Jonas Valanciunas – The Defensive Stopgap?

Jonas Valanciunas: The defensive stop-gap?

Much has been said about the defensive issues of Raptors Center Jonas Valanciunas and rightfully so. The big Lithuanian is slow footed and does not follow correct rotations, getting lost frequently on the help side. The starting center for the Toronto Raptors, would have fit in perfectly with the centers of old, but in today’s smaller and quicker game he tends to look like he is playing in the mud.

At 7 feet tall and 255lb, Valanciunas is a bear of a man with long arms and wide shoulders which he uses to bully his opponent down beneath the rim and monster hands, allowing him to catch lobs and gobble up rebounds on both ends of the court. He led the Raptors in offensive rebounding, total rebounding and double-doubles this past-season. When he was on the bench the Raps were punished on the glass and his absence was notable. Despite this he was unable to garner minutes down the stretch of close games because of his inability to contain in the pick and roll, and was replaced with sharpshooter Patrick Patterson and do-it-all-big, swiss army knife Amir Johnson. With Johnson moving on to Boston look for some of these minutes to be returned to the young Lithuanian, who is still only 23 years old. With all due respect towards Bismack Byombo and Louis Scola, Valanciunas is the only viable option in the front court to play crunch time minutes.

Is this a good thing?

The raw numbers would suggest yes. The Raps were 5-0 when he scored 20+ points and 21-11 when he amassed 10+ rebounds. Does this means that when given the required minutes and post touches, Toronto is going to move on to the Conference finals on the back of a 4^th year player as their anchor? Not necessarily. Yes he is far and away the best rebounder on the team, but he simply does not have the foot speed to stay in front of stretch forwards like Atlanta’s Al Horford let alone contain Washington’s lightning bolt of a point guard John Wall (as we saw in these playoffs) and is thus a liability to guard out on the perimeter.

Let me make this plain, just because he cannot guard on the perimeter does NOT mean he is a bad defender. When Valanciunas is guarding the ball, opponents shoot 3% LESS at the rim than their average. Move that out to 10 feet? Opponents shoot 3.6% less than is their average from that distance, anything farther and he becomes less and less effective. The problem is when he is forced to come out farther than he is comfortable, or when there is a switch between him and a quicker player (basically anyone from a PG to a PF) that he is exploited. There are a number of options to remedy this; the most effective probably being the way Golden State utilized their own 7-footer, Andrew Bogut. Not quick enough to guard on the perimeter, Bogut instead walled off the paint and nothing else. Surrounding him with extremely effective perimeter defenders with the foot speed to contain drives and get over screens, this allowed Bogut to sit tight and use his massive frame to swallow up anyone foolish enough to challenge him. The problem for Toronto’s head Coach Dwayne Casey is that he does not have the likes of Klay Thompson, Andre Igoudala, Harrison Barnes, Shaun Livingston and Draymond Green to do so.

Golden State Warriors Center Andrew Bogut Blocks the Shot of Toronto Raptors Center Jonas Valanciunas//Kyle Terada-USA TODAY Sports

All hope is not lost however. The Raps have added by subtraction in dealing away Greivis Vasquez and Lou Williams, two players that couldn’t stay in front of their own shadows. They then acquired swingman Demarre Carroll off of free agency, meaning Terrence Ross can move back to his natural shooting guard position, and signed Canadian guard Corey Joseph. A rotation of Carroll, Ross, Joseph, James Johnson and Patterson is long and athletic. Their summer league prospects follow a similar mold with Delon Wright, Norman Powell and Bruno Caboclo, all long and athletic perimeter players that can guard multiple positons. Add in freak athlete All-Star Demar DeRozan and hyper strong All-Star Kyle Lowry and the Raptors look prime flip the script on their perimeter defensive woes (hopefully). Limiting penetration would allow Jonas to have to make fewer rotations, and we would most certainly see opponents’ defensive field goal percentage at the rim plummet further.

In the first 15 games post All-Star break Jonas finished second behind defensive specialist James Johnson in defensive rating. How could this be? A man who cannot contain the pick and roll because of foot speed (or lack thereof), who plays in a defensive scheme that requires big men to be quick and hedge hard in P&R situations cannot possibly be helping the team on that end of the floor. This probably has something more to do with his effort on the glass and the (slightly) slower pace that the Raptors play at when he is on the floor, than his defensive prowess. With him battling down low to grab any offensive rebound it puts a strain on the opposing team’s bigs, preventing them from running to the Raptors rim and beating everyone down the floor, thus meaning his offence is helping the team’s defense, and that’s without him even taking a shot. With Valanciunas grabbing 23.7% of all offensive rebounding opportunities, he also helped limit second chance points and easy put backs with his 75.8% Defensive Rebounding Percentage.

I don’t want to be too quick to proclaim Jonas as the next Andrew Bogut on the defensive end, after all even if JV forced opponents to shoot 3% than their average at the rim, Bogut forced them to shoot an astounding 14.8% less within 6 feet of the rim, so don’t get too excited. I just want to throw out the possibility of a very solid defensive center. It is true that perennial DPOY candidate Dwight Howard himself only held opponents to 3.2% below their average at the rim. AGAIN, I’m not saying Valanciunas is going to win 3 consecutive Defensive Player of the Year awards, nor is he likely to ever be in the conversation for one, I’m just throwing out some numbers.