In the Zone

For years the old school baseball fans and media have decried defensive statistics, saying you can’t judge defense with numbers. Well you can, if the numbers are derived from watching and analyzing every single play in every single game, which is what statistics like Range Factor and Ultimate Zone Rating do. And now similar metrics have been applied to basketball.
Please read this amazing article from Sports Illustrated’s Luke Winn. He charted every play of Syracuse’s first 11 conference games (before Georgetown) and 4 non-conference games. The results are fascinating and I will encapsulate them here for those too lazy to read the whole thing.
Fab Melo is a great defender. Not only does he block shots and grab rebounds, he takes a lot of charges, three times as many as anyone else on the team. This creates turnovers at a higher rate than most big men. Baye Keita is a big drop-off when Melo is not in the game, because he fouls a lot. But the biggest reason SU struggled without Melo is because of Rakeem Christmas, who is the worst defender on the team.
Kris Jospeh is the best of the forwards defensively, he does everything well, challenge shots, force turnovers, but he’s not a good rebounder. This has been a huge problem against bigger opponents, and a lot of the responsibility to fix it is on Kris Joseph. James Southerland is a better defender than you might think, but he fouls too much. CJ is just Fair.
Dion Waiters is the best of the guards, by a wide margin. He forces more turnovers and challenges more shots, resulting in a lower shooting percentage against than Triche, and especially compared to Jardine. Opponents are almost twice as likely to make a shot against Scoop as against Waiters. And Scoop almost never fouls the shooter, because he doesn’t get out on open shooters.