I have not done the analysis or put a lot of thought into, so I am curious others views? Clearly, the name of the game in the current NBA is lanky wings, offense that moves the ball, and disruptive defense, either at the rim, on the wings, or everywhere. I'm not a huge fan of KPJ because he doesn't fit into the ball movement culture. But I recognize trends change, he's better off ball, he had a great close to the season, and if he just can really study where he's good offensively (less thinking, more quick action) and eliminate where he's bad (too much dribble dribble) he can be fine. But where he could theoretically be even more valuable is defensively. He has the size and athleticism. I've seen plenty on twitter here and there about how players shoot poorly when he's guarding them, etc. Is the bball IQ there though? Hmmmm...??
If you put value on RAPTOR Porter's overall RAPTOR score on defense for 21/22 was -0.1. As a Rocket last year, his defense RAPTOR score was -3.7. https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/nba-player-ratings/ Defense BPM improved from -2.4 last year to -1.6 this year. Statistically Porter's not a plus defender right now but he's made strides in improving on that end. I wouldn't say he's elite as some on here wanted to label him but, when compared to the rest of the roster, he's definitely one of our best defenders.
In one of the other threads, he was rated as the fifth best backcourt one on one defender in the NBA. I can't find it and not sure what the source was. My eye test that he is very close to being elite and is definitely our best defender including Tate who is overated in my opinion, because of his propensity to file and being unable to guard normal height PF's or rebound effectively.
I am not a big fan of him either, especially at the pg but he is improving. His half court one on one defense is good. Other things not so much, transition defense, team defense, being always alert etc.
He's not horrible. It's hard for me to give a firm assessment on anyone here as an individual defender because we are such a terrible team. He has shown some flashes of playing good one on one defense, but it's not consistent and there is obviously much more to defense than just that. The most definitive thing I can say that is that his height and strength relative to other PGs guarantees he won't be one of the worst defensive PGs in the league. But that's as far as I'll go at this point.
He's definitely not at the elite level some try to make him out to be around here. He's capable in some aspects but he still has a ways to go to be labeled as a consistent plus defender.
When he plays D he's great. When he pouts because he didn't get a call on the other end of the floor he's worse than terrible.
It’s hard to judge any player individually, the team as a whole is so bad defensively. Coaching plays a big role.
I'm not concerned with the rest of the NBA and frankly his pout levels are off the charts. The top 1% of your 50%.
Here's the points per possession when defending in isolation for Rocket's players last season: Green 0.66 Martin 0.76 Gordon 0.81 Wood 0.86 Christopher 0.90 Sengun 0.97 Mathews 1.06 Tate 1.07 Porter 1.08 Nwaba 1.82 In isolation we're actually not too bad. It's our team defense that's the issue.
He has zero team defensive instincts. He's a gambler that falls a sleep and ball watches ala Westbrook.
Correct except for maybe Tate. You could blame it on experience but KPJ is 22 years old. He isn't new to basketball.
interesting stat from top to bottom. Green allowing least, Sengun better than Tate, kpj the worst and nwaba complete outlier. Wonder the total number of isos for each player.
Great topic! KPJ has all the tools to be a great defender one day, and I most definitely think he is a plus defender today. He might have been the best defender early in the season. I found it interesting to sift through some of the team stats while digging around: https://rocketswire.usatoday.com/li...-statistically-in-the-2021-22-regular-season/
