The Definitive NBA MVP Case For Shai Gilgeous-Alexander Part II: Defense And Intangibles

Plus, we wrap the case for Shai as the Most Valuable Player

Photo by Raychel Sanner on Unsplash

This is Part 2 for the case for Shai for MVP. You can find Part 1 here:

Today, we’ll focus on defense and some intangible considerations and wrap up the case for Shai.

DEFENSE: CONTRIBUTING TO GREATNESS BY PUSHING A BUTTON

This part is pretty essential to Shai’s case.

You can’t make the argument that, despite all the glowing stuff I covered in Part 1, that Shai’s a better offensive player, or had a better offensive season than Jokic. You can’t do it. We’ll cover that more in detail when I write the final comparison piece, but I’ll spoil it for you: Jokic is having maybe the greatest offensive season in NBA history when you consider production X impact X efficiency.

So you need the Shai gap on defense to matter, and it does.

Let’s start with the bad news:

Shai is not the best defender on the Thunder (Lu Dort). He’s not the second-best (Isaiah Hartenstein and Chet Homlgren in a combo I call Chetenstein). He’s not the third-best (Jalen Williams) or the fourth-best (Alex Caruso) and honestly not the fifth-best (Cason Wallace). Kenrich Williams has a case, for crying out loud.

My problem is you can’t hold it against Shai that he’s not asked to be the best defender on the team. The argument is not “Shai is an elite defensive player and that’s why he’s MVP.” It’s that Shai is a plus defender who significantly contributes to the best defense in the league, and that matters.

I will admit that I’m lower on Shai’s defense than I was when I started this project, because of two big factors.

1. The majority, 44%, of possessions defended by Shai are spot-up attempts, with 304 of his total 810 possessions defended (38%) being catch-and-shoot attempts.¹

2. Shai does not pop off the film like so many of his teammates do.

On the first point, it’s important to note how essential these closeouts are. The Thunder surrender the highest opponent three-point rate in the league. That’s nuts for a team setting defensive records. But they allow the lowest shooting percentage on them.

I’m not going to get into the debate on whether 3-point field goal percentage is luck or not, except to say that if you do the film work, you have to acknowledge that OKC’s rotational closeouts are superior to just about any team in the league, save for the elite teams like Houston and Minnesota.

So Shai fulfills an essential role.

It’s pretty basic stuff. Shai often operates as the low man on the weakside, zoning between the dunker spot and the weakside shooter so that the Thunder’s phalanx of wings can swarm the strong side.

As noted down in the first footnote, this data is messy. Here’s a possession that counts as Shai “defending.”

Shai gets beat on the drive off the closeout, but his teammate cleans it up. This is kind of what a lot of his critics believe is what his defensive role is: just being there while his teammates are awesome.

You see that clip and go “See?! He didn’t even do anything!” The problem is this is one clip among hundreds like the first one, where Shai makes a good closeout. Like this one:

That’s a block on a closeout in a key situation. That’s a great athletic play.

According to NBA.com’s admittedly wonky tracking data, opponents shoot 34.2 percent on 3-point attempts with Shai defending, compared to an expected 36.4 percent. So for every 10 threes he defends, he allows 10.26 points vs. a league-average 10.92. That sounds small.

When you carry it over 100 possessions, the average length of a game, though, it winds up being about a six-point differential. That’s huge. Even when we consider it in the context of a game, Shai allows about a 5.13 points per game on 3’s he defends, compared to an expected 5.78, so a 0.65 difference.

That doesn’t matter against the Thunder’s outrageous +13-point differential, but it matters. More than a half-point differential in a game can decide more games than you’d think.

Shai is first among players with at least 200 pick and rolls defended per Synergy in opponent turnover rate at 27%, an insane number.

The problem is possessions like this:

Shai gets screened, Cason causes the steal, but because Shai was involved in the initial screen action, he gets “credit” for it.

But then you do have possessions where he makes a big impact. SGA averages 2.8 deflections per game along with his steal rate, and you can see it with his quick hands. Here, the Wolves try and target him with a post-up out of the switch on Naz and he denies the entry pass with his quick hands an athleticism:

The chicken: Shai is able to make this steal because of how good the Thunder backline and help defense is.

The egg: Shai still successfully makes the play, and deserves credit for that.

Here, Shai gets the deflection from behind. ²

Even on the plays where Shai isn’t the reason for the turnover, he’s rarely behind the play or out of position. The absolute worst thing you can say is: “Shai simply does his job in being a cog in the best defense in the NBA and one of the best era-adjusted teams we’ve ever seen.” That’s the harshest criticism you can get to.

He contributes, but he’s not necessary or essential to what makes OKC a great defensive team. I didn’t start my analysis there, but that’s where I ended up.

Here are three possessions of ISO defense vs. Boston. Tatum bullies him for a foul, SGA is able to convert a post-up into a turnover (Doris Burke protested a foul), and Derrick White gets an and-one on him.

But this is one of the best switch-hunting teams in the league in a game OKC won. I can show the possessions where the Hornets tried to ISO him and just wound up taking bad jumpers because they’re the Hornets. Do you learn anything from that? No, but those possessions count the same.

This is the problem with evaluating defense. I’s not about your toughest moments or hardest assignments, it’s not about your easiest assignments or best highlights. It’s the whole picture and it’s so many possessions that are dependent on other factors. Teammates, time, score, transition, foul trouble, everything.

Is this good defense?

I think so! The announcer thought so! That’s just ANT being ANT.

The Thunder defense is about one point worse with Shai off the floor. But the problem is that OKC is so good no matter who is on the court that the on/off splits³ are kind of irrelevant. The Thunder defense is 3.4 points per 100 possessions worse with Dort on the floor, and I think he’s DPOY. Again, metrics are messy.

The overall evaluation of Shai’s defense is this:

• He contributes to the best defense in the league

• He does so while being the primary offensive engine with a huge usage carry

• He is active and engaged on close to 90% of all defensive possessions

• His closeouts are great

• He causes mayhem with his hands to force turnovers to compensate for a problem in matching physicality against bigger forwards on switches

He contributes in a meaningful way, but you cannot say that he is a significant driver of OKC’s success defensively, which is the biggest reason they win.

INTANGIBLES

If the argument, stated in Part 1, is that Shai wins the most, then we should try and look at that.

The Nuggets are 42-23, a 53-win pace with Nikola Jokic this season.

The Bucks are 38-27, a 47-win pace with Giannis Antetokounmpo this season.

The Thunder are 62-13, a 68-win pace with Shai this season.

But that includes the minutes without them, which can cost a team a game. Here’s what’s happened when they’re on the floor:

The Thunder win by 16.8 points with Shai on the court. If Shai played every minute and the Thunder performed at that level, their Pythagorean expected wins would be 80 wins. Eighty.