I'm looking at the basketball-reference.com DRtg which is basically an estimation of how many points a player gives up per 100 possessions.
A couple of anomalies stick out with this stat. I'm not sure of the legitimacy of it, but these points are interesting.
Out of all the players who have received a good amount of minutes the last 3 years, Cousins has had the best DRtg each and every year except his rookie season where he tied with Dalembert for the best.
The two worst seasons defensively for Landry have been in Sacramento. Sacramento is also the only time in his career when he's given up more points than he's scored.
Beno Udrih gave up 10 more points per 100 possessions with us on average than he did in San Antonio.
Samuel Dalembert's worst defensive season was in Sacramento.
Ron Artests worst defensive seasons on average were in Sacramento.
Francisco Garcia played the best defense of his career since his rookie season once he got traded to the Rockets.
On average John Salmons worst defensive seasons have been in Sacramento and they spiked way down from Milwaukee to Sacramento.
Chuck Hayes two worst defensive seasons by far have been in Sacramento.
Thomas, Fredette and Thornton are our worst defenders the last few years.
This is all according to the DRtg stat.
Almost all our key players from the glory years played their best defensive basketball as soon as they got to Sacramento in the late 90's and early 2000's. The stat shows that Christie, Webber and Vlade were our best defensive starters each year with Peja and then Bibby lagging behind. In 03-04 the defensive stats get shot to hell for everyone. We gained Brad Miller and Songalia but no longer had Clark and Pollard. Webber also only played 23 games but was still our best defensive player according to the stat. Whats the reasoning for this? Adelman's coaching? The gain of two soft bigs and the loss of two defenders? The players getting old and injured?
This poses the argument, do we need a bunch of good defensive players or just a coach who can teach defense? According to that stat, known good defenders in Hayes, Dalembert and Salmons have all been worse in Sacramento than their past teams. Basically almost every player that has joined this team in the last 10 years has had a significant drop in their defensive rating. Does that mean that the coaching was bad or that the players around them were so bad that they were getting scored on more often than they used to? I think our front office has too much faith in Malone's defensive coaching ability. It seems like they think he can coach defense upon anyone, so they're looking to pile in a bunch of offensive players on the idea that they already know how to score, they just need Malone to teach them how to play team defense. I personally think this is an idea of failure since the stats seem to lean toward good defensive players being much more important than defensive coaching.
A couple of anomalies stick out with this stat. I'm not sure of the legitimacy of it, but these points are interesting.
Out of all the players who have received a good amount of minutes the last 3 years, Cousins has had the best DRtg each and every year except his rookie season where he tied with Dalembert for the best.
The two worst seasons defensively for Landry have been in Sacramento. Sacramento is also the only time in his career when he's given up more points than he's scored.
Beno Udrih gave up 10 more points per 100 possessions with us on average than he did in San Antonio.
Samuel Dalembert's worst defensive season was in Sacramento.
Ron Artests worst defensive seasons on average were in Sacramento.
Francisco Garcia played the best defense of his career since his rookie season once he got traded to the Rockets.
On average John Salmons worst defensive seasons have been in Sacramento and they spiked way down from Milwaukee to Sacramento.
Chuck Hayes two worst defensive seasons by far have been in Sacramento.
Thomas, Fredette and Thornton are our worst defenders the last few years.
This is all according to the DRtg stat.
Almost all our key players from the glory years played their best defensive basketball as soon as they got to Sacramento in the late 90's and early 2000's. The stat shows that Christie, Webber and Vlade were our best defensive starters each year with Peja and then Bibby lagging behind. In 03-04 the defensive stats get shot to hell for everyone. We gained Brad Miller and Songalia but no longer had Clark and Pollard. Webber also only played 23 games but was still our best defensive player according to the stat. Whats the reasoning for this? Adelman's coaching? The gain of two soft bigs and the loss of two defenders? The players getting old and injured?
This poses the argument, do we need a bunch of good defensive players or just a coach who can teach defense? According to that stat, known good defenders in Hayes, Dalembert and Salmons have all been worse in Sacramento than their past teams. Basically almost every player that has joined this team in the last 10 years has had a significant drop in their defensive rating. Does that mean that the coaching was bad or that the players around them were so bad that they were getting scored on more often than they used to? I think our front office has too much faith in Malone's defensive coaching ability. It seems like they think he can coach defense upon anyone, so they're looking to pile in a bunch of offensive players on the idea that they already know how to score, they just need Malone to teach them how to play team defense. I personally think this is an idea of failure since the stats seem to lean toward good defensive players being much more important than defensive coaching.