Size matters. I’m talking of course, about the relative size of small guards in
the NBA. How often are criticisms lobbed toward shooting guards on draft
night because of their inability to guard someone as tall as Kobe Bryant? The
only problem? You could be the size of Godzilla, nay, Mecha-Godzilla, and still
struggle to guard Kobe Bryant. Meanwhile, true shooters with better skills are
being ignored in the name of a few measly inches. So we decided to take a look
at the production of small guards in the NBA and how they ended up, inch by
inch, in 2008-09.
Using offensive and defensive ratings (points per 100 possessions produced
and allowed), we get a fairly clear view from the chart below of how muddled
this picture is. According to convention, the red bars should go up while the
black bars go down as the players’ height increases.
Instead what we see is the biggest offensive advantage for qualified small
guards 6-foot-1, while players 6-foot-4 suffer disadvantages. So while players
6-foot-3 definitely struggle at the NBA level, the absolute most you can say
is that there is no strong relationship between size and production. We see a
similar effect when we look at a variety of measures, including John Hollinger’s
Player Efficiency Rating.
This speaks well for a lot of players who are often dismissed as being too small
to play small guard. This group includes Ben Gordon, Raymond Felton, Jason
Terry — all top-notch players who are often considered liabilities because of
their size. Still, there are certainly caveats here as well.
For starters, only 16 percent of players that qualified for our analysis were
shorter than 6-foot-3. The majority of small guards (43 percent) are between
6-foot-3 and 6-foot-5. So the sample size is much more stable for the larger
guards. Future analysis should take a more historical look at the role of height in
small guard production. But for right now, I’d think twice before dismissing the
“undersized guard.” Because at this level, there’s probably a good reason he’s
made it to the NBA.
Rate this post!
[...] bonus, Henry Abbott will have some more stuff up later in the day over at TrueHoop, Matt Moore has his piece on undersized guards at Hardwood Paroxysm and Haubs has his “10 NBA Questions for the 2010s” at The Painted [...]
I realize this doesn’t have much to do with your post, but it drives me absolutely insane / confuses the heck out of me when I see you describe shooting guards as “small guards.” I think you’re talking about point guards (who are, in fact, small) when I read that.
Other than that, love your work =P
these stats are biased. most of the evaluation of “small” players takes place before they are drafted. the players whose stats are being used in this analysis (current NBA players) clearly were good enough to get the “too small” label removed. once you get below a certain level, i wonder if size becomes more of a factor (like second round/undrafted players). thoughts?
If you used the Offensive and Defensive ratings at Basketball Reference based on Dean Oliver’s formulas the Defensive rating is still mainly derived from team (on average 80% of the shots are being taken against other people) and isn’t that precise or good a measure of personal defensive performance. Counterpart PER and points has flaws too but I’d look at both and probably weight the counterpart data heavier.
Defensive rating is largely based on the idea the defense is a team thing and then it runs counter to that and gives the guy who made the steal or the block all the credit for that play- when it works- but only 1/5th the blame when going for a steal or block is unsuccessful and proves harmful. It is not the perfect answer.
Defensive Adjusted +/- may not be perfect either but it is probably better for this kind of study.
Crow,
Agreed on all counts. I used Off/Def because I need the best and easiest thing to look at with as few caveats as allowable, and also that included net overall team performance, because the idea is that small guards hurt your team through the lack of size.
For what’s it’s worth, I ran the analysis on both Adj. +/- as well as a number of other measures and we see the same result, with almost no correlation (PER was especially bad, but that’s only offense).
I’ll be revealing some further results in the coming weeks. Consider this the “for the masses” piece.
Lee: I think part of the idea is that too often a player gets pushed out of a starting spot because coaches think they need size, when in reality, there’s not conclusive evidence that that’s the case. The evidence (and chart) certainly show that a MUCH smaller number of players reach the NBA contributor level who are smaller, so it weeds out those players in essence. My rebuttal would be that if you look at the vast majority that the middle height section takes up, it’s pretty clear that there’s not evidence to suggest they’re doing much better. The idea here is not that smaller guards are better, but that trying to say you should start a less talented tall guard at the 2 rather than a small guard is faulty thinking. The reason I started on this was because someone said “Yeah, he’s good, but who’s going to guard Kobe?” But the problem is… NO ONE’S GUARDING KOBE. IT’S KOBE FREAKING BRYANT. He’s going to score regardless. To that end, the evidence submitted here suggests, from a small and recent sample size, that taller guards are not performing better than smaller guards.
Matt, Lee’s comment about the selection bias is 100% correct and would need to be adjusted for to make a solid case on size in general. I also think it would be better to have an overall 2 guard baseline and compare production as a distance form that baseline.
Alright Matt. I look forward to seeing what else you do on the issue.
If the small guards hurt you on defense argument had merit in general it would likely be in the Adjusted +/- … but I take it from what you said it isn’t there.
Still you could press the research further if you want.
I wonder what the differences between the (mostly team) Defensive Ratings on/off the court are by size.
And maybe you can protect a small guy by putting him with your best defenders? Do the small guys with good defending teammates more of the time do better on Defensive Adjusted +/- than those without? If so when you play the small guard and with whom becomes key.
It might also be that the overall Defensive Adjusted is ok for the small guards due a combination of being able to guard their own man well offsetting any shortfall in ability to handle switches (and guarding your own man being a more frequent event and therefore more important) and bigger guards having the opposite problem? Checking both the team and counterpart level stats would give you a chance to try understand these issues in a way the overall team defensive stats alone would not.
Finally it might be interesting to break guards down by both height and weight. If you are short and light it might be different than if you are short but of adequate weight and presumably strength. I’ve divided PGs into three piles before, maybe it was >180, 180-195 and above 195. But you could divide into just 2 piles say 185. Does being light in general hurt defense? Short and light? It would add an appropriate 2nd variable to the “small” discussion. On the surface small guys of adequate weight & strength would seem to have more a basis to hold their own on switches. But as always worth checking the numbers, if you have time & desire.