Bargnani is Among NBA's Worst Defenders

[verbatim]

http://espn.go.com/blog/TrueHoop/pos...orst-defenders

Well Bargnani is one of the NBA's worst defenders according to this post. I would have thought Jose would be there before Bargnani, but of course, I don't understand these complex statistical analyses. I do know Bargnani is our best blocker and post defender though...I wonder if that is as damning an assessment of the team as it sounds...

[Arsenalist]

Great find, here's the original article:

http://aloneinthecorner.com/post/527...defensive-team

This was a close call between Andrea and Al Jefferson but I think Andrea’s lack of athleticism gives him the slight edge. Andrea’s one year defensive adjusted +/- rating is a staggering -9.13 and although adjusted plus minus rankings should be taken with a rather large grain of salt (especially 1 year ratings) when I substitute Andrea for any other starting center in the league, Toronto’s defensive numbers improve across the board.

[Dave]

I agree with the Bargnani, Villanueva and Martin selections. I would list Mike Bibby as the worst defensive point guard. Also, Al Jefferson is a great nomination, he is right there with Bargnani in terms of his negative defensive contributions.

Not sure who I would select at small forward but Nocioni looks out of place there, below average sure but the worst? That seems off. Although, nobody else is really jumping to mind.

[Buddahfan]

The number that the article is using for Bargnani to claim that he belongs on the all worst defensive team is -9.13 defensive adj rating.

What is kind of interesting about this number and you guys can take it for what it is worth is the following.

That number is from basketballvalue.com where for some reason it is 9.10 and not 9.13 probably a rounding error or whatever. The website subtracts points allowed on court from points allowed off court to get a positive number in this case. I think the author of the article used a -9.13 to emphasize that he was bad. The description of the number is the same in both the article and on the website.

So let us agree that the author of the article did indeed get his number from baseketballvalue.com. What is a bid odd here is that if you flip the column by clicking on the Net column guess who comes in #1. Yes BC15 himself.

So does that mean that Johnson according to this author would be on the all NBA's 1st defensive team? I doubt it seriously, but then one never knows about some writers

http://basketballvalue.com/topplayer...sortorder=DESC

[Tim W.]

Why on earth is anyone surprised about this? His post defense is vastly overrated by Raptor fans. Sometimes it's pretty good, but a lot of times it's not very good. And his team defense is absolutely horrible.

There is a reason I continually bash the guy. Actually, there are a few.

[Tim W.]

INot sure who I would select at small forward but Nocioni looks out of place there, below average sure but the worst? That seems off. Although, nobody else is really jumping to mind.

I think Nocioni used to be a good defender, or at least a hard-nosed one, but as he's gotten older, his lateral mobility has gotten worse. I think he's probably too slow to be able to defend most small forwards, now.