Is Victor Oladipo a good defender?

On the night of the NBA Draft, the Oklahoma City Thunder shook things up with a trade that sent out Serge Ibaka and brought back Victor Oladipo. A lot depends on Oladipo’s potential for two-way production, so how good a defensive player is he?

When Victor Oladipo entered the league, drafted by the Orlando Magic with the No. 2 overall pick in the 2013 NBA Draft, he was considered a borderline elite defensive prospect. After three seasons, those expectations have been tempered somewhat. Oladipo has generally been a positive defensive player, but nowhere near the player he was in college where he could almost completely remove an opponent’s best perimeter scorer from the game.

Having a backcourt partner for Russell Westbrook who can contribute at both ends is extremely important for the Thunder’s championship aspirations next season. Their supporting cast has historically presented an either/or choice between offense and defense. Only twice from 2012-2015 did they have a player other than Ibaka, Westbrook, or Kevin Durant play at least 500 minutes and offer above average production on offense and defense. Last season, Steven Adams became the third in four seasons.

Oladipo’s offensive role will be constrained in Oklahoma City alongside Westbrook and Durant — get out in transition, spot-up on the wings, attack closeouts — all well within his comfort zone. The loss of Ibaka will be enormous to their defense, in large part because of how his versatility unlocked switching schemes and small ball rotations. In addition, the defensive drop-off between Ibaka and Enes Kanter or rookie Domantas Sabonis is likely to be severe. All that means Oladipo’s ability to be very good on defense is extremely important.

Available defensive statistics don’t really paint a clear picture of overall value or potential, particularly in Oladipo’s case. He was one of just six guards last season to post a steal rate above 2.0 percent, a block rate above 1.5 percent, and a defensive rebound rate above 10.0 percent — all strong marks in the best box score based measures of defensive performance. However, ESPN’s Real Plus-Minus and Box Plus-Minus (RPM is heavily influenced by box score metrics, BPM is built entirely from box score metrics) both rated Oladipo as only a slight defensive positive last season, estimating his defensive impact as being worth about 0.8 points per 100 possessions — closer to a league average defensive performance than an elite one. For reference, both metrics estimated Andre Roberson’s defensive impact to be much larger.

Oladipo doesn’t look exceptional by the NBA’s (admittedly imperfect) play-type statistics either — he ranked in the 31st percentile in efficiency defending pick-and-roll ball-handlers and the 74th percentile in defending isolations. However, those play type numbers only include possession that were terminated specifically in that setting, so every pick-and-roll that Oladipo defended resulting in a harmless kick-out and offensive reset is not included.

A research paper at the 2015 MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference, including a much more comprehensive dataset of screens and possessions, found that Oladipo and Nikola Vucevic were one of the most effective defensive pick-and-roll combinations in the league, specifically when the strategy was to have Oladipo chase the ball-handler over the top of the screen. That’s particularly impressive when we consider that strategy requires containment on Vucevic’s part (not his defensive strength), and we can lay most of the credit for that at Oladipo’s feet.

There is no perfect metric measure for assessing NBA defense, but assembling the helpful ones that are available seems to indicate that the impact of Oladipo’s defense sits somewhere between average and good.

Assessing Oladipo’s defense with video can offer just as complicated a picture. There is perhaps no greater defensive challenge in the NBA right now then keeping up with Stephen Curry, particularly for the Oladipo and his new team. The Magic played Golden State twice last season — both losses — surrendering a combined 92 points to Curry on 34-of-51 from the field and 17-of-28 on three-pointers. Not good.

Oladipo defended Curry often during those two explosions and the results were a mixed bag. Early in the matchup on February 25, we could see many of Oladipo’s defensive strengths. He did a fantastic job tracking Curry, fighting over screens on and off-the-ball, maintaining contact through curls and cuts.

A lot of Curry running up his point totals came against other defenders, but we also saw that Oladipo is susceptible to a good hard screen (or a blatantly illegal one by Andrew Bogut). Curry was also able to use Oladipo’s aggressiveness against him, setting him up for back-cuts to the basket on more than one occasion.

These two views highlight a related factor — Orlando’s back-line defense was not good last season. Dwyane Dedmon and Channing Frye were the only two Magic frontcourt players who rated as positive rim protectors, according to Nylon Calculus, and they combined to play less than 1,400 minutes. Aaron Gordon, Jason Smith, Andrew Nicholson and Vucevic all provided rim protection that was worse than the average NBA big man, with Vucevic ranking 119th of 132 qualified players in the Nylon Calculus database.

As a team, the Magic allowed the 10th-most field goal attempts in the restricted area per game, and the 11th-highest field goal percentage in the restricted area. If that is Steven Adams and not Vucevic playing behind Oladipo on those back-cuts, the result might have been very different.

It may not seem entirely fair to use videos of Oladipo defending Curry as a representative sample, but they are actually a pretty accurate reflection of a lot of his time in Orlando. He is active and engaged, playing aggressive and focused defense on and off the ball. It just doesn’t always lead to defensive stops.

Although it is often used as a cop-out, in looking at Oladipo’s defensive potential and reality, it is also worth considering the way his offensive responsibilities have changed in the NBA. In his last season at Indiana University, when his defense would seem to have reached its peak, Oladipo averaged a combined 30.1 field goal attempts, trips to the free throw line, assists, and turnovers per 100 team possessions. Last season for Orlando, that number was 31.8. That’s a small increase but a potentially significant characterization of him carrying more of a direct on-ball offensive responsibility since leaving college — with the implication being that he has less energy to devote to going all out on defense.

I think it is absolutely safe to say that Oladipo is a good defender. Exactly how good remains to be seen. There is every to think that not having to create so much offense off the dribble and being able to play with better defensive players (particularly Adams) in a more cohesive defensive system could allow Oladipo to shine. Frankly, the Thunder are counting on it.

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