NBA Net Rating Leaderboard

NBA Net Rating Leaderboard (offensive rating minus defensive rating)
(minimum 2 games and 10mpg)

1 Draymond Green

2 Harrison Barnes

3 Stephen Curry

4 Andre Iguadala

5 Lance Stephenson

6 DeAndre Jordan

7 Kelly Olynyk

8 Klay Thompson

http://stats.nba.com/league/player/#!/advanced/?sort=NET_RATING&dir=1

Just a cherry-picked stat, but pretty cool. KO finished last season as the 6th best center in the NBA in Real Plus Minus, and perhaps even cumulative plus minus, despite playing a lot less minutes for a much worse team than those above him.

These advanced stats are usually dominated by the best players on the best teams. Coming off the bench definitely helps KO's advanced stats, but no other bench center consistently makes the impact KO has made over the last 2+ years.

And he'll be even better next year. It'd be funny if Sully and KO turned out to be our future starting frontcourt after all.

"NBA Net Rating Leaderboard (offensive rating minus defensive rating)"

  The most irrelevant individual player stat that I have ever viewed.

 Swish

Celtics are allowing 33.5 more points per 100 possessions with KO OFF the court vs on the court.

Though the Celtics are scoring 9.2 points more points with KO off the court, due to his ice cold shooting start.

Celtics are still scoring 24.2 more points than their opponents with KO on the court per 100 possessions.
http://www.basketball-reference.com/players/o/olynyke01/on-off/2016/

It's just too bad Stevens didn't seem to trust KO before last night, and refused to play KO a single fourth quarter minute in KO's first 3 games.

Like I said before, KO could have done a better job against Aldridge when he was killing Sully in the 4th of that Spurs game, and KO would have been better against Jordan Hill when he was doing the same in the Indy game.

Of course, Jordan Mickey probably would have played better defense than anybody else on our roster against those stretch 4s, and he needs to be on the active roster every game, like he was last night.

Bob

Because its based on the team effort of 4 other players that were on the floor with him. His 22.5 rating is much higher than 31 players, all of them power forwards or centers. The list includes just about every highly regarded big man in the league. For example: Griffin - 14.6, Drummond - 15.7, - Horford - 6.9, Durant - 5.1, Nowitzki - 1.7, Marc Gasol, - minus 9.8 and rookie Okafor minus - 21.6. In addition team mates Mickey - 18.0 and Jerebko - 18.0 were also highly rated. So any stat that overwhelmingly favors a player like Olynyk over a bunch of all nba and all star players gets a big irrelevant from me.

swish

KO's the prototype of the modern day small ball center.

He may or may not put up the simple stats to win 6th man of the year, but the odds are that just like last year, his team will just so happen to play better ball than most every other team with any other reserve player just so happening to be in the game.

KO plays without an ego or personal agenda. Partly as a result, his teammates tend to shoot lights out whenever he's on the court. Other factors are the fact that KO is stretching the opposing center, or at least PF, out to the FT line. We saw IT4 and others getting wide open layups at the rim as soon as KO checked into the game.

And we all know that hot shooting often starts with a few layups to get warmed up. Then it's bombs away from everywhere, and infectious.

Rondo, for example, had a life-long habit of glaring at his teammate every time they missed a shot, and cost him an assist. He did this in high school, in college, in his rookie year in Boston (Doc: "Do you realize your teammates hate playing with you?"), and then in 2012 when KG and Pierce were over the hill and it was officially "Rondo's team".

Basic things like not having an ego and personal agenda go a long way towards impacting a basketball game, and it doesn't show up in the simple stats or the eye test.

Being a good passer, a smart defender, and putting in max effort also go a long way.

Chemistry and team balance is half of basketball, and the Celtics chemistry sucked until last night. And that's the biggest reason the team shot historically poor during the first 4 games.

Finally Brad Stevens swallowed his pride and gave our best pace and space big some real minutes, rather than trying to prove he knew the best lineup combinations back in August.

Here's the Celtics' pre-all star break roster, sorted by +/-. Even before IT got here, Olynyk was kicking ass at team basketball with a revolving door of rag-tag teammates who came and went every other week.

http://stats.nba.com/league/player/?ls=iref:nba:gnav#!/?Season=2014-15&SeasonType=Regular%20Season&sort=PLUS_MINUS&dir=1&TeamID=1610612738&SeasonSegment=Pre%20All-Star

If you think it's just a coincidence, check out the post all star +/-,
http://stats.nba.com/league/player/?ls=iref:nba:gnav#!/?Season=2014-15&SeasonType=Regular%20Season&sort=PLUS_MINUS&dir=1&TeamID=1610612738&SeasonSegment=Post%20All-Star

... or post all star break of KO's rookie year
http://stats.nba.com/league/player/?ls=iref:nba:gnav#!/?Season=2013-14&SeasonType=Regular%20Season&sort=PLUS_MINUS&dir=1&TeamID=1610612738&SeasonSegment=Post%20All-Star

Meanwhile, Bradley, Zeller, and Turner were down near the bottom with Brandon Bass and Jeff Green all last year.

Turner so far this season has a great +/-, which means he may be a great fit as a bench contributor, like Olynyk.

Take a look:
http://stats.nba.com/league/player/?ls=iref:nba:gnav#!/?Season=2015-16&SeasonType=Regular%20Season&sort=PLUS_MINUS&dir=1&TeamID=1610612738&SeasonSegment=Pre%20All-Star

We still need more sample size, for sure, but it would be great to have a starting 5 that all happen to put up at least neutral +/-.

I suspect Bradley wouldn't have an awful +/- if he was coming off the bench in an energizer role, and I hope Smart takes Bradley's spot in the starting lineup when he comes back.

Or at least Crowder's spot as starting SF. Smart can do it.

Because a motion offense like this requires good passers, and lumping 3-4 bad passers together and asking them to run a motion offense is just asking for a 25% winning % like we saw before last night.

Here again is the +/- leaderboard from after the ASB last season, when the bulk of this roster was together for the first time. The guys at the top usually played together, at least 3 of them at a time, off the bench. That was an amazing bench, best in the NBA.

Yet this season, until last night, Brad hadn't really put them together on the court at the same time, especially in the 4th quarter.

Last year, these guys dominated playing time in the 4th quarter, and we won close game after close game as a result.

Player TEAM +/-
Kelly Olynyk BOS 5.9
Isaiah Thomas BOS 5.5
Jonas Jerebko BOS 3.8
Gigi Datome BOS 3.4
Jae Crowder BOS 2.6
Phil Pressey BOS 1.6
Jared Sullinger BOS 1.6
Evan Turner BOS 0.7
Marcus Smart BOS 0.7
Tyler Zeller BOS -0.1
Gerald Wallace BOS -0.2
Avery Bradley BOS -0.7
Shavlik Randolph BOS -1.4
James Young BOS -1.7
Brandon Bass BOS -2.8

Some good points made, pro and con, regarding this particular stat. But I have to admit I'm skeptical of its usefulness.

First off, everything is skewed for this season because we only have a handful of games. The Warriors are of course dominating among players with decent minutes because they are undefeated and generally thumping the competition. They're a really good team and will likely still be well represented at the end of the season, but they're not going to keep up their current pace of beating teams by 19.8 points per game. Make all the arguments you want about Olynyk's performance this season based on this stat, but he's only played a grand total of 67 minutes over four games. We don't have enough of a sample to really tell anything yet.

Looking at the net rating stat, once you eliminate the players with little playing time -- Jeff Withey has a net rating of 159.6, he's the greatest player of all time! no, wait, he's only played one minute in one game -- it's going to favor players on teams with the best point differential. So maybe it's useful by comparing players within a team or perhaps to the point differential for their team.

So I looked at last season's stats, thinking that it might be useful to compare Celtics to each other, and Olynyk does pretty well, coming in fourth among his teammates. But here's the problem -- you know who came in first? Gigi Datome. Second was Jerebko, and third was Gerald Wallace. I have a hard time believing those were Boston's three most impactful players.

So I don't know what this stat really tells us. Some things it shows look obvious -- the Warriors, with a historically great 10.1 point differential, dominate the top of the list, and Steph Curry, their most impactful player, had the highest rating in the league among regular players at 17.0. But as a statistician friend of mine once said, plus/minus ratings for individual players are of dubious value, and the only truly useful plus/minus stat is for five-man units.

In the end, it makes for some interesting discussion, but I wouldn't read that much into it. Except for Steph Curry totally trouncing James Harden in net rating -- that's definitely a thing.

Post all star break, sorted for 4th quarter only:

Player +/-
Gigi Datome 3.6
Jonas Jerebko 2.6
Isaiah Thomas 2.5
Kelly Olynyk 2.3
Evan Turner 2.0
Tyler Zeller 1.3
James Young 1.1
Phil Pressey 1.1
Shavlik Randolph 1.0
Jae Crowder 0.9
Gerald Wallace 0.9
Avery Bradley 0.1
Jared Sullinger 0.0
Marcus Smart -0.2
Brandon Bass -1.1

Outside wrote:you know who came in first? Gigi Datome. Second was Jerebko, and third was Gerald Wallace. I have a hard time believing those were Boston's three most impactful players.

You forgot to adjust for minutes played. Nobody is suggesting Wallace's +/- had much/any meaning in just a few minutes played. Similarly adjust the weight of importance for limited minutes guys like Gigi, Jerebko, and even Olynyk I suppose, but they all did put up enough minutes to assign SOME value to the stat, especially when they are on the floor together, which was often.

There's no doubt in my mind we missed GiGi badley (intentional misspelling) in the first 4 games.

Guys like Gigi, Jerebko, and especially KO are like binding agents that can hold a team's offensive efficiency together. Without guys like that, you just have IT, Bradley, Turner, Crowder, and others taking turns turning the ball over, in between taking low % shots that are not in their wheelhouse.

Bob, I'll put this here but it answers your question in the game recap thread, about Gorman's mention of KO being 4th rated defender.

He's #1 in defensive rating (team points allowed per 100 possessions while player x is on the court) in the NBA, after I sorted for minimum 2 games and minimum 10 minutes per game

But I further sorted for a minimum of 3 games and 10mpg to subtract a couple 2 game wonders in the top 10:

It's still a ridiculously small sample size, of course. I'd be thrilled if KO ended up among the top 10 centers in this stat at the end of the year.

Player TEAM AGE GP W L MIN OffRtg DefRtg NetRtg AST% AST/TO AST Ratio OREB% DREB% REB% TO Ratio eFG% TS% USG% PACE PIE
Kelly Olynyk BOS 24 4 1 3 17 93.9 71.7 22.2 12.5 0.83 11.7 6.6 16.9 11.8 14.1 44.8 47.4 21.7 110.36 17.6
Kevin Garnett MIN 39 4 2 2 16 98.8 79.3 19.5 10.3 0.00 23.9 1.8 25.8 14.6 0.0 27.3 31.3 9.2 101.03 10.4
Raul Neto UTA 23 5 3 2 19 96.9 79.9 17.0 13.1 1.60 20.6 3.2 4.9 4.0 12.9 44.0 44.4 14.9 92.90 5.9
Trevor Booker UTA 27 4 3 1 22 99.3 80.8 18.5 4.9 3.00 9.7 8.3 16.5 12.3 3.2 35.2 35.2 13.8 95.86 6.5
Shaun Livingston GSW 30 6 6 0 18 98.5 81.9 16.6 16.0 1.71 27.9 2.6 9.6 6.1 16.2 38.1 45.7 11.7 102.98 6.5
Jonas Jerebko BOS 28 5 2 3 14 101.5 84.1 17.3 5.7 0.75 11.7 6.3 19.4 13.2 15.6 53.1 61.7 13.3 104.51 10.6
Mario Chalmers MIA 29 5 2 3 19 109.0 84.2 24.8 18.6 2.17 27.4 1.2 6.7 4.0 12.7 31.3 42.3 17.0 96.20 4.6
Tayshaun Prince MIN 35 4 2 2 19 105.2 85.5 19.6 5.7 0.00 20.5 1.5 6.3 4.1 0.0 22.2 34.4 6.8 101.01 2.9
Justise Winslow MIA 19 6 3 3 27 103.3 85.9 17.4 7.3 1.14 14.8 4.2 14.3 9.5 13.0 51.3 52.7 13.0 97.02 7.3
Ersan Ilyasova DET 28 5 4 1 27 93.9 85.9 8.0 4.8 0.57 7.4 7.5 8.7 8.1 12.9 50.0 50.8 15.7 97.48 6.0
Andre Iguodala GSW 31 6 6 0 27 110.7 85.9 24.8 21.8 6.50 37.9 4.3 11.8 8.3 5.8 45.8 46.6 11.0 103.14 10.8
Jason Smith ORL 29 5 2 3 11 99.3 86.1 13.1 3.0 0.50 3.6 2.0 14.0 8.4 7.2 45.7 48.5 22.3 101.07 7.8
Tyler Johnson MIA 23 5 2 3 18 101.1 86.2 14.9 17.0 3.00 23.7 6.3 13.0 9.6 7.9 61.4 61.6 15.6 96.31 13.2
Thabo Sefolosha ATL 31 4 3 1 20 105.7 86.6 19.0 13.3 2.00 26.9 5.9 20.5 13.7 13.4 50.0 47.9 12.3 99.70 11.7
David Lee BOS 32 5 2 3 18 85.6 86.9 -1.3 16.7 1.29 18.0 8.3 20.4 14.4 14.0 33.3 41.2 18.8 106.19 9.5
Matthew Dellavedova CLE 25 6 5 1 26 102.6 87.0 15.6 33.3 3.78 36.3 4.6 8.2 6.6 9.6 47.9 50.4 17.1 98.44 11.9
Aaron Brooks CHI 30 6 4 2 16 94.3 87.3 7.0 24.5 3.00 17.9 3.7 8.2 6.2 6.0 51.0 51.0 25.8 100.34 10.8
Mike Scott ATL 27 7 6 1 12 95.3 87.6 7.7 15.1 4.00 20.2 4.2 12.2 8.4 5.0 37.0 43.9 17.5 97.86 6.3
Justin Holiday ATL 26 4 4 0 17 97.0 87.9 9.1 9.8 1.33 14.3 0.0 7.2 4.0 10.7 45.2 45.2 15.6 98.64 5.8
Alex Len PHX 22 6 3 3 14 90.3 88.1 2.1 4.1 0.17 3.7 14.8 25.3 20.2 22.4 42.4 48.0 24.9 104.66 10.7
Evan Turner BOS 27 5 2 3 23 102.0 88.2 13.8 15.2 1.09 17.7 2.7 17.6 10.0 16.3 44.0 45.9 19.5 104.78 9.1
Marcus Smart BOS 21 3 1 2 33 94.4 88.6 5.8 17.5 5.50 22.7 1.0 7.0 3.7 4.1 46.8 50.8 15.6 104.28 9.5
Andre Drummond DET 22 5 4 1 38 102.2 88.7 13.5 2.7 0.25 2.8 17.9 32.8 25.3 11.2 50.0 50.4 22.7 98.29 18.4
Rondae Hollis-Jefferson BKN 20 6 0 6 17 105.4 89.0 16.3 6.3 0.83 15.3 5.4 21.4 13.6 18.3 55.0 52.8 11.7 98.24 9.5
Derrick Favors UTA 24 5 3 2 27 97.3 89.1 8.1 7.6 1.00 6.0 9.6 23.6 16.2 6.0 48.4 52.1 26.4 93.31 20.2
Reggie Jackson DET 25 5 4 1 33 101.0 89.3 11.7 31.2 1.38 19.7 1.2 13.7 7.3 14.2 45.9 50.8 30.2 99.16 14.9
Ricky Rubio MIN 25 4 2 2 30 97.6 89.4 8.2 53.7 5.14 37.9 0.9 13.0 7.4 7.4 46.3 58.7 21.8 102.73 24.1
Marreese Speights GSW 28 6 6 0 14 101.6 89.6 11.9 10.2 0.71 8.0 11.1 21.1 16.5 11.3 35.2 41.9 28.5 101.15 8.6
Jeremy Evans DAL 28 4 2 2 15 84.1 89.6 -5.5 0.0 0.00 0.0 3.2 14.1 8.7 12.7 58.3 65.4 5.9 103.48 8.1
Tristan Thompson CLE 24 6 5 1 24 101.7 90.2 11.5 4.0 1.00 9.7 10.2 32.2 22.1 9.7 62.1 61.4 11.1 98.93 15.7
Kawhi Leonard SAS 24 5 3 2 33 97.3 90.7 6.6 4.5 0.33 3.4 4.9 22.3 14.4 10.3 50.0 53.9 29.9 98.67 16.9
Marcus Morris DET 26 5 4 1 39 99.4 90.8 8.6 8.0 1.00 9.1 5.7 13.2 9.4 9.1 50.0 54.7 19.8 98.15 12.3
Boris Diaw SAS 33 5 3 2 20 100.3 90.8 9.5 24.3 2.83 33.3 1.2 8.3 5.0 11.7 58.0 58.8 15.3 101.12 10.7
Lavoy Allen IND 26 6 3 3 19 100.1 91.0 9.1 9.3 1.00 16.8 11.3 15.4 13.5 16.8 36.0 36.2 13.6 95.67 5.0
E'Twaun Moore CHI 26 6 4 2 18 95.9 91.0 4.9 7.0 1.00 12.8 0.0 10.1 5.7 12.8 48.3 48.3 14.4 99.11 5.8
Patty Mills SAS 27 5 3 2 22 101.7 91.0 10.7 11.4 1.80 22.0 1.2 8.4 5.2 12.2 69.2 68.8 13.2 101.59 8.5
Tim Duncan SAS 39 5 3 2 29 99.7 91.0 8.6 17.7 1.42 22.3 6.4 25.0 16.5 15.7 48.7 57.0 17.7 98.66 13.6
LeBron James CLE 30 6 5 1 34 108.0 91.1 16.9 34.7 2.56 21.6 2.7 18.2 10.6 8.4 52.1 53.6 31.4 96.43 19.5
Leandro Barbosa GSW 32 6 6 0 15 105.3 91.1 14.2 12.1 1.14 16.4 3.4 9.1 6.4 14.4 46.9 47.4 18.3 100.40 4.5
Devin Harris DAL 32 5 2 3 23 90.3 91.1 -0.8 12.1 1.14 13.1 2.5 12.2 7.2 11.5 37.2 41.3 20.3 103.79 5.4
Cory Joseph TOR 24 6 5 1 23 99.0 91.3 7.7 18.4 1.75 22.9 0.8 6.6 3.8 13.1 56.1 61.3 14.7 99.73 11.5

http://stats.nba.com/league/player/#!/advanced/?sort=DEF_RATING&dir=-1&Season=2015-16&SeasonType=Regular%20Season&CF=GP*GE*3%7CMIN*GE*10

In a related but different stat, defensive real plus minus, KO finished 22nd among centers last year

http://espn.go.com/nba/statistics/rpm/_/year/2015/sort/DRPM/position/9

That solid defensive showing helped him to finish ranked 6th among centers in overall Real Plus Minus, because most centers only made an impact on one side of the ball.

Defensive Real Plus Minus accounts for the quality of the opposing players on the floor at the same time as player x. Which is how it identified Isaiah Thomas as the 69th best defensive PG, with a defensive real plus minus of -2.69.

http://espn.go.com/nba/statistics/rpm/_/year/2015/page/2/sort/DRPM/position/1

rambone wrote:You forgot to adjust for minutes played. Nobody is suggesting Wallace's +/- had much/any meaning in just a few minutes played.

When you change the filter to include Boston only, you get all players who played for Boston and their stats for Boston games only.

http://stats.nba.com/league/player/#!/advanced/?sort=NET_RATING&dir=1&Season=2014-15&SeasonType=Regular%20Season&TeamID=1610612738

Looking at that, I just don't know what you can make out of it. IT did very well, which is no surprise, but Bass, Bradley, Turner, Sullinger, and Zeller all have net ratings between -2.0 and -3.0. I have a hard time believing that Gigi, IT, and Olynyk carried the team while Bradley, Turner, Sullinger, and Zeller all should be traded away.

It's nice that Olynyk has a positive net rating, but if you're going to read something into that, you also have to read something into the negative ratings for Bradley, Turner, Sullinger, and Zeller.

"Basketball is a team sport, not an individual one."
bob,
I agree with your above statement 100%. Every player on a team has a role, its just that some play a more significant role than others. I certainly am not going to equate Olynyk's value to the Celtics to that of Bird, Jordan, Magic and many other Super Stars that led their teams to champions. In fact I consider super stars to be the big difference between the serious contenders and the also rans. Your mention of Rondo reminded me of another stat that I consider quite useless. I've never been a big fan of the individual assist stat and the hype
that it receives from the media.

swish

Outside wrote:It's nice that Olynyk has a positive net rating, but if you're going to read something into that, you also have to read something into the negative ratings for Bradley, Turner, Sullinger, and Zeller.

I definitely read something into Sullinger's +/- from last year. He attitude is well known to have been lousy, like his eating habits. So it's not surprising he made a lousy impact on the court, even as a sub. Though in 9 games after the All Star Break, when our playoff run was well underway, no thanks to him, he did play better.

As far as Bradley, Turner, and Zeller, they all played in a starting unit with Brandon Bass, who is now gone.

But it's not surprising that Zeller and Bradley continued to have lousy +/- stats as starters this year.

Zeller has been replaced in the starting lineup now, and his +/- will likely rise into the positive as a result. I strongly suspect the same would happen for Bradley as well, if he is moved to the bench.

There are plenty of successful bench scoring guards around the NBA, guys who you keep playing if they are hot, or just limit their minutes if they're having an off night. Guys like Marcus Thornton Sr, Nick Young, Jamal Crawford, etc. IT4 being another recent example.

Turner is putting up a much better +/- this year, but it's in a reserve role, a role he is much better cut out for. I suspect the same is true for Bradley and Zeller.

I just want to clarify that I'm not necessarily saying that KO would put up the same, or even a positive +/- if he was inserted into the starting lineup. KO excels against benches, and if he's feeling it he excels against starters in the 4th quarter, where his endurance and conditioning advantage helps.

Same goes for IT4. He put up a great +/- off the bench last year, but that doesn't mean he'll even put up a positive +/- as a starter now. We'll have to wait and see, and account for who else is in the starting lineup with him.

KO had one good game.....hes going to the HoF !!! the stats prove it !!!!!

Wonder what Red Auerbach would say about all these stats? Pretty sure I would be with him. Stats? Wins and loses. Know your players and get out there and win baby as a team. Each player contributes their best talents to improve each other. Oh and go have a beer after the game with everybody and be a team. Stats not me.

KO was the first big off the bench last night. Just like last year. Unlike the other games this year.

Guys - too small a sample size for such an indirect stat. Drawing any conclusions one way or the other at this point is simply meaningless.

bob I hear ya, that clown also went on a rant on Justice Winslow, saying hes unathletic and going to be just a role player after 1 or 2 games....that kid is physical, athletic, can finish in traffic, hes gonna be a star.

I suspect he's talking about me.

So he's really going to hate this one

KO is not only the top rated defender in the entire NBA at the moment, but he's also allowing less points in the paint by the other team than any other center in the NBA. Gobert is second, Duncan third.

http://stats.nba.com/league/player/#!/misc/?Season=2015-16&SeasonType=Regular%20Season&PerMode=Per36&sort=OPP_PTS_PAINT&dir=-1&PlayerPosition=C&CF=GP*GE*3%7CMIN*GE*11

He also now #1 in the NBA in steals per 36 minutes for all players with more than 15 total minutes.
http://stats.nba.com/league/player/#!/?Season=2015-16&SeasonType=Regular%20Season&PerMode=Per36&sort=STL&dir=1

He also leads the NBA in opposing FG% from 8 feet and in, at 36.7%, after filtering out guys who only face 5 shots or less in the paint.

Gobert is second at 39.8% allowed from 8 feet and in. Bogut is third, allowing 40.0%.
http://stats.nba.com/league/player/#!/oppshooting/?Season=2015-16&SeasonType=Regular%20Season&DistanceRange=8ft%20Range&sort=Less%20Than%208%20ft.%20FG%20PCT&dir=-1

Meanwhile, I'm a clown for not thinking KO is a terrible defender, and for thinking that KO is a better defender than Sully.

Just check out our points allowed with Sully on the court vs off.

Opponents are scoring 105.3 pp100 with Sully on the court, but only 91.3 with Sully OFF the court.

Opponents are scoring 74.0 pp100 possessions with KO on the court, 107.5 with KO Off the court.

Celtics are overall 24.2 pp100 better with KO on the floor than off, but the Celtics are 4.2 pp100 WORSE with Sully on the floor.

That's a 28.4 point difference per 100 possessions between Olynyk and Sully, but I'm a clown for not seeing how terrible Olynyk is on defense, and how much better Sully is defensively.

The biggest reason the Celtics were only up 2 points when KO checked in in the first quarter, even though Sully was making every single shot, is because the Wizards scored 4 straight buckets just outside of Sully's reach, mostly because he couldn't move his feet one step on help defense.

If Sully's not guarding a huge center, he's a defensive liability because of his low reach, worst mobility among PFs in the NBA, and utter lack of vertical leap.

He can still be like a prime David Lee because of his scoring and rebounding, but he'll probably always be a bit of an empty stats guy, except perhaps against Brook Lopez and Okafor and Cousins. That's an important role, but less and less frequent a matchup in the modern NBA.

Olynyk is almost always in the right place, almost always contesting every shot in his area, which is pretty wide, and he's picking up where he left off last year, when he had a very decent opposing FG% inside of 8 feet.

I think Cowens had a name calling tantrum over that one too, because he never saw it with his eye test.

http://www.basketball-reference.com/players/s/sullija01/on-off/2016/

http://www.basketball-reference.com/players/o/olynyke01/on-off/2016/