01-29-2024, 05:46 PM
(01-29-2024, 04:49 PM)DanSchwartzgan Wrote: My 2-cents on the great THJ debate of 2024. It kind of reminds me of the Wood discussion last season…including the outsized emotion. Wood is an obviously talented offensive player that can’t find a home or any money, yet people here lost their minds when you suggested the obvious.
THJ is also an obviously talented offensive player. But, there are issues and they are mainly around his D and the limits to his game at his size.
1. Defense: He’s the worst defender on the team. Yeah, its cool he takes charges and all, but worst D-Rating and DBPM and if you dig through 82-games, he’s got the biggest On-Off defensive spread on the team (by a mile). He kills the defense of any lineup you run with him…period.
My problem with this argument is that you are only looking at a half season of sample for very noisy stats. What was his DEPM, defensive rating and defensive on/off last year? They paint a completely different picture. He is not a good defender. A lot of players on this team are not good defenders. His defensive advanced stats look wildly worse this half season than they have in the past due to bad lineup construction and noise. If you make roster decisions based on a couple of months of very noise data, your going to be hopping all over the place.
And this is very different than the Wood debate. A big part of that debate was maturity and locker room issues. There is no hint of that here.