When Jimmy Comes Back Should Snell Stay In The Starting Lineup

Dunleavy's real best role is to come in and shoot 3pt shots over a zone defense that's giving us trouble.

I think that's what he was brought here for.

 

The thing is, Dunleavy hasn't been average.

His PER the past two seasons are 12.6 and 11.0. By that measure, "average" is 15.

It's not unreasonable for a bench player to have those sorts of PERs.

 

I think the only measure you can find of him being average or above is 3pt shooting and maybe TS% (on low usage).

From what I saw of his career, his teams couldn't figure out where to play him because he's really tall and has decent handles but can't guard SGs and he's far less athletic than the SFs in the league.

The guy is 34 years old, too. Skills, except for shooting, fade.

 

It was interesting to me to see Dunleavy's name show up at the top of one of these rankings.

http://www.sloansportsconference.co...2015/02/SSAC15-RP-Finalist-Counterpoints2.pdf

Also, just an interesting paper in general. SportsVU data and how its being used is interesting.

 

You're absolutely right. I infer from your post that intelligent bulls fans think DunVP is a 2 time DPOY and a once in a generation rebounder.

 

With Jimmy and Dunleavy on the court at the same time, Dunleavy guarded the weakest of the wing players. By virtue of being on the floor at the same time the Bulls were putting up elite defensive team stats, his stats are going to be pretty good.

Boozer's defensive stats were up there, too. I don't think anyone thinks Boozer was a great defender by any stretch.

 

Right, but if he was guarding a weaker offensive player either 4-10 seconds before the shot or at the time of the shot, that offensive player would have a lower "expected points" right?

"Counterpoints" is measuring the defenders ability to alter the expected return of the offensive player I believe, which is supposedly what is being displayed in that table.

 

It looked to me like points scored against, by position.

Dunleavy last season may have scored 11.4 but the guy he guarded scored 10.8.

Something like that.

 

There is more to it than that, I believe.

They estimate what guy is guarding who by culling through the sportsVU data. They use this to determine matchup. They also can track this second by second throughout the possession. They decided to look at who was guarding who 10-4 seconds before the shot, who was guarding who at the time of the shot and then a blend of these two, which is the "fractional." They then calculate the expected output of the guy the defender is guarding at those spots and calculate the difference the defender causes from the expectation. At least that's my takeaway from my initial read, which could be WAY off.

Its an interesting approach, but of course its hard to know its validity at this time. Strange to see Dunleavy's name appear no matter what.

 

The guy who guarded Rodman didn't give up many points.

I don't see where what you are saying changes what I said.

In games against the Heat last year, Dunleavy would end up on Wade, who scored at will as if DunVP was a statue. And Thibs gave him a quick hook. So someone else's rating took the hit.

 

It would not matter if he was guarding a weaker player or stronger player, how that player differs from what they usually do is what would matter. It was replying to the "he's playing with jimmy so he's guarding a weaker guy" statement.

 

Anyone playing against Jimmy and Noah fares worse.

 

I'm not really disagreeing with you, I just thought it was an interesting paper and was surprised to see MDJr so high on the list.

 

Look at Boozer on 82games.com last season. His defense was good by their measure.