http://www.basketball-reference.com/labs/a...bmit=View+Stats I think alot of people only think of Yao as an offensive player, but he does play well defensively, that's why he draws alot of fouls sometimes I remember him frustrating amare in one game vs suns where he was truly defended well agains him, most of his blocks were from amare's attempts Deke is above Yao at #6, that's reasonable since deke has been defensive player of the year before. Tmac and swift is in there as well. This is based off of last year's stats. Yao was #10 in efficiency too.
Anyone knows the formula of Defensive Rating? I've seen team DRtg formula. Is it the same when talking about players?
It comes from Dean Oliver's work. He talks about it in this article, comparing Olajuwon and Jordan: http://www.rawbw.com/~deano/articles/JordanvsOlaj.html Scroll down to the section on Defensive Rating. It's kind of complicated. It basically tries to approximate the player's man defense and then adds in steals, blocks, and defensive rebounds. As I understand it, the first part is more a function of team defense, so Yao's defensive rating is certainly skewed because the Rockets were a very good defensive team last year. Plus, since the sum of steals, blocks, and rebounds typically favor centers, it's not surprising that Yao would have a high "defensive rating". And, of course, it makes total sense that Mutombo's rating would be even higher. Yao's rating is almost certainly skewed because of Mutombo's dominance while he was on the court. I doesn't look like the formula distinguishes between team defense while Yao was on the floor versus team defense while Mutombo was on the floor. But, in fact, there was a significant difference. According to 82games.com, with Yao on the floor the Rockets gave up nearly 105 points per 100 possessions, but with Mutombo on the floor they only gave up 95.3 points per 100 possessions.
