🏀 Xs & Os • Team & Agent Consulting • @The_BBall_Index Founder • Lakers Exceptionalism Pod
Hanging with models (the math ones)
Joined May 2012
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Big dropoff so far from SGA defensively.
Here’s a look at the top line, but looking under the hood there are dips ~everywhere in the talent stats defensively for him thus far.
Is he playing hurt? Just a slow start?
The top rookies this season in our Offensive Talent metric at @The_BBall_Index:
1. Darius Acuff Jr.
2. Keaton Wagler
3. Yaxel Lendeborg
The top rookies in Defensive Talent:
1. Aday Mara
2. Trevon Brazile
3. Yaxel Lendeborg
The top rookie in Defensive Talent so far this season is Aday Mara
Mara led college hoops in D-LEBRON last season
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Boston’s been impressive so far. We’ll have a new projected standings page up at BBall Index shortly and Boston’s currently profiling as a 59.7 win team and the #1 seed.
They started as a 57.0 projected win team to start the year (and the #1 seed)
The top rookie in Defensive Talent so far this season is Aday Mara
Mara led college hoops in D-LEBRON last season
Draymond is doing the thing again
#2 in D-LEBRON so far this season
Mamu had made the shift this season from Mobile Big (where he stacked up very poorly) to Helper and we’ve seen his defensive performance improve as expected.
58th percentile D-LEBRON so far. C+ among rotation Helpers.
Thiero and Vando have been LA’s Mobile Bigs instead.
I’d like to note that Luka’s defensive role this season so far is as a Wing Stopper.
This would be the first time in his career he’s been used this way, either in the NBA or internationally.
The “he’s hiding” idea doesn’t hold water this year.
Update your talking points!
Luka Doncic is the NBA’s best offensive player this season, and that’s no surprise.
BUT LOOK AT THIS DEFENSE!!!
Incredible performance so far on that end.
This is from our BBall Index 2026-27 data - just tying up a couple things before we’re in a spot to launch new pages.
Atlanta's style of defense will test LA.
Elite hedging group on high volume + above average switching rate & effectiveness too.
They're top 5 in proactive iso/post help sent. They keep a compact shell.
All while forcing a ton of turnovers.
Each of those poke at LA weak areas.
I just ran some numbers to contextualize how this stacked up. Atlanta’s style defensively is the 4th worst fit for LA’s offense of the 29 opposing defenses.
And I didn’t even dive into the other end of the court yet but LA’s drop heavy approach is what Atlanta has handled best so far. This would be a good game for LA to hedge more.
This isn’t me saying Atlanta is the best team. But in terms of the fit they have an edge (if each team plays like they normally do) so it wouldn’t surprise me to see them outperform expectations in this matchup.
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