By PER, Marvin Williams would have been our best wing player last year, even ahead of The Precious, Gordon Hayward. Why? Well, he's simply the most well-rounded: he's a good shooter, good rebounder, and good defender. Importantly, he doesn't turnover the ball on his possessions. Hayward is the best passer of the group. Burks is as aggressive as C.J. Miles, but without the low efficiency. Howard's a decentish rebounder, I guess, but his eFG% is dreadful, leading to a frightening 95 ORTG. He literally contributed less than nothing on offense last year. Awesome. Raja's reluctance to ever, ever, ever shoot, as well as his inability to pass, or rebound, or steal, or block shots, or anything else useful, means that even his good percentages can't save him.
Again, the question becomes defense. As we've been pointing out a lot recently at SLCDunk, our problem last year was largely defensive. It's going to be difficult for Marvin Williams to sustain that DRTG on the Jazz. Let's take a look at the other defensive measures for our wing players:
Player DRTG OPER Net +/- PPP Against
Williams 101 15.1 -2.2 0.86
Hayward 109 10.1 1.7 0.97
Burks 109 14 -2.7 0.81
Miles 108 13.9 0.4 0.86
Howard 107 16 -1.9 0.88
Bell 112 14.1 -2.0 0.94
Carroll 109 18.4 -2.3 1.07
I put together this handy table with the defensive stats we've used in the article. This is why it is so important to look at multiple statistics when considering a player's defense: there are so many contradictions that it's hard to get a definitive view of the situation. If all of the stats tell the same story, then you can really learn something. If most of them do, and a plausible explanation exists for why one differs, then you can make cautious conclusions. This is also when scouting can help us: as an additional point to add to our knowledge of players.
The table shows exactly one thing very definitively: DeMarre Carroll is a very bad defensive player. As for the others:
Williams OPER and PPP against are pretty average. His team defensive numbers are great, and his team is overall slightly better when he's off the floor. To me, this indicates a pretty average defender on a good defensive team, with a good bench.
Hayward: limits his opponent to a terrible, Josh Howard-esque PER, but allows them to get an excellent points per possession average against him. What? It's not that he's preventing opponents from taking shots against him, either: he defended 40% more plays than Marvin Williams did last year. So what gives? My only guess: Hayward forces turnovers, which equal a missed shot in PPP but are worth more in PER. I'm really stumped on this one, though. I need help.
Burks: Slightly better than average in both OPER and PPPA, his team defense stats aren't
great. Probably because he plays with the Jazz. This makes sense.
Miles: Pretty average stats across the board. Cool.
Josh Howard: Best DRTG of the Jazz group, but slightly below average in the other stats. I'm willing to call Howard an average defensive player.
Bell: It's sad, really. We signed him to be the defensive leader of the team, the Kobe stopper. Instead, he has the worst DRTG on the team, pretty bad PPPA, and average OPER. Oh, Raja.
So, in conclusion, Williams' slightly above average efforts on offense and defense put him in a head-to-head battle with Hayward as the best wing on the team. Barring big improvements from either player, it will be interesting to see how this positional battle goes down: will Corbin play both together on the starting lineup, or will he play Millsap at the 3, allowing only one of Hayward and Williams to start? I'm excited to find out.
That being said... it's a big, big improvement for the team to have two above average wing players, not just one. The wing situation held Utah back enormously last year, and this move takes gigantic steps to rectify that.
