Quest has recently made revolutionary upgrades in our ability to evaluate the defending of players. For a new, very detailed, technical User Guide on how we are rating, comparing, and contrasting the defending of NBA players, please visit here when you get a chance. In the rest of this report, I will be using terminology that you will not fully understand, at least technically, unless you review that Guide. But if you have no time to slog through the Guide, you will still be able to get the facts and conclusions that the methodology is yielding. Many Nuggets fans who decided to remain fans and to not abandon ship after the total annihilation by the Lakers have claimed that Camby is so bad in these untracked aspects of defending that it was a good thing that he was given away. So now, let's find out: just how bad is Marcus Camby in man to man defending, in defensive recognition and rotating, in responding to screens, and so forth? Drum roll, please.... Marcus Camby, Clippers, Hidden Filtered Defending Rating, 2008-09 through Feb. 8: .054. The League-wide average is approximately .088, so on the one hand it is true that although he is about the best rebounder and the best blocker of the NBA, Camby is not one of the best players in the League when it comes to these other parts of defending. The worst thing you can say about Camby's defending and still be correct is to say that outside of blocking, rebounding, and his very low fouling rate, the other aspects of Camby's defending are well below but not grossly below the NBA average. But it is not true that he is so bad at the other, hidden stuff that he is a defensive liability overall. As you will see below, Camby was last year and remains this year, overall, one of the very best defenders in the NBA, despite not being a very good man to man or zone recognition and zone rotating defender. Let's look at defending more broadly now, and to make this really interesting, let's compare and contrast Camby to Nene in every way we can. And to make it more interesting still, lets look at Camby both last year on the Nuggets and this year on the Clippers. Hidden Defending (Filtered) Ratings Marcus Camby for the Nuggets, 2007-08: .036 Marcus Camby for the Clippers, 2008-09: .054 Nene for the Nuggets, 2008-09: .118 Scored (Tracked) Defending Ratings Marcus Camby for the Nuggets, 2007-08: .535 Marcus Camby for the Clippers, 2008-09: .476 Nene for the Nuggets, 2008-09: .277 Overall Defending Ratings Marcus Camby for the Nuggets, 2007-08: .606 Marcus Camby for the Clippers, 2008-09: .585 Nene for the Nuggets, 2008-09: .514 Offensive Sub Rating Marcus Camby for the Nuggets, 2007-08: .378 Marcus Camby for the Clippers, 2008-09: .434 Nene for the Nuggets, 2008-09: .485 OVERALL REAL PLAYER RATINGS Marcus Camby for the Nuggets, 2007-08: .949 Marcus Camby for the Clippers, 2008-09: .964 Nene for the Nuggets, 2008-09: .881 OBSERVATIONS 1. We can see that Nene is a far better man to man and zone recognition and rotation defender than is Camby (.118 for Nene this year versus .054 looking at Camby this year or versus .036 looking at Camby last year). 2.Camby is a far better player in terms of scored defending (which is, to remind you, rebounding plus blocking plus steals minus personal fouling) even more so last year than this year. 3. Overall we can see that both of these players are among the very best defenders in the NBA, with Camby's overall rating being .606 last year, .585 this year, and Nene's being .514. Anything over .500 puts you into a very elite class of defenders. 4. You have to exaggerate the importance of man to man, zone, and other hidden defending and to minimize the importance of rebounding, blocking, and avoiding personal fouls in order to make the case that Nene is a better overall defender than is Marcus Camby. As the technical guide explains, Quest takes the position that hidden defending is almost as important as tracked defending, but certainly not more important. 5. This one is the big surprise to me: Marcus Camby is playing much better offensively than he was last year for the Nuggets: .434 versus .378. So while Nene is playing much better for the Nuggets this year than Camby played for the Nuggets last year, Camby is much improved offensively from last year to this year, so the offensive gap between Nene and Camby this year is relatively small, much smaller than I was thinking. Further, we can say that Marcus Camby is clearly being coached better offensively by the Clippers than he was by the Nuggets, where he wasn't really coached at all. 6. Mostly as a result of this offensive surprise, Camby is able to maintain his lead over Nene in overall Real Player Rating: .964 versus .881. Camby is in the historic super star range while Nene is in the super star range. In summary, while Nene has been s big, big upside surprise for the Nuggets, and while it is very true that Nene is far better than Camby in the untracked aspects of defending, nevertheless Camby remains the better player overall this season, since he remains far ahead of Nene in tracked defending, and since the offensive gap between Nene and Camby is much less than expected.
I rebranded from Nuggets 1 to Quest for the Ring when I realized that the Nuggets are not a full scale franchise, and when, more importantly, I realized that covering just one team was not going to cut it. On the other hand, I don't see how anyone can cover in good detail the whole NBA. So I decided to compromise: to cover two teams in detail, but at the same time to cover the entire NBA to some extent. Also, I decided to refocus from mostly reporting on individual games to reporting on broader and more important topics.
