Washington Wizards big man defends Orlando’s Franz Wagner. Geoff Burke-Imagn Images
Last week, I wrote about findings from a stat metric we sometimes used in the olden days of “advanced” analytics — before it was feasible to mine the official play-by-play report to get on/off or other data. In the comments, we touched on the wish to have a metric to measure block success.
Et voila, Ben Taylor and Cody Houdek on the Thinking Basketball podcast reminded me of a stat from the early days of play-by-parsing — blocks per defensive goaltending violation. This arose in a discussion of where to rank Dwight Howard among highest peaks in this century.
Was Howard a great defender? Absolutely. He deservedly was a three-time Defensive Player of the Year — only Dikembe Mutombo, Ben Wallace, and Rudy Gobert have more (four each). But according to Taylor and Houdek, Howard averaged about four blocks per goaltend during his best years — Tim Duncan averaged around 296.
This isn’t a perfect measure by any means, but it does give an indication of guys who chase blocks — perhaps to the detriment of the team defense. I say “perhaps” because despite giving back nearly a point per game by goaltending over the course of his career, Howard was a dominating defender. The very trait that led to so many goaltending violations (the ability to get his fingertip more than 13 feet off the ground) was part of what made him so great on defense.
So, blocks/goaltending violations should be considered as only part of the discussion. If we want to determine who’s good defensively vs. who’s “just chasing,” we’ll need to do more analysis.
Let’s start with the game’s most prolific shot blockers, as measured by per minute blocks (minimum 500 minutes played last season). And note, these are defensive goaltending violations only. Right away, we get a similar kind of story:
Victor Wembanyama, San Antonio Spurs — 5.53 blocks per 48 minutes, 22.0 blocks per goaltending violtation.Donovan Clingan, Portland Trail Blazers — 3.99/27.5Daniel Gafford, Dallas Mavericks — 3.98/8.8Walker Kessler, Utah Jazz — 3.81/15.3Adem Bona, Philadelphia 76ers — 3.81/4.4
Next is Jay Huff at 19.7 blocks per goaltend, and Chet Holmgren at 57.0.
Washington’s top shot blocker last season was Alex Sarr at 2.67 per 48 minutes. He averaged 12.6 blocks per goaltending violation. That’s well below average, though — league average was 21.1.
By the way, Dereck Lively, the other part of Dallas’ tag-team center rotation, averaged 9.8 blocks per goaltend. The guy who should be the Mavericks’ center (Anthony Davis) averaged 57.0.
The player with the most blocks per minute without any goaltends is Denver Nuggets big Zeke Nnaji at 2.99. He totaled 40 blocks with zero goaltending violations. Not bad.
Others who ranked high in per minute blocks with no violations:
Clint Capela, Atlanta Hawks — 2.12Jakob Poeltl, Toronto Raptors — 2.02Dwight Powell, DAL — 1.82Draymond Green, Golden State Warriors — 1.66Kevin Durant, Phoenix Suns — 1.63
All would be considered more positional defenders (right place at the right time), and not high flyers like Bona or Gafford or Lively.
The bottom of the heap in this blocks efficiency metric is a) not exclusively populated by jump high big men, b) includes two Washington Wizards, and c) is a small sample size bastion.
Olivier-Maxence Prosper, DAL — 3.0 blocks per goaltend (that’s six total blocks and two goaltends)AJ Johnston, WAS — 3.0 (that’s three total blocks and one goaltend)Richaun Holmes, WAS — 3.8 (23 blocks, six goaltends)Orlando Robinson, TOR — 4.0 (16 blocks, four goaltends)Keon Johnson, Brooklyn Nets — 4.3 — 1,925 total minutes
Four guys besides Johnson played at least 1,000 minutes and had a score of below 5.0 in this metric:
Trey Lyles, Sacramento Kings — 4.6Ja Morant, Memphis Grizzlies — 4.7Nic Claxton, BRK — 4.8Bam Adebayo, Miami Heat — 4.9
Also, is there something in the Dallas water system? Gafford, Lively, and Prosper?!
Below is a list of NBA leaders in total blocks last season without a goaltending violation. The list includes playoffs, and is influenced by games played. And it’s still fun:
Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Oklahoma City Thunder — 97OG Anunoby, New York Knicks — 87Draymond Green, GSW — 83Kevin Durant, PHO — 77Jakob Poeltl, TOR — 71Onyeka Okongwu, ATL — 69Tobias Harris, Detroit Pistons — 1.21Tyrese Haliburton, Indiana Pacers — 64Keon Ellis, SAC — 63James Harden, Los Angeles Clippers — 62Nikola Jokic, DEN — 57
Gotta say, I would not have guessed SGA at the top, nor would I have had Haliburton or Harden on my guess list.
Looking closer to home, last season the Wizards had nine players who blocked shots without committing a goaltending violation. Here’s the full list sorted by per minute blocks, no minutes played cutoff.
Alex Sarr: 2.67 blocks per 48 — 12.6 blocks per goaltending violationTristan Vukcevic: 2.15 — 23.0Richaun Holmes: 2.07 — 3.8JT Thor: 1.73 — 9.0Justin Champagnie: 1.40 — 9.8Kyshawn George: 1.33 — zero goaltending violationsColby Joes: 1.21 — zero goaltending violationsJohnny Davis: 1.19 — zero goaltending violationsBilal Coulibaly: 1.01 — zero goaltending violationsJordan Poole: 0.65 — zero goaltending violationsMarcus Smart: 0.64 — zero goaltending violationsKhris Middleton: 0.46 — zero goaltending violationsMalcolm Brogdon: 0.43 — zero goaltending violationsCorey Kispert: 0.42 — 14.0Bub Carrington: 0.41 — zero goaltending violationsAnthony Gill: 0.24 — 2.0AJ Johnson: 0.23 — 3.0
Yes, Kispert got called for goaltending.
Yes, no surprise to see The Old Guys collectively have zero goaltends in roughly 2,100 minutes of playing time.