Bass Gets Credit For The Defense

This thread includes excerpts from articles about this.  First, though, I'd like to look at 82games.com's 5-man unit analysis.

http://www.82games.com/1314/1314BOS2.HTM

13 of the top 20 5-man units have Bass in them, including 5 of the 6 most used.

The unit of Bradley-Wallace-Green-Bass-Faverani, which is the most used unit (taking into account that 82games.com tends to be a little slow in updating their stats), gives up an average of .88 points/possession.   By comparison, Indy's vaunted #1 defense's top two 5-man units, in terms of minutes played together, give up .94 and .90 points/possession respectively.  Charlotte gives up the 2nd most number of points/game (Charlotte?).  Their top 2 5-man units give up .99 and .80 points per possession.  San Antonio is third and their top 5-man unit gives up .95 points per possession.  Chicago is 4th and their top 2 5-man units give up .95 and .88 points per possession.  Memphis is 5th and 3 of their top five 5-man units give up over 1.0 points per possession.  Boston is 6th.  My point?  We've got a really good defensive 5-man unit with Bass on it as matched up against the best defensive teams in the league.  In fact, he's on most of the top defensive units we have.  Why are we losing?  Because our offense per possession isn't good.  


Boston Herald:

Sullinger has some credit to pass around for the Celts’ improvements on the defensive end.
“I think you’ve got to put a big chunk of that on Brandon (Bass) and a big chunk of that on assistant coachRon Adams,” he said. “Ron Adams was the defensive coach and assistant coach in Chicago, and obviously Chicago plays some tough defense, and he knows his stuff. And also I think Brandon really, as far as the bigs standpoint, took on that role of talking to us and teaching us defensive principles.
“And also Gerald (Wallace) as far as the guards. Gerald is a defensive-minded guy, obviously. He’s always on the ground. He’s always taking charges. Those three guys right there have really helped us out.”

CSNNE:

“He brings energy every night,” said Jordan Crawford. “You know what you’re going to get out of B-Bass. He’s talking on defense, just being more of a leader, the anchor in the back of the defense.”


The 5-man unit of Bass, Sullinger, Bradley, Crawford, and Green has a defensive rating of 91.4.  They also happen to have an offensive rating of 108.5, giving that unit a nice net 17.1 rating when Bass joins the 4 regular starters.  Bass is anchoring that defense.  He’s the guy who’s stepping into the Kevin Garnett role of seeing everything that’s happening, and trying to help get guys in position.



Bottom line?  Brandon Bass' contributions go well beyond his points, his +/-, his blocks just as KG's was (no, he's not KG, but he is similar in that his contributions are greater than the sum of his individual parts).  He's glue.  How do you measure the value of glue?  This is where, I think, Bass separates himself from Hump.  Hump's doing a good job, a really good job in limited unpredictable minutes.  I have no problem with him and am glad he's on the team (although I'd trade him in a hummingbird's heartbeat for a real center) but he's not glue.  Bass is glue. Forget about Hump's salary, time will resolve that one way or another, he's a very, very solid PF, but he's not glue.


bob


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