The progress of Enes Kanter

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Enes Kanter is not a good defender. This is common knowledge at this point. His defense last year was downright embarrassing. By seasons end the entire Thunder squad couldn’t defend anyone, and Enes played a big part in that. In this article there are several great charts illustrating this point, plus the progress he’s made this year.

All charts are made by Chartside. You can follow them @chart_side. Chartside was founded by Michele Berra (@MikyBerra) and  Nicolo Ciuppani (@nickramone).

These types of charts typically show where a player’s shot is falling, thus red is good and blue is bad. Not the case for a defensive shot chart. Red is bad, and so is Enes’ defense. He clearly was not getting out to his man on the above the break threes, and his deficits as a pick and roll defender are on full display here. His Defensive RPM per ESPN was a -3.87 putting him at 469 out of 474 possible players. DRPM can be a noisy stat, but not in this case, he was bad. His Percentage Points Different (The difference between normal FG% of a shooter throughout the season and the FG% when the defensive player is guarding shooter) was a +2.9% last season per NBA.com, which almost seems low, but is still very poor.

All of the talk about his bad defense in the offseason was warranted. You also have to consider scheme. Kanter’s Hedge percentage during last season was 11.02% per Vantage Sports. This is 11th among centers last season. Asking Enes Kanter to hedge on a pick and roll is basically handing the other team 2 points.

Enough about last season. Let’s take a look at his defense this season.

What a difference a year (and scheme) makes! Opponents are still shooting a good percentage at the rim 59.9%, but it has certainly improved. He isn’t a good defender, but he is trying, and that is really all we can ask of him at this point. A points against per shot of 1.0 isn’t good, but it isn’t the worst in the league. It’s closer to the 10th to 15th worst center, which is kind of ok!

His DRPM per ESPN is -1.48. This is still not good. His overall ranking went up to 330 out of 428. This is a clear improvement from last year, but doesn’t help you sleep at night. Kanter’s Percentage Point Difference Per NBA.com is a -1.1, which is actually good for him. It means opponents are shooting 1.1% worse when he is guarding them.

Billy Donovan and his staff have stopped the hedging madness that lead to Kanter being a bottom of the barrell defender. His Hedge Percentage per Vantage Sports is only 1.68 (27th among centers).

I praised Billy D above, but the all bench lineups are atrocious defensively. It puts Kanter in a really bad spot. A lineup of Augustin, Waiters, Morrow, Collison and Kanter is a -18.9 per Basketball Reference. Yikes. Sub Payne in for Augustin and they are still a -16.3. Yikes again. What’s strange is you sub Singler for Morrow and they are only a -1.2. I’m not even sure how that works, but I do know the all bench lineups must stop, especially to start the 4th quarter.

Let’s dive deeper in the the world of Enes Kanter defense.

Here is a chart illustrating how opponents shoot when Kanter is within less than 2 feet of his opponent.

Very often Kanter is not guarding his opponent closely unless it is around the rim. This is by design. At 0.5 blocks per game he is clearly not putting fear into anyone at the rim, but he does have an ability to body up an offensive player at the rim. As a result opponents are only shooting 46.7% at the rim in these situations with an effective field goal percentage of 45.1. As illustrated by the chart he is also quite good at this.

The next chart shows how Kanter’s man shoots when he is 2 to 4 feet from them.

At 6’11” Kanter only has a wingspan of 7’1”. That is not great length for a big. For comparisons sake Steven Adams has a wingspan of 7’4” and Rudy Gobert has a nearly 7’9” wingspan. Every Enes Kanter article has Rudy Gobert in it… sorry. My point is Kanter doesn’t have the reach some other centers have to play help defense and also recover. We also know Kanter’s feet are not anything approaching quick on defense, so it makes sense that players who get by him typically shoot well at the rim, 64.6%. Opponents are shooting very poorly from midrange, 30.8%, which could either be random or him closing out well.

The next chart is how players are shooting when Enes Kanter is 4 feet or more away from them when shooting. You’d expect to see more red in this chart and you do.

This is essentially what are player shooting on open shots that Kanter should be guarding. 80% at the rim seems right when he is 4 or more feet away, but if he is making more effort to close out on opponents it does show up here as well. 1.00 Points per Shot again, is not embarrassing, but this could also be a result of the high mix of shots around the court and the large amount of missed mid range shots.

Now that we have covered how Kanter is an improved yet still pretty bad defender, let’s talk about what he has been great at this season. Scoring. Below is his offensive shot chart for the season.

Enes has been a monster this season. Anyone wondering why he ranks so high in PER just take a look at this. The Thunder organization identified Enes as one of the best low post scorers in the league and use him in that way primarily. Utah flirted with using him as a stretch big before trading him and it proved to make him a less effective. Now he is shooting 71% at the rim 56.2% mid range and posting 1.29 points per shot.

If you didn’t know, 1.29 points per shot is amazing, 2nd among centers and 6th in the league only trailing Stephen Curry, J.J. Redick, Kevin Durant, Hassan Whiteside, and Kawhi Leonard. What sometimes gets lost in all of the ENES KANTER SUCKS AT DEFENSE talk is that he is truly a special offensive player.

The chart below shows how he is scoring off one or more dribbles.

He is shooting 65.8% at the rim when he dribbles at least once. If Perk dribbled at least once the whole crowd almost gasped, but Kanter is truly dominant off the dribble. Again, 1.27 points per shot is an unreal stat.

The next chart is how Kanter shoots when a defender is 4 or more feet away.

Here is where Enes seems to fall in love with the jump shot. He doesn’t get many shots from midrange, but when he does they are open. Shooting 60.9% from midrange and 50% on long two’s when open is pretty nice for a center. Kanter has the ability to knock down open shots from all over the court. I wouldn’t be surprised to see him expand his game to three point range more often as he develops.

The next chart is when Kanter’s defender is two feet away or less.

Nearly all these shots are at the rim and highly contested, and he is shooting 45.8% with a .092 points per shot. These are really difficult shots to make. This is where you wish he had better passing ability. If he had the passing ability of a Zach Randolph it would make the all bench units more palatable. From a small sample size, just adding Cam Payne’s passing to that unit has really helped.

This last chart is Kanter shooting without dribbling.

When Kanter was initially paired with Westbrook we knew that it was something special. This chart shows that when he is assisted he is nearly unstoppable. Posting a 1.29 points per shot and and effective field goal percentage of 64.4 is insanely efficient. Not to mention he is shooting 72.9% at the rim. He is strangely bad from near the free throw line, but all the other mid range areas he is fantastic.

One of his problems in Utah is he never played with an elite point guard. He is now playing with the most explosive point guard in the league who happens to have the 4th best assist percentage in the league according to NBA.com. In fact, this season the best player on the Jazz in assist percentage is Trey Burke who ranks 78th in the league. The Thunder have both Westbrook and Payne who are in the top 25. This is one of the big reasons for Kanter’s improvement on the offensive end.

When Enes Kanter signed his 4 year 70 million dollar contract is was clearly an overpay. The Thunder knew it, the fans knew it, and a lot of the NBA media made sure that the whole world knew it. With that said, he is a young player and is already showing improvement. Many worried that he would be a problem if not given a big enough role or enough minutes. So far he seems to be on of the happiest guys on the team and to quote my friend Jason, “Enes Kanter might be the biggest Thunder fan in Oklahoma City”. His play has many begging for him to play more, and during the summer who would have thought that would be an issue? We have already seen improvement from Kanter so far this season, and remember he is only 23. The best years of his career are ahead of him.