Post by eric on Jan 7, 2019 17:16:47 GMT
I've talked before about how Anthony Davis' teams are bad at defense and when his teammates play elsewhere those teams are almost invariably better at defense. But to be fair I didn't test that method on a player for whom the stats and public acclaim agree, so let's see how Tim Duncan's retired teammates did with and without him:
There are 29 players who played at least two seasons with Duncan and at least two without him. Every single one of them was on better defensive teams in the first condition. No matter when in his career they played with him, or how long, or how highly regarded a defender they were - from Steve Smith to Steve Kerr, from Devin Brown to Boris Diaw, it is objectively the case that playing next to Tim Duncan guaranteed better team defense.
(Lest we think the "retired" caveat is a hand jive, five of the seven not yet retired players also fall into this category, Danny Green will make the sixth this year, and George Hill will join the club whenever he manages to play a full season with one team.)
And as the graph reiterates, the nine players alongside Davis saw quite the opposite impact, and it is still the case that when we add in this season's numbers only E'Twaun Moore will be in the black. (It's nine instead of the eight in the article because I somehow forgot the immortal Luke Babbit.)
tl;dr: Tim Duncan great defender, Anthony Davis not.
There are 29 players who played at least two seasons with Duncan and at least two without him. Every single one of them was on better defensive teams in the first condition. No matter when in his career they played with him, or how long, or how highly regarded a defender they were - from Steve Smith to Steve Kerr, from Devin Brown to Boris Diaw, it is objectively the case that playing next to Tim Duncan guaranteed better team defense.
(Lest we think the "retired" caveat is a hand jive, five of the seven not yet retired players also fall into this category, Danny Green will make the sixth this year, and George Hill will join the club whenever he manages to play a full season with one team.)
And as the graph reiterates, the nine players alongside Davis saw quite the opposite impact, and it is still the case that when we add in this season's numbers only E'Twaun Moore will be in the black. (It's nine instead of the eight in the article because I somehow forgot the immortal Luke Babbit.)
tl;dr: Tim Duncan great defender, Anthony Davis not.