Are Defensive Player Ratings High Enough?

[Double Dribble]

It was mentioned in another thread as almost a throwaway comment, but I think the issue could be serious enough to warrant its own thread...Are the defensive player ratings high enough? I went into commissioner mode...now granted I am only in my fourth season, but in my search I didn't find any players that had an 8 on defense at all.

And players who I have recruited who I thought would be good in defense have topped out at 6.

How are the defense ratings looking in your leagues? Are there any 8's or above? I think this is an important thing that needs to be looked at. Especially because I got knocked out in the sweet 16 by a point guard I couldn't control. Lit up my team for 36 points lol

[Wayne23]

I don;t ever remember any player with a rating higher than 6 in my 11 years here. If a guy is at 4 or better, he's a good defender.

[Double Dribble]

Interesting...I guess I don't understand the reasoning for that...So would you say a 6 on defense and a 10 on athleticism would be a lockdown defender? Do lockdown defenders exist in the game?

[Wayne23]

Good question re lockdown defenders. I haven't paid enough attention to that. I will now.

[PointGuard]

Agree with Wayne's remarks as to what has been the case in DDSCB over the years.

I don't really care if the Def ratings are changed, but if anything is done, it should NOT affect the stats (e.g Team FG %, 3P%, PPG, etc) that are presently occurring within the game which are SPOT ON.

[Double Dribble]

So i went into commissioner mode to dig into the distribution of defensive ratings. Unfortunately even in commisioner mode ratings are only given to teams i have played so this is a rather incomplete picture. However i think there is something worth discussing even based on this very small sample size

This is the distribution for defense
1 star 123
2 star 107
3 star 64
4 star 50
5 star 16
6 star 6
7 star 1
8-10 star 0

As sort of a control group here is the distribution on scoring
1 star 133
2 star 51
3 star 47
4 star 38
5 star 36
6 star 24
7 star 27
8 star 7
9 star 3
10 star 2

I might be off on my adding. my apologies, math isnt my strong suit! but as you can see there are 39 players with a seven or higher in scoring and only one such player on defense. if you go as low as 5s there are 99 fives or higher on scoring and only 23 on defense. to me, that is problematic.

I do agree that the overall team stats are spot on but with this distribution i dont know if its possible to build a team around defense. Also, it makes it much more difficult to make in game adjustments to shut down another teams hot scorer. I would like to have the option to have a dennis rodman type player so to speak where a coach is willing to give up a lot on offense to benefit the defense. As it stands currently, im not sure we can make that choice. Maybe if i could scout the all the teams the distribution would be different. Curious what others think.

[Wayne23]

Defense is my #1 priority in recruiting, and my teams do very well on D. I just use the system as it is, and go for guys I hope will be 4, 5, and 6 on D. It works!

[Double Dribble]

Fair enough! It will require adjusting my mindset. Will start a new mantra...Sixes are good, sixes are good. lol

[jfsolo23]

In basketball great offensive beats great defense so it makes sense that defensive ratings are lower. There probably shouldn't be any 10 defenders, but there probably should be a fair amount of 6s and 7s, a few 8s and an occasional 9 to represent those rare true lock down defenders.

[PointGuard]

I think it works either way...that is with a wider or narrower range. But still need to practice the defensive schemes you employ enough to get your players very familiar with them (high proficiency ratings) so juniors and seniors typically will be more proficient. Therefore a player with a high proficiency for the defenses you employ but who has a low defensive rating may be as good (or better) defensively than a freshman who has a high defensive rating but still has a low proficiency for the defense you're using.

Like DoubleDribble says, just need to adjust your thinking to a narrower range for defensive ratings and as Wayne says, the present system works...a team with a lot of 4, 5 and 6 defensive players is likely to do much better defensively than a team with mostly 1's and 2's and 3's.