Precious Achiuwa is, at his best, a fantastic defender. Yet with him on the floor the Toronto Raptors have been a worse team on the defensive end in two of his three seasons as a Raptor, including much worse this year.
How can both be true? Euclid knows best: angles.
Consider the pick and roll. Let’s pretend there are three defensive approaches for the screener defender. There are far more, of course, but at the simplest level the screener defender can drop far below the screen and wait in the paint, rise to the level of the screen, or switch onto the ball-handler.
Two of those involve carefully selecting angles, shifting along a plane, and ultimately letting math ward the offensive player from the rim. The other involves being a terrific athlete. Guess in which category Achiuwa thrives?
According to Second Spectrum, among 32 players to have switched at least 50 picks this season as the screener defender, Achiuwa allows the sixth-lowest points per chance, at 0.809. That’s very good! Among 69 players to have played drop on at least 50 picks this season as the screener defender, Achiuwa allows the 34th-lowest points per chance, at 0.946. That’s very average!
Consider these two plays.
Here, Achiuwa shows his hand very early against the ball-handler, allowing a quick bounce pass to the screener. Then he chooses a spot to recover to the screener that is consistently behind the driving line. He meets him too early and gives ground the whole way to the rim, offering no meaningful contest. That is three failed chances to choose an impactful angle and stick to it.
Now observe this play within the lens of angles.
Here, Jakob Poeltl recovers through some fluff and avoids a back screen. He chooses an angle to meet the ball-handler and races to the destination, but he doesn’t open up his hips and immediately recovers again back to the big as soon as the ball-handler picks up his dribble. This is knowledge of angles, as well as everything else going on around him, including off-ball screens and counting steps by the ball handler.
Poeltl, by the way, has allowed the 15th-lowest points per chance among the 69 players to have defended at least 50 screener defenders in drop. His 0.859 points per chance allowed is far superior to Achiuwa’s. If the Raptors are playing drop defense, Poeltl is a far superior choice to Achiuwa.
And yet Achiuwa is phenomenal at switching. There’s no need for choosing angles far in the distance, defending multiple players at once, or keeping your sense of the play hidden. There’s just mirrored footsteps, digging at the ball, and swiveling hips. There, Achiuwa is virtually unmatched around the league. When he can defend one player, starting in good position, without worrying about the rest of the court, he is arguably one of the most impactful defenders in the league, capable of truly defending point guards and centers and everyone in between.
The thing is, you can’t be a great defensive player with only that skill. Not in today’s NBA, and not as a center — the position that quarterbacks the defense, calling out coverages and identifying everything that’s going on. And for as much as I believe in the future of Achiuwa, he is not helping the Raptors in the present. And not to be hyperbolic about this; he is far from a bad defender playing drop defense. He is solid there. But the Raptors need their defense to be better than solid; solid will earn you a terrible on/off defensive rating on this squad by virtue of defense being this team’s strength. Achiuwa needs to make the defense better, not worse. He has that ability.
The thing is, if Achiuwa’s angle selection when guarding in drop were the only thing wrong with his season, that would be totally fine. Fantastic, even. But it is representative of the larger issue here. Broadly, Achiuwa does not seem to know what to do much of the time he is on the court. He doesn’t know how to positively impact every possession. And the Raptors need much more from him right now. Not in the future, when the nebulousness of potential is realized, or not.
There are plenty of caveats here. Darko Rajakovic and the Raptors haven’t put Achiuwa in a position to succeed. When he has played alongside Toronto’s best, his numbers have been fine. Good, even. This has been true since he joined the team — and his best stretch, coming to end the 2021-22 season, came when he got time with the starters. This season, when Achiuwa has played without either of Malachi Flynn or Gradey Dick on the floor, the Raptors have won those minutes pretty handily. The thing is, they have only played 80 of those minutes. Achiuwa just hasn’t seen the time alongside players who create advantages for him and let him drive into gaps.
To be his best self, he needs to play a simplified role on both ends. Yet the Raptors don’t play him alongside teammates who simplify things for him.
He likely has to do more to earn those minutes. He needs to drive with more consistency, shoot better, contest with more passion during every shift of the game. He needs to pick better angles in the pick and roll, on both sides of the court. He needs to roll in ways that his handlers expect. He still doesn’t shoot with average-for-his-position efficiency from anywhere on the floor. He needs to keep his passing improvement going (he’s actually been awesome there). That’s a lot. But Achiuwa has the ability to become a star. In his fourth season and still losing his minutes by dramatic margins, those chances are dwindling.
Right now, he needs to turn it around if he wants to stay in the rotation, let alone achieve greatness.
