FanPost

Taking a Look at Michael Carter-Williams' Potential as a Defender

Streeter Lecka

Michael Carter-Williams gave us a lot of reasons to be excited last season. He exploded out of the gate with a dazzling performance in his very first game, became a triple-double MACHINE (he actually only had two, but who’s counting), and won the Rookie of the Year award by a considerable margin (for whatever that's worth). His exciting play was one of the few bright spots in a season where the Sixers looked to Evan Turner as a primary scoring option for the majority of its games and fielded a roster with names that sounded like they were randomly generated in NBA 2K. And in a draft that was considered to be the weakest the NBA has seen in several years, he might very well be the steal of the class at the 11th pick.[1]

Carter-Williams’ defense however, was not so exciting. Although his 1.9 steals per game was good for the 5th highest rate in the league, statistics such as steals are hardly an indicator for good defense and are noisy at best.

More advanced statistics placed MCW on the opposite side of the spectrum though; ESPN’s real plus-minus stat for instance ranked his -2.1 DRPM at 375th on a list of 437 players. Since no one statistic can tell the whole story of how good a player is defensively, I decided to take a closer look at how Carter-Williams fared defensively last season and how his mechanics and instincts on this end project him as a defender going forward.

Defending Off the Ball and Fitting into the System

If there was one thing that was obvious about the way Brett Brown wanted to coach defense last season, it was that he loved to have the team pack the paint. In a scheme similar to what Oklahoma City employs, Philadelphia’s perimeter defenders would help off the corners and move to the paint whenever opposing offenses threatened the middle of the floor.

The obvious downside to this style of defending is that shooters can often be left open on the corners, but this flaw can be easily patched if the roster is full of long and athletic defenders (again, like Oklahoma City has).[2] If the wings are able to shift quickly between the paint and the arc, this style of defense can be absolutely exhausting to play against.

But obviously only being long and athletic will not get the job done in this defense, as players also need to have the defensive instincts in order to correctly time their help and make sure they’re not giving up open shots. This is a department where Carter-Williams (and the rest of the Sixers, for that matter) struggled mightily last season.

Carter-Williams would often get caught helping (or not helping) at the wrong moments, gunning for steals rather than trying to shut down the offense, and recovering from his help way too late.

Carter-Williams rightfully had the scheme in mind on this play, but he simply executes incorrectly. James Anderson and Thaddeus Young do a good job of closing off the passing lane to Brandan Wright, making MCW’s help somewhat unnecessary. He was right to shift over to further intimidate Vince Carter from hitting the passing lane, but MCW helps way too deep and gives Dallas just enough time to find Jose Calderon, one of the league’s very best shooters, for a wide open 3.

Carter-Williams didn’t help his case in this department either by constantly gambling for steals. Although steals can be a nice bonus at times, MCW would often break out of the scheme in a defense where little flaws such as irresponsible gambling can be easily exploited.

Philadelphia would almost always get burned by this, and Carter-Williams’ gunning for steals was a prime example of why gambling should be limited in this style of defense. The good news though was that he focused less on steals and cut down on the gambling as the season progressed, so let’s hope this trend continues going into next season.

His timing and overall awareness however, did not show the same improvements. He clearly underestimated at times the speed and precision of NBA offenses, while overestimating his ability to keep up and recover off of help. It’s worth mentioning though that rookies rarely adapt to playing NBA defense in their first season, and Carter-Williams’ lack of awareness might just simply be the result of rookie growing pains. It’s probably too early to be worrying about this right now, but improving this area of his game could very well be the difference between MCW being extremely effective or below-average in this defense.

Reason for Worry: One-on-One Defense

This area of Carter-Williams’ defense might be where his ceiling as a defender lowers. He often struggled defending most point guards in isolation situations last season, where he was not quite quick enough to keep up with smaller players.

There could possibly be a simple solution to this though: Notice in the second play in the above clip where Carter-Williams moves up to pressure Rubio about 30 feet from the basket, and gets blown by for an easy shot.

Brett Brown liked to have Philadelphia’s defense press at times last season, but MCW seemed to have a lack of understanding where the pressure should start and end. He would constantly start pressing guys all the way up to 35 feet from the basket, and would often pay for it. There is simply no reason for doing this, as it opens up space inside the arc and gives opposing guards a first step on him. While pressuring defenses can sometimes be agonizing for the offense to deal with, Carter-Williams would probably be better off holding back and guarding players within a reasonable shooting range.

But Carter-Williams will likely always have a disadvantage with his speed. He is not slow by any means, but he simply does not have the same burst of speed that smaller players do and can struggle to keep up. He could sometimes make up for this disadvantage with his length, where he could chase his man from down behind and threaten a block. This still isn’t ideal however, and could potentially be a problem worth monitoring in the future.

He also developed the annoying tendency when he got taken off the dribble where he would give up and just lazily swipe at the ball as his man went by him, a move that has been infamously trademarked by James Harden.

It ends up as a turnover on this play, but it’s absolutely infuriating to watch. Ask any Houston fan, this type of "defense" often ends up in a foul or the ball handler getting an easy shot at the basket. We can only hope that he stops with this next season.

Where He Shines: Pick-and-Roll Defense

Let’s make one thing clear: Brett Brown does not want your basketball team scoring against his in the paint. Not ever. Philadelphia defended the majority of pick-and-rolls last season by zoning up, where it would send the ball handler’s defender (usually a guard) over the screen and have the screener’s defender (usually a big) drop back into the paint. If executed correctly, this type of defense often leads to the ball handler taking one of three options: attack the bigger defender at the basket, take a long 2-pointer with the ball defender trailing from behind, or dump the ball off to somebody else.[3]

And Carter-Williams came in as nearly a perfect fit for this scheme. He was able to use his long arms to slither around screens like a snake and quickly chase down ball handlers, haunting the dreams of many unsuspecting point guards.

And Philadelphia will only get better at defending this with the added rim protection of Nerlens Noel and eventually Joel Embiid. Keep an eye out this season for whenever Noel and Carter-Williams get thrown into a pick-and-roll, where the ball handler will either have to drive at Noel, take a jumper with MCW right on his tail, or get rid of the ball.

Philadelphia’s alternative to zoning up in pick-and-pop situations was usually to simply switch on screens. This obviously did not prove to be as big of a problem for Carter-Williams as it would for most guards though, where his 6’7" wingspan helped him handle defending bigger players.

So while Carter-Williams probably will never become an elite defender in this league, he certainly has the potential to be a very good one if he can polish up his instincts. His length will allow him to be a monster in the pick-and-roll, but he’ll be limited if he never finds a way to keep up with faster point guards. Improving his defensive awareness, timing in help situations, and leaving behind his bad habits will be key developmental areas for him this season. If he can eventually become above-average in these departments, he could possibly be the perfect fit in what Philadelphia is trying to do defensively.

[1] Prove me wrong, Giannis. Prove me wrong.

[2] Players that Hinkie filled the roster with such as MCW, Tony Wroten, Jerami Grant, K.J. McDaniels, and Nerlens Noel all fit the bill perfectly, while players like Spencer Hawes and Evan Turner do not. Starting to notice a trend here?

[3] Last season’s Pacers team is a prime example of how this should be played and was key to the team having the best defense in the league. This style of defending is mostly effective if a team’s roster has good rim protection (Roy Hibbert) and long perimeter defenders (Paul George, George Hill, Lance Stephenson), such as the roster Philadelphia is seemingly trying to putting together.

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