Smith: +5.5 (102.4 Off | 96.9 Def)
* Marcin Gortat: -9.0 (100.0 Off | 109.0 Def)
* Al Jefferson: +0.9 (106.2 Off |105.3 Def)
* Andersen Varejao: -5.7 (102.3 Off | 108.1 Def)
* Paul Millsap: -1.9 (105.3 Off | 107.3 Def)
* Amare Stoudemire: -2.7 (98.1 Off | 100.8 Def)
Right now Josh Smith is looking like the only one who would be a certain improvement for us, and it looks justifiable for us to give up pretty much anyone (not named Rondo, Pierce, Terry, Garnett, Wilcox) if it would bring him here. Adding a +5 guy to our already potent starting lineup should be a major upgrade for us.
None of the others look like they’d give us enough of an improvement to justify giving up what we would have to in order to get them here.
Topic: Performance ratings for our roster (Read 1733 times)