Nylon Calculus Rookie Review: What did the Wizards see from Rui Hachimura?

Even if the NBA regular season is canceled, we’ve seen enough to start assessing the first seasons of notable rookies. What did the Washington Wizards see from Rui Hachimura?

It was a discouraging season for the Wizards, running out a high-powered offense that was continually undermined by a disastrous defense. Several young players stepped forward and made interesting contributions in the up-tempo offensive environment and Rui Hachimura’s 13.4 points, 6.0 rebounds and 1.7 assists per game seemed like a silver lining.

The rookie from Gonzaga had put up big numbers in college but there were questions about exactly how his game would translate to the NBA. After 41 games, what have the Wizards seen from Hachimura and what does it imply about the kind of player he’ll become?

What did we expect?

Hachimura was another propsect who seemed to be receiving a lot more buzz than was justified, based on The Step Back’s assessment. He ultimately went to the Wizards at No. 9 but wasn’t ranked as a first-round prospect on our big board. In a March scouting report, Trevor Magnotti went through Hachimura’s strengths and weaknesses, breaking down why he was skeptical the strengths would meaningfully translate and why the weaknesses could be way more problematic:

"Even before you get to his shooting projection (He took just 36 3-pointers this year) and the utility of his offensive style of play, he projects with extremely low confidence that he’s going to be a playable NBA team defender. He could still have certain roles based on his talents, such as being an offense-focused bench 5 or an assignment one-on-one defender, where he’s much more capable. But neither of those roles are particularly valuable in the modern NBA, where team defensive systems ask so much of players."

Assessing Hachimura’s rookie season then was less about focusing on the translation of a few more specific skills and more about taking a wide view and looking for any ways his versatility and athleticism might help him carve out a role as a viable NBA contributor of any sort.

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What did we get?

The Wizards were the worst defense in the league this season and somehow dramatically worse with Hachimura on the floor. Apportioning responsibility to players for team performance can get murky when done on the back of an envelope, but ESPN’s Real Plus-Minus did estimate his defensive impact to be 488th-best in the league last season.

Hachimura spent about 42 percent of his possessions defending opposing 4s and another 18 percent defending 5s. In an ideal world, a big man would be offering something measurable on defense — either on the defense glass, in the area of rim-protection or in creating turnovers when defending ball-handling 4s and 5s.

Hachimura ranked in the 30th percentile among bigs in defensive rebounding and the third percentile in block percentage, according to Cleaning The Glass. In terms of rim protection, opponents made 68.9 percent of their shots inside of six feet when Hachimura was the closest defender, fifth-worst among the 89 players who defended at least four shots per game and more than seven percentage points higher than opponents would have been expected to shoot given their season-long averages. His steal and deflection rates were maybe slightly better than expected but he was near the bottom of the league in defensive loose balls recovered.

In summary, there’s almost nothing in his counting stats to indicate he is or is likely to be a positive defender and there is certainly nothing in the all-in-one metrics or team performance to imply that he has a more positive impact that’s somehow being missed by the counting stats. On defense, at least as a rookie, he is who we thought he was.

On offense, there is a bit more conflicting information to unpack given his healthy scoring totals and not terrible true shooting percentage. The Wizards ran played a fairly extreme offensive style this season — lots of player and ball movement, lots of uptempo attacking. In terms of shot selection, the focus appeared to be going quick in the shot clock and finding open space, instead of maximizing high-value zones. All of these elements played to Hachimura’s offensive strengths.

Hachimura was mostly able to operate in his comfort zone on offense and 41.2 percent of his rookie shot attempts were two-pointers outside the restricted area. That put him in the 84th percentile compared to the rest of the league in terms of the share of his shot attempts from that area. He made 36.7 percent, slightly below average which was an enormous drag on his efficiency.

The chart below shows all players who played at least 500 minutes this season, by field goal percentage and field goal attempt percentage on 2-pointers outside the restricted area. To put the relative value of these shots in context there’s a reference line that equates to the same value as shooting just 30 percent on 3-pointers.

To provide positive value as a high-volume mid-range shooter, you need to be an elite one, which Hachimura is not at this point. The other avenue to positive value is contributing in other offensive areas. Again, Hachimura is not there yet.

He’s a very low-turnover player with a turnover percentage in single-digits, but he also doesn’t do much as a creator or ball-mover. He averaged just 4.2 potential assists per 36 minutes, about the same as players like Harrison Barnes and Tristan Thompson. He’s not an outside threat, having made just 28.6 percent of his catch-and-shoot 3-pointers and thus doesn’t do much to help spacing. In terms of creating shots for himself, nearly half of his unassisted baskets were outside the restricted area — if you ask him to make something happen it’s as likely as not to be a relatively inefficient mid-range jumper. He also doesn’t stand out as a foul-drawer or offensive rebounder, ranking in the 49th and 27th percentiles among bigs for free throw rate and offensive rebound rate, respectively.

What he did do well was score in transition and 15.5 percent of his points came on fastbreaks. But, again, that high number can largely be explained by Washington’s offense. If Hachimura is going to hit his ceiling he has to be a bigger factor in the halfcourt.

Putting all the pieces together, Hachimura’s rookie season wasn’t a train wreck. He played meaningful minutes and did at least some meaningful things. But he didn’t really do anything to address the inherent concerns about this game. He still looks like a bad defender who needs to guard bigs but doesn’t offer the stretchiness or creation ability to leverage that as a mismatch at the other end — opponents will probably feel totally comfortable defending him with a 4 or 5 at the other end. He is still a player whose primary contribution on offense appears to be scoring but without an obvious pathway to doing it efficiently at a high-volume and without the ancillary skills to make it work as a role player.

Things could certainly change and it’s not impossible that there’s a steep climb coming in his developmental curve. But the future that’s easiest to imagine for Rui Hachimura is putting up double-digits on middling efficiency for a succession of middling teams who can’t stop anyone.