I personally have a love/hate relationship with advanced numbers. I personally believe that the most important factor when evaluating a player is to watch them. Sounds obvious, right? Nothing bugs me more than when someone refutes your argument based on an advanced analytic they found from an obscure place that proves everything you said was wrong … and you should feel bad.
That said, I’m going to talk about some advanced analytics to show that Ace Bailey could be better than we thought.
Now, this
is not just based on an advanced analytics boxscore-type page. I wanted to write about this because Ace Bailey looked so good in his two summer league games—moreover, not necessarily his offense, but his defense. For me, what stood out with Bailey was first, his size, and second, how hard he played and how well he moved on the defensive end of the floor. Being 6’8”-6’9” and navigating screens like he did was impressive. And don’t forget some of those eye-popping plays he made, like this blocked shot.
Now, one of the things I love about advanced analytics is that they can back up the eye test of what you’re seeing. My eye test is telling me we might have a potentially very good defensive player on our hands.
The advanced analytics that got me excited were from evanmiya.com. There, you can find good advanced stats on college basketball and some impressive stuff from Ace Bailey.
The one I specifically wanted to see was, obviously, for Rutgers to see how Ace Bailey fared, and it was good! Here’s how he ranked offensively with Dylan Harper.
Right off the bat, you see why Dylan Harper got a lot of excitement. He was a very good offensive player on a very bad Rutgers team. But it’s also nice to see that Bailey is not far behind.
The stat that gets me excited, though, is Bailey’s team-leading defensive rating.
Now, these numbers are very noisy. Ace Bailey was the best defensive player on a very bad team. A lot of advanced stats can change based on how good the team is around specific players. The question from this is whether Bailey’s defensive numbers would have been better if he had been on a better team. Or is he just an above-average defensive player?
For context, here’s how all college players ranked. You can see why Cooper Flagg is such a special prospect.
Go through that list and you see a lot of Duke players. Did that elevate their numbers or were they all just that high level of prospects? Probably a little of both, although it’s probably more that they are great prospects.
Final thing, I love this last number. When Bailey played, Rutgers held teams to their lowest points per possession.
So what does this all mean? It could just mean that Bailey was the most athletic player with the most tools on a bad team. With that logic, of course, he shows up pretty well. It could also mean that he’s a player with a high motor who showed up well despite playing with very underwhelming teammates.
How long till the season starts again? I can’t wait to find out just how good Ace Bailey is? But what I take from this is that Ace Bailey has a chance to be a great defensive player if he wants to be. It’s about a month from now when we get to see him play, and we’ll see just how good he might become.
