But pieces on offensive tackles or hockey defensemen or basketball point guards tend to sound like fluff stories about people who could not make it as stars. Trying to quantify the unmeasurable. Ponder some of these problems for a basketball coach. Trying to get players to accept their valuable role as defensive stoppers, pickers, secondary rebounders or even passing artists flies in the face of the public's focus on scoring leaders. A rebounder who abandons other defensive obligations to hang around the basket often looks good in the stats while the opposition scores at will.
Good defenses get little statistical credit when they make the opposition look bad.
The losing coach just writes it off to his or her team having a bad night. Making another team look like they are off their game is usually the result of a great defensive effort. Good coaches have a way of getting through to players the fact that there are very few stats which tell an accurate picture of the game besides who won the game. You'll usually see the coaches who succeed at this task picking up championship trophies at the end of the year.