Jonas Valanciunas will return for the Toronto Raptors on Monday when they take on the Chicago Bulls.
The team was uncharacteristically forthright with the information Sunday, with head coach Dwane Casey letting the cat out of the bag. The Raptors have normally played such news close to the chest, but with Valanciunas cleared for a return to practice last Monday, most had the Chicago game (or the Washington game Wednesday) circled as his likely comeback date.
Valanciunas has missed 17 games since fracturing the fourth metacarpal on his left hand (a break in the base of his left ring finger) on Nov. 20 against the Los Angeles Lakers. Kobe Bryant had the gall to make his lone defensive effort of the season as Valanciunas went for a dunk, making contact with Valanciunas’ hand and rendering the center out for a reported six weeks. He’ll have missed five and change, missing about three fewer games than originally anticipated.
Reports proved correct that Valanciunas had opted for rehabilitation over surgery, and he was often spotted around the team working out in a protective brace of gradually decreasing size. The hope is that the ability to stay in some modicum of shape during the time off, plus the week to ramp-up his activity without restriction, will help him hit the ground running.
Whether or not he does isn’t all that important, because he’ll eventually improve the team’s ceiling. That’s apparently not a popular opinion in the Raptors Republic comments and Twitter mentions, so here are a few things to keep in mind with Valanciunas returning Monday.
The Raptors are better with Valanciunas than without him.
At first blush, this should be fairly straightforward. Valanciunas is the team’s starting center, a 23-year old linchpin the team saw fit to invest in with a four-year, $64-million extension this offseason. If Valanciunas failed to take a step forward in his fourth year, he’d be earning maybe a slight market premium for a center of his age and production, though not a great one. If he improved as the team hoped, he could stand as an important discount, with the team having bought out his restricted free agency in what could be a cash-flooded 2016 market.
But the Raptors are 19-12 at the end of Valanciunas’ absence, having gone 11-6 without him, including a 6-3 mark without both him and DeMarre Carroll. Does this suggest the Raptors are better off without Valanciunas, or that he doesn’t make the team better?
The former is patently false. Getting a key player back is always good, no matter how the team’s performed without him. The worst-case scenario is that depth improves and the number of options for Casey expand, with the Raptors possessing additional looks to throw at an opponent. A healthy team is always better off as such, especially when the player is as talented as Valanciunas, regardless of if your personal tastes do or do not enjoy the aesthetics of his play.
The second question is more reasonable, and it’s a theory that some (like William Lou) have floated in the past as Valanciunas performed well individually but didn’t move the needle much for the team’s overall play. The 14 games before he was hurt represent a small sample, as do the 17 games since, but the team was unquestionably playing better with him than without him this year, per data from NBA.com:
Those numbers are perhaps confused some by the co-incidence of Carroll’s injury, but narrowing the data further supports Valanciunas’ impact even more, per data from NBAWowy.com:
More importantly than their performance to date is that their upside is significantly higher with Valanciunas than without him. He’s the team’s best interior scorer, a decent and improving defender, and the only big that alters a defense’s approach to the pick-and-roll in a way that’s favorable to the team’s high-usage drivers.
The Raptors deserve a great deal of credit for going 11-6 in his absence. Bismack Biyombo, in particular, did a stellar job filling in, and several of the role players stepped up in major ways. The Raptors over-performed against adversity, turning that record in against teams with an average win percentage of .511, with seven of 17 on the road. (The Raptors, by the way, have now faced a below-average strength of schedule on the year, and quite an easy one when adjusting for travel and rest.)
The return of Valanciunas being a positive is in no way a commentary against Biyombo or the way the Raptors played over the past five-plus weeks. Some around here seem to take every Valanciunas positive as a Biyombo negative and vice versa, and that’s not at all the point here. Things have gone well, but this team is incontrovertibly better off with Valanciunas back, because…
Valanciunas was playing the best two-way basketball of his career before the injury.
This is what a lot of people seem to forget. That’s understandable considering Valanciunas turned in his two worst games of the season during the road trip on which he was hurt, and because expectations were sky-high entering the season (more on that in a moment).
Even with the two bad outings – he had righted the ship in six quarters since – he was posting some substantial numbers, averaging career-highs of 12.7 points and 9.3 rebounds while shooting 55.6 percent from the floor. He was playing the best defense of his career, too, despite a drop in block rate. The team altered their defensive system in part to better suit Valanciunas’ strengths and weaknesses, and he had quickly found a comfort zone dropping back against the pick-and-roll instead of aggressively hedging on to guards. Whether you agree with the change or not from a strategic perspective (I do, unless you have a uniquely gifted starting pivot), Valanciunas was filling his new role capably.
In his absence, the team hasn’t had any noticeable defensive slippage, thanks in large part to the play of Biyombo. They haven’t been better, either, which is important to note since the Raptors have declined in offensive efficiency, offensive rebounding (some of that is a strategic shift to help the transition defense), and defensive rebounding. Valanciunas ranks third on the team in Daily RAPM Estimate from Nylon Calculus, second in Win Shares per-48 minutes from Basketball Reference, and fourth in Real Plus-Minus from ESPN. None of those metrics are perfect, but they’re all in agreement that he was a major positive before the injury.
And…
Valanciunas is better than Biyombo.
Look, Biyombo has filled in admirably for Valanciunas, and the Raptors would have been lost without him over the past 17 games. He’s a rebounding machine and a great shot-blocker, and few things make me happier than watching Biyombo try to corral a skip pass, only to take so long the other team fouls him out of impatience or overzealousness toward a potential turnover. Since Valanciunas hit the shelf, Biyombo is averaging 6.7 points, 11.7 rebounds, and 1.9 blocks while shooting 51.3 percent from the floor, and he ranks seventh in the league by grabbing 21.4 percent of rebound opportunities in that time.
Here’s the dirty secret that’s mostly gone unnoticed because Biyombo’s been so fun: The Raptors have been better with him on the bench, even with the team so thinned out.
During his six-game double-digit rebounding streak – during which he averaged 7.8 points, 15.2 rebounds, and 2.8 blocks – the Raptors were a -37 with him on the floor and +40 with him on the bench. Over the last 17 games, the team has been 10.5 points per-100 possessions (PPC) worse with him on the court. For the season, that mark is 11.1 PPC.
That may seem counter-intuitive, both because our expectations for each subconsciously frame our evaluations of each, and because Biyombo does two things that really stand out: Rebounds and blocks shots. Valanciunas is nearly as strong a rebounder but blocks far fewer shots, so Biyombo’s rim-protection stands out as a major point of advantage.
It’s the primary reason the Raptors wanted him, after all. On the season, Biyombo has saved 1.01 position-adjusted points per-36 minutes with his rim-protection, per data from Nylon Calculus, contesting an elite 39.5 percent of shots at the rim and holding opponents to 46.9-percent shooting on his contests, a middling mark. In his small pre-injury sample, Valanciunas impressively contested an even higher percentage of at-rim shots (43.6 percent), but opponents scored on 57.5 percent of those, a poor mark. Biyombo’s deterrence index is middle-of-the-pack for bigs, too, slightly behind Valanciunas. Last season, Valanciunas actually graded out as worth 1.1 additional adjusted points per-36 minutes, again per Nylon Calculus, but Biyombo’s reputation as a rim-protector far outweighs the Lithuanian’s.
Teams seem to respect that, too, taking a smaller percentage of their shots in the restricted area when Biyombo is on the court this year, per data from NBA.com.
Notice, though, that Valanciunas has a similar deterring effect on shots at the rim, the team just hasn’t defended the rim quite as well.
Despite Biyombo’s strong rim-protecting and rebounding, the fact remains that the team’s been worse with him, mostly because the offense struggles significantly when he’s on the floor. Biyombo is a complete non-threat on offense, and it’s had a serious impact on the team’s primary ball-handlers. He may be shooting 47.2 percent from the floor but teams ignore him completely outside of three feet, where he’s 10-of-42 (23.8 percent) on the season. “Ignore” is not an overstatement here – teams do not pay Biyombo any attention until he gets the ball underneath the basket.
Saying the Raptors play 4-on-5 on offense with Biyombo isn’t entirely accurate, as he sets good screens and hits the offensive glass, but saying they play 4.25-on-5 probably would be. Setting screens isn’t exactly a useful skill if teams ignore the screener completely to double the ball-handler, which is what almost every opponent has opted to do against the Raptors. So not only does Biyombo’s status as a non-factor clog the lane for drives, it puts the team’s guards in a precarious position to start their drives, often having to split a double or pass out of a trap. Looking at the team’s three primary ball-handlers, each has a worse offensive rating and true-shooting percentage with Biyombo, the team turns the ball over more when Biyombo’s on the court with each, each takes significantly fewer shots at the rim with Biyombo, and Lowry and Joseph garner fewer assists with Biyombo.
If you’re looking for the reason the Raptors still struggle with Biyombo despite his defense, that table is why – his presence on offense seals off the rim as much for the Raptors as it does their opponents. Look at how defenses load up on the ball-handler with Biyombo compared to Valanciunas:
Biyombo’s negative impact in this regard bears itself out in lineup data, too. While the presumed starting group with Valanciunas healthy has struggled, they’ve been worse with Biyombo, and the team’s most used lineups before the injury were better than their most used since.
Please, I can’t stress this enough: This is not any sort of Biyombo hate. He’s filled in so well and deserves a ton of love for his performance over the past month-and-a-half. But the reality is he’s a quality backup…which is great! That’s the role the Raptors signed him for and the one he’ll move back to.
The Raptors get their closing unit back.
Included in those lineup listings is the Raptors’ presumed closing lineup of Joseph-Lowry-DeRozan-Carroll-Valanciunas. That group was killing opponents in 34 minutes earlier in the season and it remains the team’s most effective lineup that’s played at least half a game together. (Note: Joseph-Lowry-DeRozan-Patterson-Scola has been killing it, too, but in a smaller sample.) This is probably the Raptors’ best two-way look against most opponents, and the benefit of the last few weeks is that Casey can now mix and match to close games using lineups he’s far more familiar with than he otherwise would have been, one of the silver linings of facing adversity.
As for the starting group, well, it’s probably still worthwhile to swap Patterson and Scola. The second unit could use Scola’s shot-creation and Patterson’s always been a more natural fit alongside Valanciunas. It’s a long shot, but a bold prediction here: Casey uses the tumult of reintegrating two starters to also finally make the Patterson/Scola swap, and the team’s starting unit the rest of the season remains Lowry-DeRozan-Carroll-Patterson-Valanciunas.
The Raptors are fully healthy.
This is huge. The Raptors have hung in well despite the injuries, and 19-12 at this point in the year is a good place to be. That would have been a good place even healthy, really, with second in the Eastern Conference a realistic goal (although not one it’s worth sacrificing playoff health for). The silver linings mentioned earlier include not only new lineup experimentation but also extended run for T.J. Ross and Patterson, both of whom broke out of their respective slumps and are playing great of late, and James Johnson, who may have earned more of Casey’s trust but is likely bound for deep reserve duty again.
The role players finding their grooves in larger opportunities is huge, because the biggest drawback of the injuries has been an increased load on Lowry and DeRozan. The hope is that having a deeper rotation of players playing well can afford Casey the ability to trim the minutes of his stars from their current 36-minute perch down to the 32-33 area the rest of the way. The only ways to do that are with quality reserve play and by putting bad teams away earlier, both of which look more realistic now than they maybe did two weeks ago.
From Monday to Jan. 9, the Raptors play eight games, several of them of the marquee nature against potential East playoff opponents. Five are on the road and there are a pair of back-to-backs. After that stretch, things get lighter and more home-heavy for a while, so the next two weeks stand as both a challenge rediscovering chemistry and an opportunity to build momentum and really stake a claim near the top of the wide-open East.
