First look at: rim defense and blocks!
We hit the mid season mark, so let's have a look at some numbers.
With the filter I applied to the data, we obtained 71 players + JJJ that met the requirements.
Jackson Jr. played just 704 minutes this season due to an injury, but I decided to include him anyway due to his massive number of blocks (6 in a game against Phoenix just the other day!) and his opponent's FG% at the rim being elite.
Draymond Green has a different approach to defense, mostly because he is 6’6 and thus not as capable of blocking shots with consistency as other bigger players.
He’s the only player below 6’7 in the sample capable of having a <50% opponent FG% at the rim, which is also impressive considering that he usually defends the 5 position despite his size.
At almost 33 years old and in a difficult defensive season for the Warriors, he is still one of the top defenders in this league.
Walker Kessler, the TWolves' draft pick in exchange for Gobert, is the only rookie this season capable of defending the rim and blocking shots with this efficiency (4.8 blocks per 100 possessions, the league's second best value).
With 260 rim field goals attempted with him defending, only a few players faced more shots, and of those, only Brook Lopez and Miles Turner have similar opponent percentages.
From rookies to players who took a big leap this season, what about Nets center Nic Claxton? In his fourth season, it looks like he’s emerged as a defensive force, playing alongside Durant, Simmons, and Irving.
He went from 1.1 blocks per game (47 games) last season to 2.7 in 40 games this season, and his opponents' field goal percentage at the rim in this sample is elite (50.6%), and his offense this season looked way better than the past three years.
Claxton is really taking a leap as a player and is emerging both as a DPOY candidate and as a MPOY candidate, we’ll see how the second part of the season goes for him.
Other notable mentions include Jaden McDaniels, the TWolves' defensive monster wing, veteran Brook Lopez, and the always-on-the-verge-of-becoming-a-Laker Myles Turner.
I don’t want to look very much at the numbers of "small" guys when defending the rim, because it’s usually a matter of size rather than defensive effort, so let’s see which bigs are not so effective while defending the rim.
Evan Mobley, while being a generally good shot blocker due to his length and his agility, is still not the greatest rim protector, mostly because of his frame.
He is still improving and gaining strength, being in his sophomore year, and he is already considered a generally good defender with the potential to be a truly great defender.
He faced 280 rim attempts, and 176 (63%) became buckets, which is almost exactly the average of the sample I took, but this sample also includes guards, and thus the mean is a bit bigger due to this.
Lucky for him, he plays with Jarrett Allen, a better rim protector than him.
While being the engines of their teams' offenses (with all the due differences...), Vucevic and Jokic are allowing around 70% of their opponents' rim attempts.
Jokic is not a bad defender at all, considering how many PnR he defends on every night, being the back line of the Nuggets defense, but it’s not the first name that pops into my head when talking about elite rim protectors.
Sabonis is the player who faced the most rim field goals this season, an incredibly high 365, a hundred more than Mobley while playing the same minutes.
He played 100% of his minutes as a center, and overall he’s having an All Star season in a 24-18 Sacramento that without him would be completely lost.
Despite his size, he is not a shot blocker, but he is not a complete liability when talking about rim protection, having conceded a slightly below sample average FG% of 61.9%.