Hoopinion: Introducing Strip/Stuff Number

[Hawksquawk]

At Basketball Prospectus, Kevin Pelton votes Josh Smith onto the second All-NBA Team on his (theoretical) awards ballot:

It still amazes me that Smith did not make the All-Star team. He is currently sixth in the league in WARP, and his total will probably end up the second best in the WARP era for players who did not make the All-Star team (Andre Miller, with 16.8 WARP in 2001-02, is the leader in that dubious category). Smith's net plus-minus is 16th in the league, and he's playing for a 50-plus-win team. I'm not sure I understand the argument against him.

With his six blocks and two steals last night, Josh Smith surpassed 300* combined blocks and steals (173 blocks, 130 steals) this season. Only Dwight Howard (227 blocks, 75 steals) can match that total and Howard, great though he is, lacks the balance unique to Smith.

Adapting Bill James's self-proclaimed "freakshow" stat, Power/Speed Number*, to steals and blocks, Smith's "Strip/Stuff Number" would be 148.4. Howard's would be 112.7. Dwayne Wade appears to be third in the league at 103.9.

*Defined as (2*(HR*SB))/(HR+SB)

That's right, the league leader of the category I just made up is in Atlanta. Add it to his case for Defensive Player of the Year.

Less popular locally, Pelton taps Anderson Varejao over Jamal Crawford for Sixth Man of the Year. Fear not, 18 of 20 voters at ESPN.com picked Crawford as Sixth Man of the Year.

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[Guest]

OK I will admit, Strip/Stuff at first glance seems like a stupid RealGM type of metric. But after you let it soak in, this is a pretty cool metric for measuring the flashy stats of defense. You have to be good at both blocks and steals to get a high number, so you have to focus on getting all types of flashy plays on defense not just one or the other.

Of course it isn't a good measure for defense, not all blocks and steals are created equal and going for one exclusively (think Iverson steals or Dalembert blocks) can actually lead to poor defense. But this isn't looking at defense, its looking at how flashy you are, i.e. Sportscenter Highlights on defense.