Tag: All-Defensive

The Best Defenders in the NBA this Season

What Have You Done for Me Lately?

The NBA is a right now league. Each game can change in a moment. Every season’s trade deadline brings about substantial team restructuring, and the offseason free agency and trade market has become an event unto itself. Change happens quickly, and the team that wins the championship is often the team that becomes the best version of itself at just the right moment.

Many of the most important questions deal with which player or team is the best right now. “What have you done for me lately?” is the unspoken question on the minds of everyone in and around the league. In previous posts, I’ve used the defensive matchup data at stats.nba.com to create a model for defensive performance since 2013-14. The entire dataset is now features prominently on the homepage, and you can pull any player card for any season from the Google Sheets tool.

But what about this season?

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Processing the Process, Part 2

          Last time, we reviewed the beginning stages of the Process. The dominant factor in that time frame was the Jrue Holiday trade, which led to the Sixers acquiring Nerlens Noel and Elfrid Payton (who was traded for Dario Saric, who was part of the trade for Jimmy Butler). We left off after the 2014 draft, so Part 2 of our analysis begins in 2014.

  The 2014-15 season was another tank job by the Sixers. Shortly before the season began, they traded Thaddeus Young for a first round pick, Luc Mbah a Moute, and Alexey Shved in the four-team Kevin Love trade. Though the motive was clearly to make cap space, the Sixers ultimately did not attempt to sign premiere free agents in the time frame of Young’s next contract. As such, it is not completely certain that they needed to get rid of Young. He was responsible for 22.8 wins in the four seasons stretching from 2015-16 through last year, at about league average efficiency each year. Thus, it seems clear that the Sixers left about 5-6 wins per year on the table by getting rid of Thad Young.

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