Cavs: How Collin Sexton and Kyrie Irving compare through three seasons

Cavs: How Collin Sexton and Kyrie Irving compare through three seasons – Defense

Kyrie Irving stands 6’2″ tall, likely less than an inch taller than Collin Sexton, who is listed at 6’1″. Both are at a size disadvantage against most players in the league. That’s less of an issue for Irving, who lined up at point guard almost exclusively to this point in his career, than it is for Sexton at the 2. Both were inconsistent, if not downright bad, defenders through three seasons; that’s very common for scoring guards on bad teams. What do some of the numbers say about the two players?

Steals

For smaller guards, their defensive impact often begins with how many steals they generate. This is an imperfect stat, as players can be out of defensive positioning gunning for steals, but it’s a start. Irving averaged 1.4 steals per game over the sample, good for a steal percentage (how many opponent possessions ended with an Irving steal) of 2.1 percent. Sexton is at a markedly lower number, averaging 0.8 steals with a mirrored 1.2 percent steal percentage.

Rebounding

Neither guard was an elite rebounder, partly due to their size and partly due to their effort on that end. Sexton averaged 3.0 rebounds per game overall, 2.2 of those on the defensive end. Irving pulled in a few more, averaging 3.7 per game and 3.0 defensive rebounds specifically. Irving’s rebound percentage was therefore marginally higher, 6.2 total rebounding percentage to Sexton’s 5.1.

Advanced Metrics

While understanding that defensive metrics are still behind those on offense in truly capturing a player’s defensive value, they are invaluable in looking past the basic blocks and steals to measure how a player impacts his team on that end of the court.

Defensive win shares, the other half of calculating win shares (again, an imperfect stat but one that translates easily for historical comparisons and has a decent correlation with star players) is the biggest landslide victory for Kyrie Irving over Collin Sexton. Irving totaled 3.9 “DWS” over three seasons, dwarfing Sexton’s 0.7. That led to a total win shares advantage of 16 for Irving, 5.4 for Sexton.

Basketball-Reference also has their Box Plus-Minus metric for modern players, and Irving finished as a negative player in Defensive BPM with -0.4. Sexton was degrees of magnitude worse than Irving, with just a -2.5 DBPM. That led to a total calculation of Irving’s BPM at positive 3.7, and Sexton’s a negative at -2.3. Prorated to an 82-game season, Irving’s value over a replacement player (VORP) was 8.7, while Sexton was -0.6. According to that metric Sexton was worse than a replacement player over his first three seasons.

Advantage: Kyrie Irving