Is Raja really Kobe’s nemesis ?
The biggest news over the last few days in Suns world has been Raja Bell (Suns’ beloved #19) arthroscopic surgery on his right knee. As usual the surgery was “successful.” As I still can’t think of a surgery on an athlete that according to the official report was not “successful”, the news - not much in itself - had me think about Raja and his contribution to the Suns since he signed with Phoenix two years ago. We all know his stats (37.4 MPG, 14.7 PPG, 3.2 RPG) and his great defensive ability as Raja was indeed, and deservingly so, named to the NBA All-Defensive First Team for the first time in his career last season. What I really like the most about Bell is his attitude; Raja plays at full speed every night on every play.I have tried to find confirmation of his defensive ability trying to check for example how good he is when guarding Kobe Bryant.
We all know Kobe is having a hard time when Raja guards him, but…how hard? I checked the boxscores from the last 2 seasons (including the playoffs) to see how Kobe fared against Raja, compared to his season and career average in the games against the Suns each year. It was just 3 regular season games a year (both Bryant and Bell missed one) and 11 in the playoffs (Raja missed a game during the 2005/06 series).
Here’s what I found:
Comparing Kobe Bryant’s performance against Raja Bell over the last seasons with his career total I think it’s possible to underline a few things: (1) Raja is (on average) effective against Kobe; (2) Raja can limit Kobe’s ability to drive to the basket, but can’t do much against 3-point shots (Who can?); (3) Raja causes a lot more Kobe’s TO (and allow less assists) than the rest of the League and therefore I am sure we all agree (4) Raja rules!
I know all the (many) limitations of this simple analysis: only a bunch of games, only 2 years vs a career, not all Kobe shots had been taken against Raja and so on. It was a little way to play with stats just to get an idea.
What do we get from this? well, I don’t know. We already knew Raja was a great defender ! Whatever, I just wanted to wish you well Raja!
Yours truly, Steve Fan
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Posted by Steve Fan
Blogger and Steve Nash enthusiast. Don't get in his way, he'll MVP your ass.
http://sonsofstevenash.blogspot.com
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