The Honorable Cock Jowles:
The argument invariably becomes: “Because the data lacks some information, let’s disregard it.” I’m done playing that game.

No one ever says disregard it. That’s you pouting at the end of every thread.

Juany8: Wow that was some bad English, it should read, “What you’re ignoring here is the crux of the argument about some players getting steals by being aggressive instead of playing solid defense. You are assuming that a player attempts to get steals only when he actually gets the steal.”

Site could really use an edit post feature lol

Juany8, there’s not much in the way of evidence that Paul is that sort of player though. If you watch him you see that that isn’t the case. Even if you don’t, I feel confident that that’s the sort of thing Hollinger would have brought up in his Paul analysis (similar to how he killed Ibaka for the over aggressiveness problem) where instead he says:

“Defensively, Paul was his usual pesky self. He led the league in steals per minute, and while his size is an issue, his ball hawking more than offset it. Opposing point guards had a 13.8 PER against him, according to 82games.com, and Synergy rated him well above average.”

In addition, I’m not sure it was you, but the poster who thinks Russell Westbrook is a better defender than Chris Paul is insane. Unless, of course, what he meant was that Westbrook has better defensive tools/potential (which he does). Ironically, that same poster mentioned Rondo as another superior defender, and he is a guy that Hollinger cites as going for the steal too much, FWIW.

Juany8: What you’re ignoring here is the crux of the argument about some players getting steals by being aggressive instead of playing solid defense. You are assuming that a player only gets attempt to get a steal when he actually gets the steal.

Wow that was some bad English, it should read, “What you’re ignoring here is the crux of the argument about some players getting steals by being aggressive instead of playing solid defense. You are assuming that a player attempts to get steals only when he actually gets the steal.”

Site could really use an edit post feature lol

The Honorable Cock Jowles: Because a FGA always has the potential of going in. It’s a possession used to make a scoring attempt, and is thus NOT a turnover. Over time, a bad team will have more of these “last ditch” scoring plays and have a consequently lower eFG%. A good defensive team will, over time, force more of these plays, and thus have a low team eFG% against.

A turnover is a possession that is NOT USED IN A SCORING ATTEMPT. If there is no scoring attempt, there is a 0% chance of scoring points (outside of technical fouls and other events that happen so infrequently that they don’t make much of a difference in long-term results like eFG, TOV%, ORB% and FTM/FGA do). So we can separate TOV% and STL% completely from those “low percentage shots” because they ARE, in fact, accounted for in team defense.

What you’re ignoring here is the crux of the argument about some players getting steals by being aggressive instead of playing solid defense. You are assuming that a player only gets attempt to get a steal when he actually gets the steal. Like field goals, players miss on steal attempts, and it often results in a compromised defense. I’m sure this doesn’t apply as much to Chris Paul, but someone like Allen Iverson will rack up lots of steals cheating off his opponent and gambling, and there is some potential downside to each steal attempt, in that a miss could result in a very favorable look. A player like Ibaka has this exact same problem with Blocks, no statistic factors in how many times he allows an open layup by jumping every single time an opponent makes a shot motion.

Basically, you’re giving credit for steals in blocks but not penalizing their misses. It would be like counting up field goals made and just ignoring the bad efforts, the team can get an offensive rebound anyways right?

ruruland: But TOV% and efg% allowed are not accounted for individual players.

So, why are we simply focusing on STL % when there are far more plays an individual defender is involved in?

Because we have no way of differentiating between players in team defense without doing crazy backflips with +/- data that really doesn’t say much of anything. With steals, we see that the numbers 1) remain consistent over time, suggesting that individual players are mainly responsible for their own production and 2) the steals result in a turnover and thus end the opposition’s possession and begins one for the receiving team.

ruruland: What’s the difference between charges and steals, statistically?

What about turnovers that are neither steals or charges?

The Knicks had 555 steals that season, and teams ranged from 822 to 508. So even the worst stealing team in the league had nearly four times as many steals as the worst team in the league in charges (-118).

And turnovers that are neither steals nor charges? Accounted for in offensive TOV%.

The Honorable Cock Jowles: And also, the backcourt violation thing? That’s accounted for in opponents’ TOV%.Charges? Maybe statistically significant. I looked up some numbers, and this is my interpretation:In 2005-06, the Knicks were the worst team in net charges, having 118 net possessions lost to charges. http://www.82games.com/charge.htmIf the Knicks were, instead, even on net charges, they would (reasonably) gain about 120 points according to their offensive rating. Since they scored about 7800 pts that season, charges would have accounted for 1.5% of their points scored that season. Do you find that statistically significant?

What’s the difference between charges and steals, statistically?

What about turnovers that are neither steals or charges?

The Honorable Cock Jowles: Because a FGA always has the potential of going in. It’s a possession used to make a scoring attempt, and is thus NOT a turnover. Over time, a bad team will have more of these “last ditch” scoring plays and have a consequently lower eFG%. A good defensive team will, over time, force more of these plays, and thus have a low team eFG% against.A turnover is a possession that is NOT USED IN A SCORING ATTEMPT. If there is no scoring attempt, there is a 0% chance of scoring points (outside of technical fouls and other events that happen so infrequently that they don’t make much of a difference in long-term results like eFG, TOV%, ORB% and FTM/FGA do). So we can separate TOV% and STL% completely from those “low percentage shots” because they ARE, in fact, accounted for in team defense.

But TOV% and efg% allowed are not accounted for individual players.

So, why are we simply focusing on STL % when there are far more plays an individual defender is involved in?