The Bratwurst – Milwaukee Bucks Blog

Just how good is Andrew Bogut? Where does he rank among the best centers in the NBA? While he is definitely behind players like Stoudemire, Howard and Yao, I feel a compelling argument can be made that he is currently the 6th best center in the game.

While there is nothing very spectacular about his game, I feel that he has made dramatic improvements this season. His defense has been much better, and while he is not quite the rebounder the Bucks had hoped for, he is holding his own. And, let us not forget, he is still a year younger than Patrick Ewing was in his rookie season. There is still room for Bogut to improve as he physically matures.

It seems to me that people generally have 4 complaints about Bogut: His free throw shooting is terrible (very valid point), he doesn’t shoot enough (look at the coaches for that one), he’s not Dwight Howard (not really his fault) and he’s not Chris Paul (again, not his fault).

When looking at IPM, Bogut’s numbers are just okay, with an 0.828 ranking him at #13 among centers. However, there is one major stat that is not recorded in box scores, and it’s something that dramatically improves Bogut’s value: charges taken.

Charges really should be part of the box score. They are far more valuable than the other defensive stats, steals and blocks, because not only does a charge always result in a change of possession (while a block is often sent out of bounds or recovered by the shooting team), it also causes a personal foul on the offender. Announcers just love to say how the mere presence of a shotblocker causes players to think twice about driving the lane , the same can be said for a player who has been hit with an offensive foul or two.

Fortunately, 82games.com tracks the number of charges taken, and last season Bogut took the third most in the NBA (74), behind Anderson Varejao (99) and Devin Harris (77). However, Bogut missed 15 games. He and Varejao were the only two players to average over 1.0 charges taken per game (1.22 for Varejao, 1.12 for Bogut). While I don’t have precise data, Bogut has taken charges at about the same rate this season , I heard someone mention a couple of weeks ago that he had just taken his 30th charge of the season.

82games.com only listed the top 35 charge-takers from last season, but there are two interesting things from that list. One is that the number of charges taken by the top players drops off very quickly , only 31 charges (0.38 per game) were enough to get Jarron Collins and Kevin Martin on the list of the best charge-takers in the league. There are also very few centers who take charges, clearly preferring to go after blocks instead. Besides Bogut, the only other starting center on the list was Ben Wallace (44), while Varejao, Jermaine O’Neal (57), and Jason (45) and Jarron (31) Collins rounded out the big guy contingent.

So, I think it’s reasonable to assume that the average center takes about ¼ a charge per game. Therefore, Bogut and Varejao probably take about 0.8 charges per game more than the average center and Ben Wallace takes 0.25 charges per game more. So, I adjusted IPM, counting charges the same as a blocked shot and adding in the expected number of charges those three players would take above the average center. The data is available here.

Not surprisingly, Bogut got a nice boost, moving up to the #8 center with a 0.8776 IPM, narrowly behind Pau Gasol (0.8938). Despite having a reputation of being a soft defensive player (because he’s, you know, white and from another country), Bogut’s charge-adjusted rate of blocks per minute (.074) ranks him 6th among centers with over 200 minutes played, and two of those ahead of him are Alonzo Mourning (who retired on Monday) and David Harrison (13 mpg, plus one drug suspension).

So that takes care of the numbers. But who would GM’s want on their team?

Bogut is clearly well behind Amare Stoudemire, Dwight Howard and Yao Ming. Every GM would prefer to have one of those three players over Bogut.

With all the accolades that David Lee and Gerald Wallace have gotten over recent seasons about being underrated players, Marcus Camby has probably become the most underrated player in the game. He’s the best shot blocker and second best rebounder in the league and is pretty efficient offensively. He has gotten better with age, although his injury history will always make his GM nervous. Most GM’s would take Camby over Bogut, except for a couple that may be afraid of his brittleness. Of course, I’m only thinking about who a GM would want right now — if the next 3-5 years are a consideration, the Bogut gets the nod from everyone.

I’ve been thinking about writing this post for a while, but I wanted to wait until after the Bogut-Bynum matchup this week. Well, I think it’s pretty clear that Andrew Bynum is a superior player to Bogut (the title of this post was originally supposed to be “Is Andrew Bogut the 5th best center in the NBA”, but that changed). Bynum is shooting 63% this season, has become an excellent rebounder and shot blocker, and while Bogut had a good game in LA, Bynum pretty much dominated that matchup. There are two questions about Bynum , his defense and his motivation. Bynum’s position defense has been on-and-off enough that Phil Jackson hasn’t seen fit to give him 30 mpg, while Jackson also made some odd comments to the media about how Bynum is doing a great job of motivating himself by playing for a contract extension. Normally one would say that there is no way Bynum shouldn’t be playing until he fouls out every night, but Jackson knows a thing or two about the game , if he thinks Bynum’s mental lapses are enough to limit him to 30 mpg then he’s right. Still, almost every GM would take Bynum over Bogut, except for a few that might feel an $80 million contract extension will send Bynum’s weight into the stratosphere.

Can you say fluke? It’s pronounced “Chris Kaman.” While Kaman’s IPM (0.9268) has dominated Bogut’s, I really doubt that he is going to keep it up beyond this season. Kaman’s production has risen along with his increased responsibility without Elton Brand alongside him, and it’s likely that he will slide back a little bit. While he has rebounded much better this season, the most impressive thing about him is that he is blocking double the shots he has in years past, while fouling much less (averaging about the same number of fouls per game as last year but in 10 more minutes per game). He is clearly playing smarter and better, but that hasn’t translated into wins. Kaman has been very up-front about his childhood struggles with hyperactivity and ADD, and while that is under control now he does still have some quirks (such as recently discussing on ESPN how he likes to take his boat to international waters so he can fish with a shotgun , not a smart thing to do, and definitely not a wise thing to discuss with a news organization), so his personality still has to be something of a question to GM’s when considering him. Kaman is having a great year, but when looking at his career as a whole, I believe that given the choice most GM’s would choose Bogut over him.

Pau Gasol and Bogut have put up almost identical IPM’s this year, but have done it in the opposite manners. Bogut is a much better rebounder, shot blocker, passer, and gets more steals than Gasol; while Gasol’s only clear advantage over Bogut is his free throw shooting (making almost 100 more free throws this season). Gasol may be a slightly better player, but the only thing he brings is scoring ability , the easiest attribute to find in other players , while Bogut does the gritty stuff much better. The two players would probably make for a great pair, but if a GM had to choose one over the other, I’d think that at this stage of their careers most of them would choose Bogut, unless they were desperate for scoring.

Of the next 10 centers behind Bogut in IPM, 4 of them (Shaquille O’Neal, Zyrdunas Ilgauskas, Brad Miller, the now-retired Alonzo Mourning) are formerly excellent players who are clearly on the downside of their careers. Nazr Mohammad and Brendan Haywood are effective short-minute players, but not someone to build a team around. Bogut would clearly be preferable to all of them.

That leaves four defensive specialists behind Bogut:

Andris Biedrins and Tyson Chandler are somewhat similar players , both are bad enough offensive players to know not to shoot much, which makes them highly efficient because they take nothing but good shots and shoot over 60%. Both are great rebounders , far superior to Bogut , but while both have reputations as shot-blockers, Bogut has actually outperformed both of them thus far this season (which I found to be very surprising). Biedrins is a hard player to figure out , he produces great numbers and has a solid plus-minus differential, but doesn’t seem to fit anywhere because of his slim build and poor shooting skills. I think that Chandler’s leap in shooting percentage has more to do with playing with Chris Paul than anything he has done , Chandler seems to finish an alley-oop per quarter. You might be able to find a few GM’s who would prefer one of these players to Bogut, but not a majority. Samuel Dalembert is another defensive specialist, and I’ve always liked his game (but not so much at $10 million/per), but Bogut over him would be obvious.

That leaves one final comparison: Emeka Okafor. His numbers are down across the board from his career year last season, and despite what all six Bobcats fans will tell you, it’s getting a little late to predict stardom for him. He is a very formidable rebounder and is shooting above 50% but he is a very poor passer and a turnover machine, and despite a reputation as a shotblocker, Bogut has been much better. Additionally, it seems like Okafor’s own organization has doubts about him as a center, as they traded their only healthy power forward for a backup center in Nazr Mohammed, and have been using Okafor at power forward a lot since the trade. There’s also the matter of Okafor’s back problems, which haven’t been an issue for a couple of years but are something that never truly goes away. On stats alone Bogut is a superior player, but when age and health are considered, Bogut pulls away.

Of course, I’m not comparing Bogut to the top big forwards who also play a lot of center like Garnett, Duncan, Bosh or Jermaine O’Neal, so I wouldn’t go so far as to call him the 6th best big man in the game, but my real point is to see how Bogut stacks up against his peers , the back-to-the-basket centers.

The numbers don’t lie, and it’s confirmed by observations about his peers: right now, in terms of “you are a GM, who do you want?” Andrew Bogut is the 6th best center in the NBA.