Questioning the Convention

Should this be the face of Team USA?
Read more after the jump


Throughout the coverage of the Olympics basketball tournament, the pundits have all raved about the way Kobe Bryant has played defense, about how dynamic Dwayne Wade has been, and about just how dominant an athlete Lebron James is. If we were to go to the public for a vote on the MVP of the Redeem Team, it would likely come down to one of these three players (actually probably just between Lebron or Wade).

Lost amongst all the love for the marquee stars is the consistently solid play of one Chris Bosh. According to danielcz from the APBRmetrics forums, Bosh has been the best USA player in terms of production per 40 minutes (offense and defense). After watching all of the team USA games, I (along with most other observers) would have pegged Wade to own this honor.

What these stats say is that when Bosh is on the floor, the team USA offense is much, much better than when he is not on the court, and the defense has not dropped off. Now, I have never been a fan of looking only at statistics to tell the whole story, as we must consider why these statistics say what they are saying, and what the numbers are trying to tell us.

I have said in comments on this blog that Bosh is an extremely effective big man in the international game, especially on offense. He has quickness and a good face up game, as well as an ability to consistently knock down the mid range jumper. With the trapezoidal lane limiting the amount of time big men can linger around the basket, big men who are able to step outside for the midrange jumper are invaluable. In the NBA, Bosh does not get a majority of his points in back to the basket situations, so it is fair to assume that he prefers to score facing the basket even with a rectangular key. The other options for Team USA on the other hand are Boozer and Dwight Howard, two more traditional back to the basket big men more suited for an NBA style game. So it is fairly easy to see why Bosh adds to the efficiency of the Team USA offense when he's on the floor - it is because he is a better fit for the international game than any of his alternates, Boozer and Howard.

The more head-scratching figure is the defensive one. At first glance, it would make sense that Dwight Howard would sport the highest +/- on defense for the big men, considering that he is the only big man with the height and strength to match up with the bigs of other countries (eg Bogut, Gasol brothers). So we must ponder what the statistics are telling us a bit more, and delve deeper into the specific matchups.

The exact breakdown goes as follows:


So we can see that Bosh posted his worst defensive +/- against three teams with legit bigs - China's Yao Ming, Germany's Chris Kaman/Dirk Nowitzki, and Spain's Gasol brothers. Where Bosh excels defensively is against teams whose bigs are not as big a threat where he is able to help and use his quickness and length to bother penetration.

In any case, the next time someone asks you who the MVP of team USA is, let them know it's a two horse race. They'll ask you, "Kobe and Lebron?" to which you will reply, "Nah, Bosh and Wade."