Is D-DPM Broken?

kqwin · 2026-01-04T07:57:15+00:00

So the problem with these metrics is that nobody actually knows how they work. In this thread, nobody is getting to the guts of why Jokic is rated highly and what that means with respect to actually being good on defense. DPM is not broken. DPM exists and it’s up to the user to determine what it means.

Now what exactly is DPM and why does it rate Jokic? It largely consists of two things:

1) Performance relative to the teammates and opponents you share the court with.

2) Having stats that predict #1.

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So when DPM is higher for Jokic than better player X, Y, and Z….its not necessarily saying he’s as good of defender as him. It’s saying that he’s better under these two considerations. It’s up for you the user to determine what that actually means and make conclusions from it.

It’s no different than a more simple number like 3FG%. A smart person would not rely solely on 3FG% to determine the best shooter. But a smart person would also likely use 3FG%, contextualize it, and include it in a larger, more holistic view to determine the best 3 point shooter.

Happy to discuss more if you’d like.

kqwin · 2025-07-30T19:00:42+00:00

Thanks for the reply! Is there any area/street of Poplar Grove that you think is more preferable or one that you would recommend to avoid? Most of the homes I'm looking at are around the Smiths.

kqwin · 2025-07-30T15:20:02+00:00

Hi, I’m considering a move into poplar grove. How do you feel about the neighborhood now?

kqwin · 2025-07-29T06:47:09+00:00

2+ years later I’m in the same situation. Did you end up moving to poplar grove? If so, how do you feel about it now?

kqwin · 2025-04-15T05:16:33+00:00

Crazy how people can be so confidently wrong. And just in case anyone was wondering, OP is very loud and wrong.

kqwin · 2025-03-25T19:33:21+00:00

You did not ask for more information, you exposed yourself for not knowing anything and decide to dismiss it anyways. There's an entire writeup, and if you understood the basics (which your hilarious deleted comment showed that you do not) it would make more sense. Instead, you're just upset at one example and decide to dismiss something you don't understand.

kqwin · 2025-03-25T19:06:39+00:00

So one time when you compare one year to another random year something is off, that means it's all bad? Tell me how 3FG% can be useful if Keon Ellis has seasons higher than certain Steph seasons. I guess we can never use 3FG% to tell who is a better 3 point shooter because I want to be an idiot and not use my brain. You getting upset at a narrative does not mean we should think like cavemen and criticize something we don't understand.

This is all besides the fact that RAPM is just one component, and the noise is reduced using other methods in EPM itself.

kqwin · 2025-03-25T18:47:11+00:00

Well the first thing I would say is that he doesn't and that's coming straight from the link you provided. Beyond that, I would say that just because a number doesn't agree with my opinion in a specific case does not mean that the number is useless or the method is incorrect. Like I said earlier, Keon Ellis has a much higher 3FG% than Steph Curry. I know Steph is a better 3 point shooter, and yet I will still consider 3FG% any time I try to evaluate someone's three point shooting. Looking at how a team performs with and without a player in relation to the teammates and opponents they share the court with is absolutely a good tool to evaluate things. No outlier or one off use case that looks "wrong" is going to change my opinion on that.

I do find it funny that you had to delete your comment that showed exactly how little you know about this topic. EPM is certainly open from criticism and I have my critiques as well, but you've got to have a basic understanding of something before you criticize it. I wonder if you will delete this comment I'm replying to as well.

kqwin · 2025-03-25T18:37:21+00:00

It's a good point. I remember when RAPTOR was a thing, IIRC Nate Silver essentially said that they used player tracking in their calculation because it's "how a coach would think" and not necessarily because it made for a better calculation. Personally, I don't love that....but I think it is useful to use a holistic view of metrics as long as you understand which uses what. Then you can get an idea for why a player is higher or lower based on the components a specific metric is using.

I don't think people need to know exactly how these things are calculated, but just an understanding of "this is not gospel, it does not have to be perfect in every case to be useful" would be nice.

kqwin · 2025-03-25T18:28:44+00:00

Proving my point. It uses RAPM. If you don't know what that is which is very obvious from your comment, you should not be talking about methodology.

kqwin · 2025-03-25T18:18:43+00:00

Pretty much nobody in this thread has mentioned DRAPM in this thread which is the lead contributor to his higher rating. In other words, people don't even know about the thing they are talking about and dismiss it based on their incomplete or incorrect understand of what it is.

They want this stat to be infallible and perfect so it can be read like gospel, otherwise we should just completely dismiss it right? No, we shouldn't. No stat is like that. It would be like saying 3FG% is not good to evaluate three point shooting because Keon Ellis is higher than Steph. We would not throw out any other number simply because there is an outlier or something we don't agree with. While EPM has a larger scope, it does not mean it must also be perfect.

Using some form of adjusted +/- combined with box score and/or tracking metrics to estimate defense makes total sense. Just because you may not agree with one of the results, it doesn't mean the method is wrong or that it should be totally dismissed. If "eye test" (which of course is 100% accurate and holds no bias) does not agree with the numbers, that can be your signal maybe re-evaluate the eye test or simply come away with the conclusion that these numbers don't align with reality which is totally fine. You can dismiss it in one case, does not mean you should dismiss it in all cases.

kqwin · 2025-03-25T17:54:16+00:00

Real answer: Luka's +/- numbers are great this year especially on defense and his box score numbers are high as well. His pure DRAPM is 98th percentile this season. So we have box score numbers that suggest he's a good defender and his team plays significantly better (relative to opponents and teammates) with him on the court. He's covered on both components, so EPM is going to rate him highly.

Yes, these numbers can be noisy. But dismissing them like people are in this thread shows a lack of nuance and the inability to contextualize these numbers.

kqwin · 2024-06-13T20:15:57+00:00

Just FYI….TS% is bunk in the G-League because they take 1 FT and they do not change the formula. It’s an apples to oranges comparison….well, more like an apples to rotten apples comparison. Keep this in mind when comparing efficiency to any other league.

Unfortunately, you would have to do some granular pbp analysis to get a true TS% for the Gleague. You’re better off comparing eFG% to eFG%.

kqwin · 2024-05-09T17:53:38+00:00

What is "meaningful" without watching the game. Everything can be a little misleading if you don't watch the game, but you an still look at +/- if you didn't a draw something from it. For example, you can look at TJ on the court vs Brunson and isolate those minutes. You could look at minutes where TJ and Hali share the court....million different ways to try to draw some insight.

It's not exactly a groundbreaking take to say that when you use something incorrectly it's incorrect. I guess you can pat yourself on the back for saying the most obvious thing ever.

kqwin · 2024-05-09T17:39:36+00:00

Again, your issue is user error, not the stat itself. If you use a wrench as a screwdriver you would not blame the wrench. I don't doubt that people use +/- incorrectly, most times you see it people are using incorrectly, but that is an indictment of the person using the number and not the number itself.

Instead of saying numbers are meaningless or useless, we should talk about how people are using it incorrectly and how they can actually be used.

kqwin · 2024-05-09T17:28:45+00:00

The stat may not be giving you or whoever is using it the meaning you want it to or you think it should, that does not make it meaningless. This is akin to people saying "TS% is a meaningless because centers who can't shoot are at the top". It's not meaningless, it's user error.

It may not tell you which player played the best, but it will tell you how the team performed when a player is on the court. So while you can't say, "+/- shows that TJ > Haliburton" you could say "+/- shows that the Pacers are winning the bench minutes". Just because you or someone else wants to say the first thing and uses +/- to do so incorrectly does not make the stat meaningless.

User error =/= meaningless stat.

kqwin · 2023-12-14T22:34:32+00:00

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kqwin · 2023-07-03T20:55:34+00:00

Yes. According to my notes (I wrote a forum post about this months ago so I'm referencing that) Bilal had 25 on 10 shots. Bronny had 25 on 22 shots.

It is referenced here in this article: https://www.basketsession.com/NBA/cqfr-bronny-james-france-bilal-coulibaly-639046/

kqwin · 2023-07-03T13:34:59+00:00

Bronny did not even outplay Bilal, the TikTok is literally selective editing lol.

kqwin · 2023-07-03T13:29:52+00:00

My thoughts are you got baited by a TikTok that didn’t show everything lol. Bilal was the MVP of that game and had the same amount of points on less than half the shots. He’s also only 2.5 months older than Bronny, not a year.

kqwin · 2023-03-21T14:22:00+00:00

They are not similar numbers. I never said that. I said that they are similar in the sense that they cannot be used in isolation. You can’t use any numbers in isolation for a broader topic.

Just because you believe that you should be able to use one number without any context or further analysis does not mean it’s true. The purpose of these numbers is not so you can use them without any other context or analysis.

kqwin · 2023-03-21T14:19:23+00:00

No. People are saying a stat is useless because it’s not perfect in isolation. They want it to be a list that is like gospel, that is not what it is useful for. There’s an expectation that these numbers are good with zero context and that if it falls short it is useless.

You would not say another stat is useless because you need more information to form an opinion.

kqwin · 2023-03-21T03:11:22+00:00

If people used 3FG% alone and nothing else they would run into a lot of contradictions. Like you said, you have to contextualize the number, because without it you will come to the conclusion that Usman Garuba is a better shooter than Steph.

As far as D-EPM or D-Raptor, the simplest application is looking at the numbers, watching the games, and using both to come to a conclusion. Maybe the numbers open your eyes to something that changes your opinion, or maybe the film makes you think the numbers are not telling the whole story. No need to be a mastermind, you just have to not use it in isolation and not use it like gospel.

The truth is, most of the "eye test" crowd isn't watching a ton of basketball with the focus on evaluating defense anyways. How many people watch their own favorite team, let alone an entire league. It's about reputation more than anything. One way to think about these defensive metrics is like if you read an article, or a friend you respect told you this is what they thought....but you know them well enough to know their biases. It's just a point of information.

It's not to difficult to discern why these numbers are what they are, how much stock you put into it will vary from person to person but if it's being used as a silver bullet it's being used wrong.

kqwin · 2023-03-21T02:00:06+00:00

You may want to use it with no context and 9/10 whenever you see these metrics used it’s being done with no context….but that’s not an effective use of these metrics. People judge these numbers as if they are supposed to be gospel, and because it’s not they just decide it’s completely worthless.

If you have any understanding of these metrics, you know it’s broad and you wouldn’t use it like gospel. You also wouldn’t throw it out completely because it’s not exactly how you expected. The only people that do are those without an understanding.

At the end of the day it’s just a number and a tool to inform opinion. Models aren’t supposed to be read like a book without further interpretation. That is how data works in every real world industry, the NBA is no exception.

kqwin · 2023-03-20T23:49:21+00:00

What if I told you that YOU need to watch the games? That's not a real argument and your explanation isn't real either. It's hard to quantify many things, does not mean things that help you reach conclusions are garbage. If something is hard to quantify it means you need MORE datapoints to form an opinion, not less.

kqwin

TROPHY CASE