Shane Battier just became my favorite NBA player of all time after Dennis Johnson.
Bryant isn’t like that. He is better at pretty much everything than everyone else, but there are places on the court, and starting points for his shot, that render him less likely to help his team. When he drives to the basket, he is exactly as likely to go to his left as to his right, but when he goes to his left, he is less effective. When he shoots directly after receiving a pass, he is more efficient than when he shoots after dribbling. He’s deadly if he gets into the lane and also if he gets to the baseline; between the two, less so. “The absolute worst thing to do,” Battier says, “is to foul him.” It isn’t that Bryant is an especially good free-throw shooter but that, as Morey puts it, “the foul is the worst result of a defensive play.” One way the Rockets can see which teams think about the game as they do is by identifying those that “try dramatically not to foul.” The ideal outcome, from the Rockets’ statistical point of view, is for Bryant to dribble left and pull up for an 18-foot jump shot; force that to happen often enough and you have to be satisfied with your night. “If he has 40 points on 40 shots, I can live with that,” Battier says. “My job is not to keep him from scoring points but to make him as inefficient as possible.” The court doesn’t have little squares all over it to tell him what percentage Bryant is likely to shoot from any given spot, but it might as well.
The reason the Rockets insist that Battier guard Bryant is his gift for encouraging him into his zones of lowest efficiency. The effect of doing this is astonishing: Bryant doesn’t merely help his team less when Battier guards him than when someone else does. When Bryant is in the game and Battier is on him, the Lakers’ offense is worse than if the N.B.A.’s best player had taken the night off. “The Lakers’ offense should obviously be better with Kobe in,” Morey says. “But if Shane is on him, it isn’t.” A player whom Morey describes as “a marginal N.B.A. athlete” not only guards one of the greatest — and smartest — offensive threats ever to play the game. He renders him a detriment to his team.
A long one but a good one by Michael Lewis, The No-Stats All-Star.
Hat-tip to Susie and Lambert.
I really liked the article too - about how statistics designed to notice and reward grandstanders render players like Battier invisible and about how the subtle ways he edges the odds in favor of his team result in greater success in the long run than more flamboyant single plays.
Posted by: R | Wednesday, February 18, 2009 at 04:23 PM
It was a good article, but I kept wondering "what's his race got to do with this?"
Posted by: Linkmeister | Wednesday, February 18, 2009 at 04:47 PM
...and now that Kobe knows?
Posted by: daveh | Wednesday, February 18, 2009 at 07:18 PM
Yeah, that Michael Lewis - he just has that rare knack of making the arcane clear and interesting, but he's more than that. He simply makes you feel cooler now that you understand that stuff, whatever it is - the John Madden of writer's (that's meant as a compliment)
Posted by: Chris The Cop | Wednesday, February 18, 2009 at 08:15 PM
That's a great example of how unselfish play often doesn't get recognized. Players who inspire their teammates to play better and more cohesively don't always have the flashiest stats, either.
Posted by: Batocchio | Thursday, February 19, 2009 at 01:45 PM
Anyone who watched Battier during his Duke days would read Lewis's article and be wondering why there are all these references to his being "a marginal NBA athlete."
He's the player, after Grant Hill, who most reminded me of Pete Rose: worked harder than anyone else on the team, and generally got the job done. Gotta wonder what the NBA execs and scouts were thinking; Duke was never Indiana.
Posted by: Ken Houghton | Sunday, February 22, 2009 at 12:03 AM