On defense, however, it has happened, and it's happened in a big way. Last season, the Sixers were a better team with Jrue on the floor by about 4.3 points/100 possessions, but the edge was gained on the offensive end. They scored 7.6 points/100p more with him on the floor, but actually allowed 3.3 fewer points/100p when he was on the bench. When you looked at the defensive metrics available from Synergy, he allowed 0.9 points-per-play, 14th among starting PGs and 0.1 better than average. According to 82games.com, his opponent PER (the production of the player he was guarding, with 15.0 supposedly weighted to be average) was 19.0, good for 28th among starting PGs. Essentially, according to that metric, Jrue's opponent average a near All-Star level performance against him for the entire season. Every one of these numbers has taken a dramatic turn this season.
In points-allowed-per-play, from Synergy, Jrue is at 0.72 this year. First among starting PGs (Rondo is second at 0.73, the next closest is Conley at 0.76). When you look at his on/off numbers, the improvement is even more stark. With Jrue on the floor, the Sixers are allowing 92.64 points/100 possessions, with Jrue on the bench, they're allowing 103.06. A difference of 10.42 points (remember, last season they were worse by 3.3 points). There's also another nugget to be gleaned from the on/off stats. Last season, the team was much, much worse offensively when Jrue went to the bench. This year, they's slightly better. 106.33 with Jrue on the floor, 106.42 with Jrue on the bench. So over last season, we're talking about a drop by 2 points for lineups with Jrue in them, and an improvement of nearly 6 points by the units when he's on the bench. And again, it all comes out to the team being essentially on par in offensive efficiency with last year's squad. His opponent PER is 13.7 (though 82games.com's data hasn't been updated in nearly two weeks).
When you look at the numbers, and even just from watching all the games you should've been able to pick this up, the turnaround has been in large part due to a leap Jrue made, it just wasn't the leap we'd been expecting (or maybe hoping for). His offense has remained static, or perhaps regressed a bit in certain areas, while his defense has improved dramatically. His improvement isn't the only catalyst for the team's dramatic improvement on that end of the floor. Thad deserves a lot of credit as well, and some of the credit should go to Jeffrey Kessler, David Stern and Billy Hunter for dragging their feet in the negotiating room. The lockout, limited preseason time and condensed schedule have all contributed to a league-wide drop in offensive efficiency, but the Sixers have improved by almost twice the league-wide dropoff.
A couple of fun things I came across during the research for this post (data pulled from basketballvalue.com, it does not include numbers from the Cleveland game):
* With Iguodala and Jrue on the floor together: 714 minutes, OFR 102.78, DFR 90.31, DIF 12.47
* With one or the other, but not both on the floor: 399 minutes, OFR 112.55, DFR 99.86, DIF 12.68
* With neither AI9 or JH on the floor: 141 minutes, OFR 105.64, DFR 108.33, DIF -2.69
* Jrue, Meeks, Iguodala at 1,2,3: 424 minutes, OFR 101, DFR 86.98, DIF 14.03
* Jrue, Turner, Iguodala at 1,2,3: 118 minutes, OFR 102.36, DFR 87.39, DIF 14.97
* Jrue, Lou Williams, Iguodala at 1,2,3: 143 minutes, OFR 107.98, DFR 100.75, DIF 7.24
* Lou, Meeks, Turner at 1,2,3: 80 minutes, OFR 106.09, DFR 113.15, DIF -7.05
* Lou, Meeks at the 1,2: 182 minutes, OFR 110.06, DFR 109.49, DIF 0.56
Probably some unexpected numbers in there. Interesting that most lineups with Jrue and Iguodala don't perform very well offensively unless Lou is in between them, but overall they're nearly unstoppable, no matter who the third wheel is.
