blue9
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How many of those shots are altered? How many times do offenses settle for a jumper instead of attacking a shot blocker? How many times when those shots are altered or missed from jumpers does the team run down on a fast break because of it? I think it's a lot more important than 2 points. It literally can chance a teams offensive game plan
I know what you're saying, and I don't think we're in disagreement. I was merely pointing out that the list of Cs posted by brainiac was made artificially short by the requirement of 2bpg. BPG doesn't capture shots that are altered, and so it's a very incomplete, and not very useful, measurement of a player's defense. Is there really any noticeable difference between a C who blocks 2.2 spg and a C who blocks 1.7 spg (or 2 vs 1, as I originally posited)? Perhaps there is, but you can't just look at that measurement and say that the guy who has the higher BPG average is the better player. The guy who's averaging 1.7bpg may be altering far more shots than the guy with a higher BPG average.
And I'm talking specifically about the blocked shots - not what they MIGHT lead to. In the best case scenario the difference between 1 block and 2 blocks is a savings of two points (3 if you want to get technical, but how often does a C block a 3-pointer?). If everyone in the league shot 100% then the difference would be 2 points. But because nobody shoots 100% it's not even a 2 points per game difference - more like 1 ppg. So in a game that scores in the 90s/100s are we really THAT concerned about a 1 ppg difference? I'm not. I'll take someone with a lower BPG average if they're a better overall defender.
And just to get back to what MIGHT happen after a blocked shot - often times the shot is blocked out of bounds, giving the ball back to the opponent with a chance to reset their offense.
Again, I just think that a fairly useless stat was used to create an artificially short list. There are far more than 3 quality Cs in the league.
