Reply to thread

Message: [QUOTE="OldSchooler, post: 4197469, member: 11804"] I'm trying to think of a weakness in Azzi's game, and I can't come up with one. We tend to think of her as a superbly natural offensive machine, but she is more than that. Her defense -- a skill that Geno values but normally takes 2 seasons to develop -- is already at a different level. Playing around with the team's individual stats, I came up with a measurement that may be of some help. The only stats that directly measure defense are steals and blocks. Add these two categories together, and compare them with a player's turnovers. That might give us some measure of a player's defensive value to the team. Through 20 games (and Fudd has only appeared in 9 of them), her ratio of S+Bs to TOs is 2.25:1 In other words, for every turnover she has committed, she has two and a quarter steals or blocks. She is one of only four players on the roster to have a ratio greater than 1:1 in this metric. Paige has a slightly better ratio (2.33:1). DeBerry (whose stats are still insignificantly small) actually leads the team with 2.67:1. The only other player with a positive ratio is Nelson-Ododa, who has a total of 65 steals/blocks and 43 turnovers (1.51:1). And Azzi is only a freshman with 9 games under her belt, and missed a lot of practice time. The prospects for this young athlete are simply awesome. And I haven't even mentioned her offensive ability in this message. [/QUOTE]