re: Who is the most over rated superstar in the NBA?

The Ice Trae Dilemma: Can a Team Win With Trae Young in the Backcourt?

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Young isn’t just a poor defender, he’s a historically awful one.

Of the 508 players who have graced the hardwood this season, Young ranks dead last with a minus-3.0 defensive DRIP, our catch-all defensive metric.

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Note: he was -1.4 this year.

Different data from this year

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Opponents hitting their season-high in scoring against the Hawks had become a startlingly common trend. There are 29 teams in the NBA outside of Atlanta. Five of them, the Bulls (136), Pacers (157), Mavericks (148), Nuggets (142) and Spurs (135) hit their season-high against Atlanta. The Pacers alone reached 150 points against the Hawks on three separate occasions. Atlanta allowed 135 or more points 11 different times. The Timberwolves didn't do that once all year.

That's not all Trae Young's fault... but it would be hard to keep ignoring what a seismic negative impact he has on Atlanta's defense. Atlanta allowed 119.1 points per 100 possessions with Young on the floor this season, just half a point off of the NBA record for worst defensive efficiency over a full season. Young has played six NBA seasons and the Hawks have been better on defense without him in each of them. In the first four, Atlanta's defense produced its best defensive rating during any player's absences with Young sitting. The trend line here is pretty clear. When Young rests, the Hawks are generally pretty good on defense. When he plays, they're bad.

That's more or less what happened when Young missed 23 games near the end of the season. The Hawks went 12-11 with the 18th-best defensive rating in the NBA. Not great. Not terrible. On the year, the Hawks were 14-14 without Young and 22-33 with him (including Wednesday's season-ending Play-In game). Young has generally made up for those defensive shortcomings by leading a very good offense. The Hawks ranked 12th this year. Not exactly a worthwhile trade for arguably the worst defender in the NBA.

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Trae Young isn't bad at defense. He's historically bad at defense.

He's short, has a laughable wingspan, is not strong or overly athletic.

But, most of all, he doesn't try. He goes for steals only to try to get the chance to get back on offense.

Trae also doesn't try on offense unless he's dominating the ball AND the offense is running PNR after PNR. He gives no effort even on offense, if he's not doing that one thing.

Oh, the "DRIP". The made-up formula that assigns an individual score weighted heavily by team totals when the individual is on the floor.
You may think they're doing some advanced analytics, but no. That is just the simplest way to assign a generalized value to a player that puts a number on countless things that are going on that are completely outside of his control.
Rather than go by his actual defensive numbers, you'll go by all the other players' numbers that are assigned to him by guys who need to go back to the drawing board on complementary basketball.

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On the other hand, you need to surround him with complimentary players

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It's defining the specific as the general.
This just downgrades Young for bad roster management by the Hawks.

Complementary basketball is important. But not for this ironically inexact "formula".
And you should give yourself a negative score for going back a year and attempting to focus on 2022-23 instead the most recent season.

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Currently? It has to be Anthony Edwards. There are people saying that he should make first team All-NBA over Luka which is absurd. Also, they're acting like he carried the Wolves to 56 wins this season which is far from the case. The Wolves won that many games because they have the best defense in the NBA. They have the best defense in the NBA because of Rudy Gobert. Edwards is not the singular driving factor in the success of his team like the other superstars in the league.

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33 pts / 9 rebs / 6 ast / 2 stls +18 w/ 3 mins remaining

People who say Lebron drug a cavaliers team low on good players…they played in a weak asss conference. Glass AD prob could have carried that cavalier team to the finals. Yall act like Lebron is some mystical creature. He did not play a good team until he got in the Finals where he lost most of the time.

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Rather than go by his actual defensive numbers,

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You've posted none. Steals are not "defensive numbers"

I've posted multiple analytics showing just how terrible he is. The fact that part of the reason why he's bad at D is gambling for steals isn't a defense of Trae.

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you'll go by all the other players' numbers that are assigned to him by guys who need to go back to the drawing board on complementary basketball.

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This just downgrades Young for bad roster management by the Hawks.

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Why do they play so much better defense without him, if they are so terrible at defense?

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And you should give yourself a negative score for going back a year and attempting to focus on 2022-23 instead the most recent season.

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You apparently only read one article I posted

Agree.

Steals are defense numbers.
I'm just going to leave out my opinion that you'd attempt to say otherwise.

I also linked other numbers from NBA.com. (That's what I referred to when I said he ranked in the top of the NBA in those categories on Hustle Leaders. If you choose to ignore that, then that's your ignorance. The numbers are still there.)

I read both articles you posted. Both articles do the same thing. There are countless different changing variables for such a broad outlook. Other substitutions when Young comes off the floor, the amount of minutes that are even being compared, etc. Young averaged 36 minutes per game this past season. So you're only talking about 12 minutes per game when he's off the floor.

This is just not how you analyze players in team sports. Let's get a "DRIP" score on Ken Dorsey as a college QB with Miami compared to other better QBs who didn't have such good circumstances.
How about Mahomes with Texas Tech?
Texas Tech had a better record in 2017 without Mahomes than in 2016 with him. What does this mean for Mahomes? Essentially nothing. It just means that there are countless other factors that go into scores and outcomes of games, and it would be foolish to attempt to attribute all those factors to one player.

I saw that the Bucks beat the Pacers by 15 last night without Giannis Antetokounmpo.
The Bucks were 1-4 during the regular season against the Pacers with him.
-18 (626-644) with him, +15 without him.
??????
If you look at some of the games Wembanyama missed, the Spurs did better against some opponents without him than with him.

LSU scored 14 vs. Wisconsin in the first half of the ReliaQuest Bowl with Malik Nabers.
21 in the second half without him.

Sometimes these things happen, and there aren't always clear-cut answers as to why. Maybe there is a quantifiable explanation sometimes. Or maybe not.
I'm not against analytics, but some people overestimate the applications and comprehensiveness of conclusions drawn from some analytics.
(Really, you have to go the other way with individual statistics in team sports. To varying degrees, there should be some kind of attribution of individual statistics to teammates. Sometimes that's just too complex to easily put in numbers. One area where the type of analysis you're using would be most applicable is with dominant pitchers in baseball, especially pitchers who get a lot of strikeouts. But there are more precise baseball statistics for that.)
I'll tell you an analytics breakdown I'd like to see on Young. A percentage on threes that's adjusted to give some increasing amount of value to deeper shots. And those deeper shots are more valuable in that they create more space for himself and the offense in general. I've never seen a breakdown like that, but Young probably has one of the best percentages on the deepest threes in NBA history.
I think of him similar to Iverson in overall effect as an offensive player. Not as fast and athletic as Iverson, but better offensive skill and range. And I'd say they're about even in short-area quickness with the ball. But with those types of players, it's vital to assemble good fits as complementary players, good defenders, high-percentage shooters, quality 4s/5s, etc.

Something else to account for on the steals and hustle numbers is that it makes more sense to gamble when the overall defense isn't good. Especially when you don't have good bigs who are able to stop high-percentage shots.
If there's a good chance your defense will get scored on, taking a gamble to get a steal, a deflection that leads to a turnover, or a charge is a better play than if you're with an overall sound defense that's able to prevent shots around the basket. Again, Young is 90th percentile in these categories. If you have any meaningful breakdown that he gambled "too much" to rank that high, go ahead and link it. But even if a player does gamble frequently, it doesn't negate steals or deflections as defensive statistics. Getting a turnover takes an opponent's possession away, and likely sets up a high-percentage shot, if not a layup/dunk. The gambles are worth it if you're able to get them at a good rate.