Over on ESPN, Boston homer and ignoramus extraordinaire humor columnist writer Bill Simmons posted an article in which he stated that "defense wins championships...[t]he Magic are OK defensively". To me, "OK" suggests mediocrity - in a 30-team league, the top 10 are good, the middle 10 are OK, the bottom 10 are bad. So, are the Magic just OK?

 My look at it after The Jump.

In order to determine which teams are good and which are bad, I wanted to compile a combined look at how each team did relative to the other teams in the NBA. The method I used was quick and dirty, and could probably be improved on, but it gives a general idea of defensive ability. What I did was take each team's Defensive Rebound Rate, Defensive Efficiency, Opponents' FG%, Opponents' 3PT%, and Opponents' Turnover Rate, and rank each team from 1st to 30th at each stat. I did not use Points Allowed, since Defensive Efficiency is Points Allowed adjusted by Pace. Each 1st place rank was worth 30 points, all the way down to 1 point for 30th. Add the points together, and a (rough) measure of each team's defensive capability appears.

The Magic's only real weak spot was in Turnover Rate, where they were 25th in the league. In DRR, they were 2nd. DefEff was 1st, and the two FG% ranks were 3rd and 2nd. Apparently Bill Simmons is of the opinion that a team that's 2nd in defensive rebounding, 1st in defensive efficiency, and 3rd in opposing FG% is just "OK." The Composite Score for each team was as follows:

1st - 136 points - Boston

2nd - 125 points - Cleveland

3rd - 122 points - Orlando

4th - 120 points - LA Lakers

5th - 106 points - New Orleans

6th - 103 points - Houston

7th - 101 points - Denver

8th - 97 points - Charlotte

9th - 88 points - Milwaukee

10th - 88 points - Utah

11th - 87 points - San Antonio

12th - 85 points - Detroit

13th - 83 points - Atlanta

14th - 81 points - Portland

15th - 79 points - Indiana

16th - 78 points - Miami

17th - 76 points - Philadelphia

18th - 75 points - Chicago

19th - 75 points - Dallas

20th - 75 points - Memphis

21st - 64 points - Oklahoma City

22nd - 61 points - New York

23rd - 56 points - Toronto

24th - 50 points - New Jersey

25th - 48 points - Phoenix

26th - 43 points - Minnesota

27th - 42 points - Golden State

28th - 34 points - LA Clippers

29th - 24 points - Washington

30th - 23 points - Sacramento