A lot of people seem to think defense doesn't matter in WIS. Granted, I'm only looking at one league here, but in my current league (NBA33701, we're 64 games in) I keep track of stats like offensive efficiency (points per 100 possessions), defensive efficiency, offensive pace (# of possessions per game) and defensive pace (# of possessions allowed per game - which can differ from offensive pace due to things like offensive rebounding).

In the real world this season, the top defensive team allowed 102.8 pts per 100 possessions while the worst allowed 113.2. In my league the top team allows 88.72 while the worst allows 105.76 (but they're a crappy team that may have been abandoned, so we'll look at the second worst - 102.27, or even the average: 98.51). The range in the real world is comparable to the range in our league. So, it seems like defense has some effect, doesn't it? If anything, teams do better offensively in real life than they do here.

As for why scoring is so high, that's easy - in the real world the average pace is 92.7 possessions per 48 minutes. In my league it's 117.1 per game (which obviously overstates it a little bit since some small portion of games goes to OT, but it'd take work I don't feel like doing to adjust it). That's a big difference.

In real life the average FG% is 46.1%, here it's 49.2%. Turnover rates are similar (13.3% of possessions in real life vs. 13.5% in our league), but FTA per FGA is 30% in real life vs only 25.4% in our league. I think this probably stems from so many people picking very good outside shooters (high percentages, low turnovers, low FTA rate so the percents are boosted even more by the up tempo offense while turnovers are brought to a more reasonable level by that pace).

Now, you could say that it's the actual "defense" rating that's flawed and that the defense above is just from blocks and steals, and some of that may be true, but as an example - that team above that's best in defensive efficiency in our league? They have an about average blocks per opponent FGA rate (5.57% vs 5.23%) and only two extra steals per 100 possessions (9.5 vs 7.5) which given the efficiencies above only equates to about two points of difference anyway.

In conclusion, does anyone have any actual proof that the defensive rating is "broken" or is it just people ******** when Michael Jordan still lights up their 95 defense player as if it were some 45 defender? (by the way, keep in mind that all five players' defense matters, so a defensive stopper can't do it all by himself - just like in real life). I'm thinking defense might not be broken - maybe this is just a symptom of the way people draft their teams and choose their offense/defense (uptempo/press). You can't really blame the engine for that. More people could build teams like the defensive team above: its' record is 46-18.

most people's complaint is that you don't get good value for good defensive players (u pay a lot but the impact isn't enough)

For one thing, I appreciate that someone has taken the effort to really put together a very good team predicated on defense. You've done a great job with that team. One thing I'm amazed is how little your team is fouling; are you running slow down? I have a team right now with over 300 fewer fouls IRL that's committing over 17 fouls per game right now.

As to your numbers - looks like you did some pretty good research. A couple things: first, I believe you're in an open league. Good teams in open leagues often have their numbers skewed by horrible teams, which you pointed out in your post - I'd be interested to know how your team's numbers look when you take out the awful team in your division.

Second, the issue isn't really how much teams are scoring per possession, or that offense is overpowered. It's that defensive ratings don't seem to provide enough of a difference to make them worth the salary in most cases. There doesn't seem to be much difference between the effect of a 90 overall defender and a 70 or 60 overall defender, and that's what people mean when they talk about defense being broken - that there's not enough of a discernible difference between elite and good defenders, good and average defenders, etc.


For example, let's look at a more balanced league than an open league - the most recent iteration of the ODL (original draft league), NBA 33483. My team had the best field goal percentage defense in the league - 48.0%, with my team averaging over 9 steals and 9 blocks a game. I had 7 players who played more than 7 minutes a game - their defensive ratings were 96, 90, 82, 80, 80, 50, and 39. The two guys at 50 and 39 played mostly at the same position, so I usually had 3-4 players with 80+ defense on the floor at the same time; plus, those 5 players with 80+ def were a PG/SG, SG/SF, PF/C, PF/C, PF/C so I had most of the court covered with excellent defenders. You would expect that to be a very good defensive team - and yet 48.0 pct from the field is all, even with a healthy number of blocks?



Another team in my division had a 7-man rotation with defensive ratings of 94, 79, 65, 63, 59, 56, 50 - not nearly the amount of high-level defenders. Yet that team - while blocking 2.4 fewer shots per game - allowed 49.4 pct shooting. Considering our opponents both took under 100 shots per game, that 2.5 blocks per game more than makes up the difference in field goal percentage, Outside of the blocks our teams essentially defended the same - do you think that sounds right?




Note: I realize this is an over-simplification. But anyone with a lot of teams in the sim over the last year or so can tell you that, for the most part, defense is not worth what you pay for it.

The league worst 105.76 is a start. Nash defends as well as CP3. Ray Allen defends like MJ, and vice versa. I don't get mad about MJ lighting it up vs. 96 defense. I get mad at Nash lighting up CP3 while Paul gets shut down by Nash.

The real world comparisons don't work very well. Why? The average RL team has what, MAYBE one 95 defender? It is possible to assemble a full team of 90+ guys here. That should mean some seriously low opp fg%. My defensive team held teams to a not so terrible 46%. It was very effective vs cookie cutters, but ended up getting beat by a mediocre defensive team that lit up guys like Kidd, Pierce and Rodman.

Offense is WAY too cheap and there seems to be no rhyme or reason to the price of 3pointers made or fts.

Very common to see Dana Barros avg over 50% on 2 and 3 pointers for a season for example.

You have a good point that a great defensive team can do quite well, though. Trouble is that you get killed at the line and it is hard to find enough usage and eFG in great defenders. Best of luck!

I am running slow down, yes. That's another reason I try to look at everything on a per possession basis (because obviously if I just look at PPG allowed, it wouldn't really be fair).

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I think more people have issue with the effect of DEF in the sim as it relates to the salary side. The effect in the sim is at least tolerable. so don't think of it as DEF being broken so much as it's impact as related to cost is way off base.

Tarheel.... some of that difference may have been the division foes and the fact we play them more than other teams. i would bet you team and the team at 49.4 were in different conferences. Tell me they were in the same division and I'd be flabbergasted.

Quote: Originally posted by jakotay on 4/30/2010I think more people have issue with the effect of DEF in the sim as it relates to the salary side. The effect in the sim is at least tolerable. so don't think of it as DEF being broken so much as it's impact as related to cost is way off base.

Tarheel.... some of that difference may have been the division foes and the fact we play them more than other teams. i would bet you team and the team at 49.4 were in different conferences. Tell me they were in the same division and I'd be flabbergasted.

they were in the same division...that's ash's team that won the title

to me it's a few things:

there doesnt seem to be a significant difference between a 70 d rating and a 90 d rating

you pay a disporportionate amount for defensive ratings compared to other stat factors that seem to have more impact on the game

some of the individual ratings are whack, guys with 90s that should never see anything north of 50, guys with 70s that should be maxed out at 96 (or whatever it is)

Call me flabbergasted!!!! Odd though.

And hopefully we'll see some changes to the guys with the next player season release (felonius).

Quote: Originally posted by felonius on 4/30/2010to me it's a few things:there doesnt seem to be a significant difference between a 70 d rating and a 90 d ratingyou pay a disporportionate amount for defensive ratings compared to other stat factors that seem to have more impact on the gamesome of the individual ratings are whack, guys with 90s that should never see anything north of 50, guys with 70s that should be maxed out at 96 (or whatever it is)

I agree with every word of this.

The other thing about defensive ratings that I think is funny: supposedly they're based on a "formula," but that formula has clearly been adjusted manually in a lot of cases for unknown reasons (I guess they felt it was just wrong on some guys?).


Check out, just for example:

-Moses Malone's rating of exactly 50 in 7 of his last 8 seasons (before the update those numbers were mostly above 75)

-Joe Dumars with a rating of either 50, 80, or 90 in every one of his seasons (odd that a formula would spit out a round number every season, no? He also has a couple streaks of several consecutive 50s)

-looking further at def of 50 and 90. Among players with 2000+ minutes, there are:

135 guys with 49 defense
300 guys with 50 defense
121 guys with 51 defense


43 players with 89 defense
171 players with 90 defense
53 players with 91 defense


weird...doesn't really fit that smooth bell curve of defensive ratings, does it?


so my question is...why have so many guys clearly been adjusted to round number values, especially 50 and 90?

Jerry West is another one of those guys... he's either a 90 or a 50 depending on the season, and it doesn't make any sense!

Well, it's possible there's some kind of minimum function being applied, right? Did you try crosschecking it vs things like presence on the all-defense team?

Like, their defense is some function of blocks, steals, and defensive rebounds but they take the minimum of that number or 90 if they made first team all-defense? Or minimum of 50 for a guy if he ever made all-defense in his career? Or minimum of 50 if he ever had any season of 80+ via the formula? That could account for a disproportionate number of round numbers. If you incorporate things like all-defense teams, rank in the league in blocks/steals/defensive rebounds/etc (like if you lead the league in blocks but your formula only gives you a 76, it automatically gives you a 90?). Also, sure, it's possible they manually adjusted some guys who just didnt make sense.