Philadelphia 76ers defense tells differing tales

The Philadelphia 76ers surrender 108.8 points per game, good for 25th in the league. Yet the NBA Stats for defensive rating shows the team at seventh at 103.7. How can we talk to such different stories?

The Philadelphia 76ers are a very complex NBA team. On one hand, this team is much improved over any other version in this decade. On the other hand, even improved, this team is very much an enigma. How good is this team? Is this team good? Is this team a playoff contender, or simply just a playoff pretender?  So as any analytical process demands, the first step is to deep dive.

But deep dive where?  At first glance, the game scores seem like a good starting point. From that vantage, the Philadelphia 76ers average 108.3 points per game of offense, while surrendering 108.8 points per game on defense. So that (0.5) PPG deficit on average translates into a 17-19 team record, and the sub-.500 performance so far. So far, so good.  108.3 points per game is good enough to rank seventh best in the NBA. 108.8 points per game is bad enough to rank as 25th in a 30 team basketball league.

So the problem is team defense. Or is it?

Defense combines denied scoring with opportunities to score

Well, there is the rub.  The scoreboard tells one story. Basketball analytics tells another.  So the first step is in understanding the use of dissimilar measures.  The basic principal in any statistical analysis is the law of KISS. In short, keep it simple, stupid.  In a measure of NBA defense, the ultimate and simplistic measure is the final score. If the other team scores more than you do, you need better offense or better defense. Or perhaps both.

The problem with comparing NBA teams is that different teams run the floor faster or slower than others.  So one answer is to simply find a common denominator to compare these different teams.