The statistical tealeaves of Jonas Valanciunas’ season paint an interesting picture.
More accurately, they paint many interesting pictures. Many incredibly contradictory pictures. According to the stats, Jonas is having an incredibly efficient, near dominant offensive season.
Except that the team is much less efficient with him on the floor. He’s having a great defensive season, effecting opponents shots and rebounding at an elite level. Except that the team is worse off defensively with him on the floor. Jonas is putting up more efficient numbers on more attempts in less minutes, and yet the team is utilizing him less and less. ESPN’s Real Plus Minus ratings hate him, while their Player Efficiency Rating (PER) absolutely loves him. The consensus outsider opinion seems to be that Casey doesn’t use Valanciunas enough. Is he right, or is he wrong? The stats say both. Are you confused yet? Good, it gets worse. Let’s jump in further and deepen our misunderstanding.
We’ll start with simple baseline stats, something that the guys who got girls back in high school can actually understand. Jonas is averaging 12.0 points, 8.7 rebounds and 1.2 blocks in just 26.3 minutes a game. Those are respectable numbers. He’s doing that while shooting 56% from the floor and 81% from the free throw line. Those are very good numbers. His per 36 minutes, which is a stat that involves a touch of math but I think we can handle it, are 16.4 points, 11.9 points and 1.6 blocks on just 11 field goal attempts. Those are borderline all-star numbers (just ask Jeff Van Gundy).
Jonas is putting up those great numbers despite playing on less minutes and occupying a marginalized role in the team’s offence. Jonas is ranked 199th in the league in Usage percentage. Jon Leuer, JJ Hickson, Travis Wear, Tyler Zeller and Terrence Ross are just a few of the 199 NBA players who touch the ball more often for their teams that Jonas Valanciunas does. So when you hear somebody say that it feels like Valanciunas isn’t involved in the offence enough, they might not be crazy. Especially since when he does get the ball, he’s shooting the 5th best field goal percentage in the league. At 56%, he’s sitting behind only Mason Plumlee, his starting partner Amir Johnson and dunk-only artists DeAndre Jordan and Tyson Chandler. He’s also attempting at least one full shot per game more than any of those players and has a true shooting percentage, which takes into account the value of a three pointer and your free throw percentage, better than all but Chandler and Jordan, who again, only shoot put-backs and dunks. The argument for incorporating a much bigger role in the offence for Valanciunas seems obvious so far.
Except here’s the thing: the team has been much better offensively on the season when Valanciunas has been on the bench. To the tune of 7.5 points per 100 possessions better. That’s a notable drop off. Now, some of that is attributable to the lineup as a whole and the scorched Earth shooting numbers that Lou Williams and the bench have put up at times. DeMar DeRozan and Amir Johnson, two other key starters and pivotal offensive players, also have a negative offensive on/off split. But that doesn’t fully explain the Valanciunas exception. In games when Valanciunas has played above his minutes average or taken more than his average number of shots, the team wins 57% of their games. That’s not bad, but it is notably worse than their 65% winning percentage on the season. What’s more damning is when we look the other way. The team is 18-8 (69%) when Valanciunas takes less than his average of 8 shots a game and 22-8(73%) when he plays even less than his 26 minutes a game average. Those numbers make it hard to argue that the Raptors haven’t been better off with Valanciunas playing an even smaller role than the reduced one he already is.
The more esoteric advanced stats don’t do much to help us make sense of the confusing picture we’ve got in front of us so far. In terms of overall efficiency, Valanciunas has the highest PER on the team at 20.36, well above average and good enough for 31st overall in the NBA. Valanciunas also ranks surprisingly high on Estimated Wins Added. His 7.2 estimated wins added ties him with Chris Bosh and Mike Conley, one spot better than Dirk Nowitzki. The advanced stats are in love with Jonas, right? Well, let’s look to ESPN’s Real Plus Minus, because it’s got a serious hate on for our boy. Jonas is the 60th(!!!) ranked center in plus minus. By that implication, every team on the league could each have 2 centers who are more valuable than Big Val, never mind including the forward and guard positions. They have Jonas ranked as a -2.67 on offence and a paltry positive 0.25 on defense. If you can confidently make a strong case either way making sense of those contradictory sets of numbers, kudos to you.
The defensive numbers tell a similarly confusing story. Jonas has made huge leaps in his rim protecting abilities, keeping opponents to 46.1% at the rim on a large sample size of 8 attempts per game. Those numbers have him just inside the top 10 in the league in starting centers for guarding the rim. He’s been the best rebounder on the team by a mile kilometer as well. It’s not just raw rebounding numbers either, his defensive rebounding rate is competitive with the leagues best, and has him right between Greg Monroe and Andrew Bogut, both respected defensive rebounders. On the other end, Valanciunas has the 28th best offensive rebounding rate in the league and he’s grabbing a solid 45.7 of the contested rebounds he’s in the area of. Those are both valuable assets for a Raptors team struggling on the boards, and they don’t have anybody else on the roster that can claim similar numbers. And yet, the Raptors have been 3.5 points per 100 possessions worse defensively with Jonas on the floor while averaging less blocks and only rebounding a hint better on the defensive end.
It’s hard to claim confidence in drawing many firm conclusions from all of these contradictory numbers. It seems like Jonas is playing the best basketball of his career, and playing at the caliber of a good starting center… and yet he’s hurting the team whenever he’s on the floor. Here is the danger in all of this: you can look at these numbers and understand why Dwane Casey is playing Jonas less overall and not at all in 4th quarters. The stats and results justify that decision. But the stats also clearly point out that Valanciunas is a serious weapon on both ends of the floor. He is getting efficient results; he just isn’t fitting in with the team. The problem could very well be with Valanciunas, but the stats insinuate that there is an issue of the coaching staff being unwilling or unable to figure out how to best fit this efficient piece into winning, instead of more simply into what they want to do. The team might very well be better off without Valanciunas on the floor, but certainly there must also be better ways to use a valuable piece that you have. The stats are making the case both for and against Valanciunas, but maybe they don’t have to.
