(these aren't real players just have always wondered, so, assume identical IQ's and both are guards)
Player A) Ath-50 Spd-100 De-70 
Player B) Ath50 Spd-70 De-100
I'd definitely take B as far as defensive ability is concerned, but how far would you lower Player B's defense rating before you'd consider both players to be equal defenders. 

not much

depends on the defense, in the press, defense might be worth 50-100% more than speed, in its current form. outside the press, defense is at least double every other stat, from a defensive standpoint, at any position. ath might be close to that 2:1 mark in zone and man but i think thats as close as it gets.

How did you derive those numbers?

trentonjoe-are you asking bcg or me?  I just have never had a good hold on  defensive ability for guards.  For instance, I have 5 guards and if I projected them out to the end of the careers they'd be like this (in order of how i'd place in m-2-m them, but i'm sure i'm off):
1. ath-65 spd-80 de-70
2. ath-47 spd-82 de-75
3. ath-56 spd-95 de-48
4. ath-60 spd-91 de-50
5. ath-40 spd-98 de-46
I wanted to take ath out of the equation to simplify it for me though because i'm much better at deducing interior rather than exterior defense and am trying to get a grasp on each category individually.  I didn't include blk either because i've always discounted that for guards. 

I was asking Billy.

Personally, I weigh the three stats more or less equally.  If you put a gun to my head, I say it goes DEF, ATH, SPD with maybe a 10% difference in importance between the three but super coach seems to think it isn't right.   

He's probably correct since I am not basing my numbers on anything evenly remotely close to what would be considered "data".

Speed is probably more important that ATHin the press.  Speed certainly correlates to high steal numbers in all defenses.



 

trenton - i dont run regressions, and those are highly suspect in term of accuracy anyway. ive seen a lot of things posted on these forums that make no sense, and recently i talked to a guy who knows stats well, who ran similar regressions on HD data, and got totally different results - ones that DO make sense. so i wouldnt put too much stock in anything you hear about the value of ratings or anything like that, based on mined data, unless you are also given a really good explanation about what makes the conclusions valid. context is everything!

anyway, when you say you weigh them more or less equally, are you talking about defense only? one reason i dont think that is true is there is such an obvious correlation with high def ratings (ath/def in particular) on national championship. defense is a really important rating, but ath and speed play into so many things outside defense, if they were as valuable in defense, they would be insanely valuable ratings (like speed was in press before the new engine). ath is actually definitely somewhat of a "super rating" right now, very possibly trumping the value of speed for guards, and for guards from a defensive standpoint, who ARENT playing press. i still think speed is more valuable than ath in the press, but its clear to me (having played press forever and winning all of my titles with it until the last one, m2m) that speed is a LOT less important in the press, and in particular, it is defense that picked up the slack. today, i am 99% sure that in every defense, defense is the primary attribute, and its by a significant margin. speed for guards in the press is the ONLY thing, IMO that has a chance of being close to equal, but i still think its more like 1.5:1.

when you look at the data just for your own teams, its clear that defense plays a MAJOR role in: fg defense, 3pt defense, steals, and fouling (to a lesser extent, blocks). if you are not taking into account the impact of defense on any of those, maybe that is part of the issue - many people really just look at steals and fg%/3pt%, while failing to take into account how HUGE defense is in terms of fouling, especially in the press. low defense high speed guards in press in the new engine have significantly more fouls than their lower spd/higher def counterparts.

Posted by therewas47 on 11/7/2012 5:51:00 PM (view original):
trentonjoe-are you asking bcg or me?  I just have never had a good hold on  defensive ability for guards.  For instance, I have 5 guards and if I projected them out to the end of the careers they'd be like this (in order of how i'd place in m-2-m them, but i'm sure i'm off):
1. ath-65 spd-80 de-70
2. ath-47 spd-82 de-75
3. ath-56 spd-95 de-48
4. ath-60 spd-91 de-50
5. ath-40 spd-98 de-46
I wanted to take ath out of the equation to simplify it for me though because i'm much better at deducing interior rather than exterior defense and am trying to get a grasp on each category individually.  I didn't include blk either because i've always discounted that for guards. 

thats actually a pretty good list. you just need to swap 3 and 4, what you have suggests 4 spd > 2 def and 4 ath, but 2 def and 4 ath in m2m is probably worth more than double 4 spd. 

Thanks guys that makes things a bit more clear.

Billyg, it's a small thing, but I don't see the impact of defense on steals.  It's very small.  One of the top steals guys I ever had never got his defense rating above 21 and spend most of his career in the teens.