Josh Giddey Thread 2.0

[Infinity2152]

Well, let's talk about defense with actual numbers.

Josh Giddey's defensive rating last year was 113. His career average is 113. According to StatMuse, average PG defensive rating 2024-2025 season was 115.7. With defensive rating, lower is better. Point guards are notoriously bad defenders, he is not nearly as bad a defender as say Tra Young. he's a better help defender than individual defender.

His defensive box plus minus last year was 1.1. Highest it's ever been, in a new defense with no rim protection behind him. It's gone up steadily three years in a row. He's getting better. Haliburton's DPBM was .2, defensive rating 115. So much for not being able to win with an average defensive PG. Without the late injury, they could be the champions.

A ton of successful PG's are not great defenders. Lillard, Irving, Morant, Doncic, Curry, Brunson, heck Coby White, list goes on. he's as good or better defensively as a lot of PG's. Difference is, he's 22 and improving.

Your PG doesn't HAVE to be your main POA defender.

[TheHrvReport]

He's flawed, he's improving, we need to resign him, there's no rush, he doesn't have a ton of options, we have all the leverage. All those are true statements. For once we're in a decent position with a RFA.

I like the idea of having a true point guard/playmaker with Giddey's vision as part of the youth movement we're building. Him running with Matas and Noa is exactly what we need for their offensive development, and we'd be a team without any real ball stoppers. Winning 25 games with this group would be five times more fun than the last three seasons with our previous core.

That said, he's a flawed player—and with every owner in the league panicking over the new CBA, we're in a perfect position to land a value contract for a 22-year-old. It would be great if AKME could capitalize on that, especially considering how we mishandled P-Will's extension last summer (which might be the worst contract in the NBA right now, aside from Bradley Beal's).

Pat's contract is about to be 11% of the cap. That's not the worst contract in the league. Stop it.

[dougthonus]

If he's the dude he was during the early part of the year, Idk how you say we'd need to just straight up let him walk, brother. Josh could still defend other SFs, and still demonstrate incredible court vision, Doug. TBH I tend to view those scoring bonanzas in the last 30 as outliers. I think we use the first 50 as a bargaining chip and get him at discount. 20 - 25 mil per year would be a deal that's likely to favor us as his game blossoms. He's still very much a young kid headed to his prime.

Name a player that is a meaningful player in the past 25 years that fits these three things that are true about Giddey:
1: A bottom 25th percentile defender
2: A bottom 25th percentile off-ball player
3: A guy whom cannot create off the dribble

I cannot think of one, and even if I could, I'd say outlier. Maybe Giddey will be the absolute fricken unicorn of terrible defender, off-ball players that also can't create off the dribble, but I'm willing to say that type of player generally is simply not a meaningful player. First 50 games Giddey was that dude.

[dougthonus]

[
But hasnt Josh already proven that his floor is somewhere in the middle? As a 20 year old 2nd year player he put up 17/8/6 over 76 games. That was while shooting 32% from 3. OKC wouldve hung up the phone if we offered Caruso for him straight up after year 2. His personal life imploded year 3 and his game was affected, and we were able to buy low.

Hes 22 years old and has shown what he can do in this offense when he has the keys. 21/10/9 post all star break. Hes so young and still improving. I think his upside is immense from a stats perspective. I really love what Giddey is capable of doing for us over the next 4-5 years as he continues to improve as a player.

Every argument that simply lists counting stats is not a meaningful argument to me.

Explain to me instead how a guy whom is not even defended off the ball, isn't anywhere near good enough to be the primary on ball guy, and is awful on defense fits into a contending team? The answer is they don't.

Some people feel more positive about those traits than me though, if you do, then I can see why you'd feel differently, but I believe those three things are still true about Giddey. At the right price, I think he's okay, but that price isn't 30M. At 30M, I think he's just a bad contract.

[dougthonus]

Not sure what to say here other than Giddey very obviously improved defensively over the course of the season. He didn’t become a plus defender or anything, but his increased activity and efficacy was pretty obvious.

I will say the period of times his defense looked better was largely against teams actively trying to lose games. It's hard to put faith in those defensive moments compared to teams actively trying to win games that would hunt him with athletic players.

I'll rephrase it this way, I think he is a considerably worse defender than Zach LaVine, whom everyone absolutely hated on defense. I do agree that his effort and attention was improved, but the physical limitations were improved any, and he wasn't tested the way he would be tested if we were to make the playoffs.

Nothing I've seen from him yet convinces me that he wouldn't get exposed big time if we were to make the playoffs. I'm fine keeping Giddey because the alternative isn't exciting either.

[Ctownbulls]

If he's the dude he was during the early part of the year, Idk how you say we'd need to just straight up let him walk, brother. Josh could still defend other SFs, and still demonstrate incredible court vision, Doug. TBH I tend to view those scoring bonanzas in the last 30 as outliers. I think we use the first 50 as a bargaining chip and get him at discount. 20 - 25 mil per year would be a deal that's likely to favor us as his game blossoms. He's still very much a young kid headed to his prime.

Name a player that is a meaningful player in the past 25 years that fits these three things that are true about Giddey:
1: A bottom 25th percentile defender
2: A bottom 25th percentile off-ball player
3: A guy whom cannot create off the dribble

I cannot think of one, and even if I could, I'd say outlier. Maybe Giddey will be the absolute fricken unicorn of terrible defender, off-ball players that also can't create off the dribble, but I'm willing to say that type of player generally is simply not a meaningful player. First 50 games Giddey was that dude.

He is going to turn into an untradable asset very quickly.

Sent from my Pixel 9 using Tapatalk

[KissedByaRose1]

He's flawed, he's improving, we need to resign him, there's no rush, he doesn't have a ton of options, we have all the leverage. All those are true statements. For once we're in a decent position with a RFA.

I like the idea of having a true point guard/playmaker with Giddey's vision as part of the youth movement we're building. Him running with Matas and Noa is exactly what we need for their offensive development, and we'd be a team without any real ball stoppers. Winning 25 games with this group would be five times more fun than the last three seasons with our previous core.

That said, he's a flawed player—and with every owner in the league panicking over the new CBA, we're in a perfect position to land a value contract for a 22-year-old. It would be great if AKME could capitalize on that, especially considering how we mishandled P-Will's extension last summer (which might be the worst contract in the NBA right now, aside from Bradley Beal's).

Pat's contract is about to be 11% of the cap. That's not the worst contract in the league. Stop it.

18 million a year for a guy who you could argue has done nothing but regress since he was a rookie is pretty awful. I don't even think he's in the same tier as an Okoro who i imagine will close games over Pat very soon into the season because Williams does literally nothing to impact winning.

[wolffy]

I like the idea of having a true point guard/playmaker with Giddey's vision as part of the youth movement we're building. Him running with Matas and Noa is exactly what we need for their offensive development, and we'd be a team without any real ball stoppers. Winning 25 games with this group would be five times more fun than the last three seasons with our previous core.

That said, he's a flawed player—and with every owner in the league panicking over the new CBA, we're in a perfect position to land a value contract for a 22-year-old. It would be great if AKME could capitalize on that, especially considering how we mishandled P-Will's extension last summer (which might be the worst contract in the NBA right now, aside from Bradley Beal's).

Pat's contract is about to be 11% of the cap. That's not the worst contract in the league. Stop it.

18 million a year for a guy who you could argue has done nothing but regress since he was a rookie is pretty awful. I don't even think he's in the same tier as an Okoro who i imagine will close games over Pat very soon into the season because Williams does literally nothing to impact winning.

Okoro is a black hole offensively. His defender is going to leave him wide open. If Giddey doesn't maintain a big improvement shooting and his guy also sags, this would be a painful line up to watch.

[KissedByaRose1]

Pat's contract is about to be 11% of the cap. That's not the worst contract in the league. Stop it.

18 million a year for a guy who you could argue has done nothing but regress since he was a rookie is pretty awful. I don't even think he's in the same tier as an Okoro who i imagine will close games over Pat very soon into the season because Williams does literally nothing to impact winning.

Okoro is a black hole offensively. His defender is going to leave him wide open. If Giddey doesn't maintain a big improvement shooting and his guy also sags, this would be a painful line up to watch.

What does Patrick Williams do well offensively in your eyes? I couldn’t have been higher on him as a prospect, but he’s been the most disappointing Bull in my lifetime since Tyrus Thomas.

His handle is rough, he misses about every other wide-open dunk, he’s not a pick-and-roll threat—neither as a ball handler nor a finisher—and he’s not a lob threat. On top of that, he seems allergic to rebounding outside of the 1-in-10 games where Donovan calls him out and he finally plays with some aggression. He has some nice spurts where he can hit open threes, but he’s definitely not altering how teams defend us when he’s on the floor.

I haven’t watched nearly as much of Okoro as I have of P-Will, but based on what Cavs fans are saying, I’d be shocked if Okoro doesn’t end up with a higher net rating by season’s end. I also expect him to be the one closing games at the 3/4 while P-Will rides the bench.

I’m genuinely excited to watch Ice. He feels like he could be a breath of fresh air for this group on the wing.

[drosestruts]

If he's the dude he was during the early part of the year, Idk how you say we'd need to just straight up let him walk, brother. Josh could still defend other SFs, and still demonstrate incredible court vision, Doug. TBH I tend to view those scoring bonanzas in the last 30 as outliers. I think we use the first 50 as a bargaining chip and get him at discount. 20 - 25 mil per year would be a deal that's likely to favor us as his game blossoms. He's still very much a young kid headed to his prime.

Name a player that is a meaningful player in the past 25 years that fits these three things that are true about Giddey:
1: A bottom 25th percentile defender
2: A bottom 25th percentile off-ball player
3: A guy whom cannot create off the dribble

I cannot think of one, and even if I could, I'd say outlier. Maybe Giddey will be the absolute fricken unicorn of terrible defender, off-ball players that also can't create off the dribble, but I'm willing to say that type of player generally is simply not a meaningful player. First 50 games Giddey was that dude.

Josh Giddey is in the 53rd percentile for isolation scoring. Certainly not great, but also not bottom 25%

Notable players ranked worse than Giddey in iso scoring:

Russell Westbrook
Cade Cunningham
LaMelo Ball
Immanuel Quickley
Step Curry (somehow)
Tyrese Maxey
Tyler Herro
Scottie Barnes
Jalen Green
De'Aaron Fox
Darius Garland
Trae Young
Mikal Bridges
Matas Buxelis (actually a bottom tier iso scorer - 16th percentile)
Patrick Williams (6th worst in the entire NBA - yay!!!)


Giddey's and-1 frequency out of iso possesions is actually 15th best in the entire NBA

Where are your bottom 25th percentile stats coming from Doug?

[dougthonus]

Josh Giddey is in the 53rd percentile for isolation scoring. Certainly not great, but also not bottom 25%

Notable players ranked worse than Giddey in iso scoring:

Russell Westbrook
Cade Cunningham
LaMelo Ball
Immanuel Quickley
Step Curry (somehow)
Tyrese Maxey
Tyler Herro
Scottie Barnes
Jalen Green
De'Aaron Fox
Darius Garland
Trae Young
Mikal Bridges
Matas Buxelis (actually a bottom tier iso scorer - 16th percentile)
Patrick Williams (6th worst in the entire NBA - yay!!!)


Giddey's and-1 frequency out of iso possesions is actually 15th best in the entire NBA

Where are your bottom 25th percentile stats coming from Doug?

For clarity, my bottom of the league number here is made up based on my subjective feel for him, but I'm also looking at it in a totally different way than you are.

If Giddey was your #1 guy creating off the dribble as his role, he would be one of the worst in the league at it. This isn't an important feature for most players, because most teams only have a couple guys whom are going to do this with regularity, and they need to be elite at it. Giddey is not going to be that guy.

Actually looking at isolation percentage in a vacuum doesn't really mean anything to me because it removes all the context of frequency, who they are matched up against, whether they are creating an advantage. I do think you could get to a point where you could measure this well (and I'm sure real NBA stats departments have the data to do it).

I don't view Giddey as a guy that can create an advantage as the primary ball handler, and if you can't do that then you shouldn't be the primary ball handler, and Giddey isn't the primary ball handler then the things he is good at become way less valuable.

[waffle]

it's a team sport.
Giddey does many things well, a few remarkably well
bottom line, I think in a well constructed team he can be a SOLID 1b and I don't think we'll regret the signing

I feel the bulls are finally, SORT OF, picking a lane and I think they include GIddey as being a core part of that

[kodo]

If he's the dude he was during the early part of the year, Idk how you say we'd need to just straight up let him walk, brother. Josh could still defend other SFs, and still demonstrate incredible court vision, Doug. TBH I tend to view those scoring bonanzas in the last 30 as outliers. I think we use the first 50 as a bargaining chip and get him at discount. 20 - 25 mil per year would be a deal that's likely to favor us as his game blossoms. He's still very much a young kid headed to his prime.

Name a player that is a meaningful player in the past 25 years that fits these three things that are true about Giddey:
1: A bottom 25th percentile defender
2: A bottom 25th percentile off-ball player
3: A guy whom cannot create off the dribble

I cannot think of one, and even if I could, I'd say outlier. Maybe Giddey will be the absolute fricken unicorn of terrible defender, off-ball players that also can't create off the dribble, but I'm willing to say that type of player generally is simply not a meaningful player. First 50 games Giddey was that dude.

Giddey being bottom quartile in all three of those categories is utter nonsense. Anyone can look up any number of metrics or stats to disprove all of these easily.

For clarity, my bottom of the league number here is made up based on my subjective feel for him, but I'm also looking at it in a totally different way than you are.

So you're citing specific statistical criteria (bottom 25th percentile) then saying the actual data is completely arbitrary. So if another random person thinks Giddey is a 99th percentile defender, that statement is just as valid.

[GoBlue72391]

He's flawed, he's improving, we need to resign him, there's no rush, he doesn't have a ton of options, we have all the leverage. All those are true statements. For once we're in a decent position with a RFA.

I like the idea of having a true point guard/playmaker with Giddey's vision as part of the youth movement we're building. Him running with Matas and Noa is exactly what we need for their offensive development, and we'd be a team without any real ball stoppers. Winning 25 games with this group would be five times more fun than the last three seasons with our previous core.

That said, he's a flawed player—and with every owner in the league panicking over the new CBA, we're in a perfect position to land a value contract for a 22-year-old. It would be great if AKME could capitalize on that, especially considering how we mishandled P-Will's extension last summer (which might be the worst contract in the NBA right now, aside from Bradley Beal's).

Pat's contract is about to be 11% of the cap. That's not the worst contract in the league. Stop it.

By that logic, Felicio's contract wasn't the worst in the league either.

[GoBlue72391]

If he's the dude he was during the early part of the year, Idk how you say we'd need to just straight up let him walk, brother. Josh could still defend other SFs, and still demonstrate incredible court vision, Doug. TBH I tend to view those scoring bonanzas in the last 30 as outliers. I think we use the first 50 as a bargaining chip and get him at discount. 20 - 25 mil per year would be a deal that's likely to favor us as his game blossoms. He's still very much a young kid headed to his prime.

Name a player that is a meaningful player in the past 25 years that fits these three things that are true about Giddey:
1: A bottom 25th percentile defender
2: A bottom 25th percentile off-ball player
3: A guy whom cannot create off the dribble

I cannot think of one, and even if I could, I'd say outlier. Maybe Giddey will be the absolute fricken unicorn of terrible defender, off-ball players that also can't create off the dribble, but I'm willing to say that type of player generally is simply not a meaningful player. First 50 games Giddey was that dude.

He is going to turn into an untradable asset very quickly.

Sent from my Pixel 9 using Tapatalk

It seems that happens every time we re-sign one of our main guys.

[GoBlue72391]

Pat's contract is about to be 11% of the cap. That's not the worst contract in the league. Stop it.

18 million a year for a guy who you could argue has done nothing but regress since he was a rookie is pretty awful. I don't even think he's in the same tier as an Okoro who i imagine will close games over Pat very soon into the season because Williams does literally nothing to impact winning.

Okoro is a black hole offensively. His defender is going to leave him wide open. If Giddey doesn't maintain a big improvement shooting and his guy also sags, this would be a painful line up to watch.

I don't know if you haven't noticed, but teams don't guard Pat lol

[GoBlue72391]

it's a team sport.
Giddey does many things well, a few remarkably well
bottom line, I think in a well constructed team he can be a SOLID 1b and I don't think we'll regret the signing

I feel the bulls are finally, SORT OF, picking a lane and I think they include GIddey as being a core part of that

Giddey a 1B??? What on earth...

Even for those who think he's legit, no one thinks he's a #1 guy, or hell probably not even a #2.

Scoring is very much secondary with him. He's a playmaker first and foremost and isn't nearly adept enough at creating his own offense to be a #1 or #2.

You could make the argument he'd be a great #3 guy and lead playmaker if everything goes right for him.

[brentmoney]

giddey can easily be a #2, i just have no idea how we obtain #1.

[drosestruts]

Josh Giddey is in the 53rd percentile for isolation scoring. Certainly not great, but also not bottom 25%

Notable players ranked worse than Giddey in iso scoring:

Russell Westbrook
Cade Cunningham
LaMelo Ball
Immanuel Quickley
Step Curry (somehow)
Tyrese Maxey
Tyler Herro
Scottie Barnes
Jalen Green
De'Aaron Fox
Darius Garland
Trae Young
Mikal Bridges
Matas Buxelis (actually a bottom tier iso scorer - 16th percentile)
Patrick Williams (6th worst in the entire NBA - yay!!!)


Giddey's and-1 frequency out of iso possesions is actually 15th best in the entire NBA

Where are your bottom 25th percentile stats coming from Doug?

For clarity, my bottom of the league number here is made up based on my subjective feel for him, but I'm also looking at it in a totally different way than you are.

If Giddey was your #1 guy creating off the dribble as his role, he would be one of the worst in the league at it. This isn't an important feature for most players, because most teams only have a couple guys whom are going to do this with regularity, and they need to be elite at it. Giddey is not going to be that guy.

Actually looking at isolation percentage in a vacuum doesn't really mean anything to me because it removes all the context of frequency, who they are matched up against, whether they are creating an advantage. I do think you could get to a point where you could measure this well (and I'm sure real NBA stats departments have the data to do it).

I don't view Giddey as a guy that can create an advantage as the primary ball handler, and if you can't do that then you shouldn't be the primary ball handler, and Giddey isn't the primary ball handler then the things he is good at become way less valuable.

If Giddey tried to be DeMar it wouldn't go well, I agree.

Giddey is not a player you can drop anywhere and he will work (as evidence by his exit from the Thunder - though I do feel the "badness" of his fit is enitrely overblown, but that's probably a separate discussion).

But Giddey does have unique and standout strengths, and one thing I've been happy to see is us playing to those strengths - primarily in pace.

Giddey is a great rebounder and will immediatley look to push the pace. Even off made baskets he's quickly getting the ball inbounded and attacking. We saw the Pacers utterly wear teams out throughout the playoffs implementing a similar strategy.

Giddey's "iso" scoring is often much less breaking down someone off the dribble, but rather his good first step and length atacking the rim.

It's under the "iso" umbrella, but I'd agree that it's very different than what many coloquially refer to when talking about "iso scoring"

Can Giddey be a part of a winning team - I'd say yes, I'm someone who believes our end of season performance was real (as was the Pacers and Trailblazers).

It does require to play a specific way (which we are) and assemble other peices around him that fits this style (looking at you Vuc).

[dougthonus]

If Giddey tried to be DeMar it wouldn't go well, I agree.

Giddey is not a player you can drop anywhere and he will work (as evidence by his exit from the Thunder - though I do feel the "badness" of his fit is enitrely overblown, but that's probably a separate discussion).

To be clear, back to my original post, I said "Giddey over the first 50 games was that guy". I didn't say "Giddey is this guy". I said there is a risk depending on how you weigh 50 games against meaningful competition where everyone is trying to win vs 30 games largely against tanking competition where our opponents are throwing out G-League rosters and how much of his change was based on what.

But Giddey does have unique and standout strengths, and one thing I've been happy to see is us playing to those strengths - primarily in pace.

Giddey is a great rebounder and will immediatley look to push the pace. Even off made baskets he's quickly getting the ball inbounded and attacking. We saw the Pacers utterly wear teams out throughout the playoffs implementing a similar strategy.

Giddey's "iso" scoring is often much less breaking down someone off the dribble, but rather his good first step and length atacking the rim.

It's under the "iso" umbrella, but I'd agree that it's very different than what many coloquially refer to when talking about "iso scoring"

Can Giddey be a part of a winning team - I'd say yes, I'm someone who believes our end of season performance was real (as was the Pacers and Trailblazers).

It does require to play a specific way (which we are) and assemble other peices around him that fits this style (looking at you Vuc).

I agree all of this might be true too.

I'm mostly arguing against the narrative that this is definitively true and what seems to be many people ignoring the possibility that the issues I mentioned are going to resurface against meaningful competition.