Jonas Valanciunas’ breakout remains on hold until he can improve on defense

This was supposed to be Jonas Valanciunas’ breakout season. Last season was also supposed to be the breakout year. Same with the year before that.

The wait continues into his fifth season, and as time goes by, once bright hopes for the lumbering Lithuanian start to wane. He remains largely unchanged since his second year — will there ever be change that Raptors fan hope for?

I wrote about Valanciunas before the season. My conclusion at the time was that the Valanciunas we’re seeing today — crudely imperfect with the occasional dash of dominance — is fairly close to his ceiling. There was room for some small improvements, but for the most part, any breakout was unlikely.

The story is the same as it ever was.

Valanciunas won’t reach the next level until he improves on defense, which as of late, has made it extremely difficult to keep him on the floor.

In years past, Dwane Casey had a frustrating habit of benching Valanciunas in favor of veterans during crunch time. But Jonas is now the veteran option, and Casey is calling on inexperienced backups like Bebe Nogueira and even Jakob Poeltl to play out important defensive stretches late in games.

We saw it early in the year against Cleveland when it was Poeltl who steadied the defense for the Raptors. Once Nogueira recovered both his job and from his ankle injury, he supplanted Poeltl and Valanciunas both as the go-to stopper of choice at center. Nogueira remains inconsistent, but he played important roles in Toronto’s wins against OKC, Charlotte, New York along with their last two victories against Boston and Minnesota.

Granted, no choice at center has been dominant enough to make up for a general malaise by the team. The Raptors have taken a slight step back defensively this season and scheming for stops, more than anything else, remains Casey’s primary focus during games and practices. This is where Valanciunas gets caught in the crosshairs.

Valanciunas can defend if he’s asked to remain in the paint. But against teams who have (a) a guard who can pull-up from deep off a screen, or (b) a pick-and-pop big who can stretch the floor, Valanciunas must be able to come out to the perimeter, and that’s when everything breaks down.

Here’s an example from Friday’s delicious victory over the Boston Tryhards. The Raptors won this one with an excellent defensive effort in the second half — one in which Valanciunas played 8 minutes as compared to 13 for Nogueira and 17 for Patrick Patterson.

The video makes it quite clear why the minutes were distributed that way. Valanciunas wasn’t able to execute the scheme that called for the Raptors’ bigs to come out to pressure the 3-point line.

The takeaway here isn’t that Valanciunas is totally unplayable on defense — he’s just unplayable against certain match-ups. His lack of mobility, stamina and awareness corrupts the defense when Valanciunas is asked to guard out to the perimeter. And while the Raptors try to keep him in the paint as much as possible, sometimes there is nowhere for him to hide — especially since teams are targeting Valanciunas in the pick-and-roll more than ever.

Valanciunas presents a threat of his own on opposing defenses. He’s a limited player, but Valanciunas can score fairly easily in the post and sets monstrous screens that aren’t credited enough for the points on DeMar DeRozan and Kyle Lowry’s ledger. But the fact remains that the Raptors can score just fine with Valanciunas off the floor.

The Raptors post an offensive rating of 115.7 (!) when Valanciunas plays. That figure somehow jumps to 118.5 (!!) when he sits. The split was less pronounced in 2015–16 (113.0 vs 108.8) when the offensively defunct Bismack Biyombo played as the backup, but again, the Raptors’ offense did just fine with Valanciunas out.

The trade-off is this when facing tough mismatches:

• Keep Valanciunas in the game which worsens the defense, but marginally improves the offense.
• Remove Valanciunas and improve the defense while marginally making the offense worse.

That’s why Casey has turned to other players, and will continue to play options other than Valanciunas when the match-up isn’t in his favor. The opportunity cost of playing Valanciunas is greater than the benefit Jonas provides.

Again this isn’t a new story for Valanciunas, nor any traditional center of his ilk. A league-wide shift towards positionless basketball means players have to be able to defend every position and in every scenario. Valanciunas will remain a limited player until unless he adapts, or until he becomes so dominant within his role that he forces the opposing team into mismatches.

But as of right now, the story with Valanciunas remains the same.