Last year, the Toronto Raptors were the worst defensive team in the NBA, allowing 109.8 points per 100 possessions (5.4 points per 100 possessions above the league average). With that in mind, there is little surprise that the Raptors seem to be focusing on that side of the basketball this offseason. First and foremost, they hired Mavericks’ assistant Dwane Casey as their head coach. Casey was the architect of the Mavericks’ championship defense and the man who was responsible for the team’s turnaround on that end.
The second thing that the Raptors did during the offseason that showed an emphasis on the defensive end was drafting Jonas Valanciunas. While Valanciunas is staying overseas for one more season, the Raptors’ front office and new coaching staff have big expectations for him on the defensive end. While doing my player comparisons for Basketball Prospectus, Kevin Pelton’s player similarity scores showed us that Valanciunas compared most closely to Tyson Chandler. Funny enough, the man who just coached Chandler and will be coaching Valanciunas in the future saw the same things, as Holly MacKenzie tweeted:
Quote from Casey on Valanciunas: I just came from having Tyson Chandler and Tyson Chandler at this age was not as good as this young man.
After this season (once he comes over), Jonas Valanciunas will most likely be the Raptors’ starting center. His starting power forward? Most likely Andrea Bargnani. Despite the reputation Bargnani has for being soft and a terrible defensive player, I think the combination of Valanciunas and Bargnani can work on the defensive end. While Raptor fans are probably rolling their eyes at me, because both Valanciunas and Bargnani have strengths and weaknesses right now defensively. Luckily for them, their strengths compliment each other well, and they should be able to hide each other’s weaknesses.
Despite the reputation, Andrea Bargnani is actually a good post defender. In the 205 times he was posted up last season, Bargnani held his opponent to just 182 points (0.888 PPP) on just 46.8% shooting. The key is length. Bargnani has length, and when defending on the basketball, especially in the post, he knows how to use it well:
Bargnani isn’t going to block a lot of shots, but he is able to go straight up and use his length to contest shots without fouling (fouled opponents on the block just 7.6% of the time) by going straight up.
Where Bargnani struggles on the defensive end is recognition and help defense, and this is what makes him a poor defensive center. You saw it this postseason, you want your center to be able to recognize things quickly on the defensive end, identifying when they should help and when they should stay home. Andrea Bargnani was awful at that, and with him as the last line of defense, it destroys everything the Raptors are trying to do on the defensive end.
Luckily for Bargnani and the Raptors, Jonas Valanciunas’ biggest strength right now is his help defense/being that last line of defense, blocking and bothering shots, but never really getting too far away from his man and being in position to defend him as well:
Valanciunas just has a knack for knowing when to come over and when to stay home and the end result is usually a contested shot in the paint (and please don’t bring up the level of competition, the plays in the above clip come from the Euroleague, probably the second best competition in all of basketball behind the NBA).
Where Valanciunas struggles is post defense. Valanciunas was in the bottom 20% among all international players, allowing a PPP of 1.037 on his 81 post up defense possessions while giving up 52.6% shooting in the post. At just 19 years old, Valanciunas doesn’t really have the strength to prevent post players from establishing strong post position, and that puts him at a disadvantage. Assuming that Valanciunas bulks up during his final year of seasoning overseas, he will more than likely improve his post defense. However, if he doesn’t it shouldn’t be a problem for Toronto. The reason is that teams don’t really have two post threats anymore (some barely have one). All the Raptors have to do is put Bargnani on their opponent’s main post threat, and let Valanciunas concentrate on bringing help defense and playing that last line of defense role.
A lot of things can change over the course of a season, but as things currently stand I really like the Jonas Valanciunas draft pick, and Dwane Casey probably can’t wait to get him in a Raptor’s uniform and put him in that role that Tyson Chandler played with his Mavericks last season.
