Noted basketball terrorist Trae Young, often hailed as the worst defender in the NBA has managed to pull his defensive EPM to almost 0.0 (it actually should be once tonight’s game is taken into account). All jokes aside this is pretty impressive stuff as he has managed to improve on defense year after year and is currently top 10 in steals as well. His efficiency is shaky in the new system that Quin installed but stuff like this is nice to see.
||Offensive and Defensive EPM||| |:-|:-|:-|:-|:-| |Player |Offense|Defense||| |Trae Young|3.9|-0.1|||
Is this even legit? lol showing guys like Giannis and Butler as barely positive defenders which isn’t true at all.
A lot of it has to do with his frame.
I think given his size and strength he’s probably more a plus all things considered. His reality in the league is that he is small even when other small players are by and large bigger than most humans.
He tries and that’s what matters
he did play defense harder
I don’t get how Haliburton has avoided the bad defender rep lol
Incredible offensive player of course but literally every advanced stat as well as the eye test sees him as hideous on that end and yet his reputation seems to be neutral to even positive
Because he’s tall and lengthy for a point guard, so people assume he must be a good defender.
Which is funny because I constantly see him get hunted on defense. But sure. I guess.
Personally, I think that Trae is a vastly improved defender eventhough I wouldn’t go as far as to say that he’s neutral not yet anyway. Single player defensive metrics are imo all flawed and a single one can’t make a statement if someone’s a good defender or not. It comes down to the eye-test which Trae passes in relation to what his defense has been in the past. Just constantly competing, making smart rotations and holding up reasonably well in tough spots.