Zach Edey, 7-4

[JMAC3]

I ended with Edey 24th on my board, which is fine for a rotation center. I really don't have major issues with anyone who had him as mid first round grade because typically anything from 12-25 is splitting hairs in draft ranks. If he is the 13th best player in the draft then he is probably a fine pick at 9th overall. My issue was and still is people who thought he should go #1.

He has been fine to start the year and honestly, I still think 15-20 guys will be better than him from this draft but good on him for finding some early success.

For example, Filipowski has started to showcase some skill in Utah, I think his ceiling as a prospect is higher.

[ItsDanger]

Zach Edey is currently 6/9 from 3 in his career.

[FrodoBaggins]

I believe that's eight positive +/- games in a row now.

[FarBeyondDriven]

If Kessler, Adams, Gobert, Poeltl, Olynyk and their ilk have managed to carve out productive careers I see no reason Edey can't. He's not a finished product. The game will slow down for him and he'll gain confidence. Sure, he was drafted higher than he deserved but he fits a need and he's possibly a worthy starter or at worst, a capable backup. Once he's settled in and can knock down some 15 footers or even threaten from three it'll help unclog the paint for his teammates. Why people insist on crowning guys so early or writing them off so early is beyond me. We're like three weeks into the season ffs. Edey has already had a 25-12 with 4 blocks game. People need to relax

This is such a random assortment of players who don't resemble each other or Edey at all.

Kelly Olynyk? He's 6'10 and has always been able to shoot the ball.

Gobert is one of the best defensive players of the last decade. He and Edey have absolutely nothing in common other than being tall. Zach Edey cannot move his hips anywhere near as good as Gobert and he's a below average shot blocker for his size. The reason Edey is so terrible at guarding anyone in space is because his hips are so slow. It takes forever for him to turn his body and by the time he does he's getting blown by.

Adams, Kessler, and Poeltl just aren't very valuable players today so I guess if you want to comp them, sure. At least Kessler can kind of stay on the floor because he's an elite shot blocker.

Edey is easily the least mobile of any of those names you mentioned. It's not even that he's a poor spacer on the offensive end, he's absolutely useless defensively.

Just go watch the 4th against the Lakers. It was a close game and Memphis could not score because Edey was clogging up the paint and the Lakers were just abusing him defensively. AD coming down the floor hitting pull up mid range shots because he knows Edey can't come out and guard him. Putting Edey in PnR over and over again. Lakers missed a lot of open shots where Edey was just stuck in no mans land because he can't do anything but play drop

zzzzz. They're all similarly talented centers that aren't high end starters but still see the floor and have productive NBA careers. THAT is how they "resemble" each other. Gobert has been gifted all of his DPOY awards. Every time I've watched him play he's been a massive liability in space against literally anyone. I've seen him getting bullied down low, posterized and overall being useless except for the few times a game some offensive player with low BBIQ and athletic ability takes it right at him. It's his presence for the most part that alters offensive players that I believe Edey can eventually have. Basically the defender Gobert actually is not the guy laughably winning DPOY awards.

[babyjax13]

If Kessler, Adams, Gobert, Poeltl, Olynyk and their ilk have managed to carve out productive careers I see no reason Edey can't. He's not a finished product. The game will slow down for him and he'll gain confidence. Sure, he was drafted higher than he deserved but he fits a need and he's possibly a worthy starter or at worst, a capable backup. Once he's settled in and can knock down some 15 footers or even threaten from three it'll help unclog the paint for his teammates. Why people insist on crowning guys so early or writing them off so early is beyond me. We're like three weeks into the season ffs. Edey has already had a 25-12 with 4 blocks game. People need to relax

This is such a random assortment of players who don't resemble each other or Edey at all.

Kelly Olynyk? He's 6'10 and has always been able to shoot the ball.

Gobert is one of the best defensive players of the last decade. He and Edey have absolutely nothing in common other than being tall. Zach Edey cannot move his hips anywhere near as good as Gobert and he's a below average shot blocker for his size. The reason Edey is so terrible at guarding anyone in space is because his hips are so slow. It takes forever for him to turn his body and by the time he does he's getting blown by.

Adams, Kessler, and Poeltl just aren't very valuable players today so I guess if you want to comp them, sure. At least Kessler can kind of stay on the floor because he's an elite shot blocker.

Edey is easily the least mobile of any of those names you mentioned. It's not even that he's a poor spacer on the offensive end, he's absolutely useless defensively.

Just go watch the 4th against the Lakers. It was a close game and Memphis could not score because Edey was clogging up the paint and the Lakers were just abusing him defensively. AD coming down the floor hitting pull up mid range shots because he knows Edey can't come out and guard him. Putting Edey in PnR over and over again. Lakers missed a lot of open shots where Edey was just stuck in no mans land because he can't do anything but play drop

zzzzz. They're all similarly talented centers that aren't high end starters but still see the floor and have productive NBA careers. THAT is how they "resemble" each other. Gobert has been gifted all of his DPOY awards. Every time I've watched him play he's been a massive liability in space against literally anyone. I've seen him getting bullied down low, posterized and overall being useless except for the few times a game some offensive player with low BBIQ and athletic ability takes it right at him. It's his presence for the most part that alters offensive players that I believe Edey can eventually have. Basically the defender Gobert actually is not the guy laughably winning DPOY awards.

Gobert is one of the 10 best defenders in league history.

[FrodoBaggins]

Even more surprising than the three-point shooting are the steals. His STL% has been really strong for a center.

[The Moose]

I believe that's eight positive +/- games in a row now.

correct, and now a +2.3 on-off/100 poss swing

99th percentile on/off oreb% swing (+9.6%) in Edey lineups too, turnovers still hurting though.

[MemphisX]

Edey is flawed and inexperienced. However, he is getting better every game and was really accelerating until the coach started messing with his minutes.

[FarBeyondDriven]

This is such a random assortment of players who don't resemble each other or Edey at all.

Kelly Olynyk? He's 6'10 and has always been able to shoot the ball.

Gobert is one of the best defensive players of the last decade. He and Edey have absolutely nothing in common other than being tall. Zach Edey cannot move his hips anywhere near as good as Gobert and he's a below average shot blocker for his size. The reason Edey is so terrible at guarding anyone in space is because his hips are so slow. It takes forever for him to turn his body and by the time he does he's getting blown by.

Adams, Kessler, and Poeltl just aren't very valuable players today so I guess if you want to comp them, sure. At least Kessler can kind of stay on the floor because he's an elite shot blocker.

Edey is easily the least mobile of any of those names you mentioned. It's not even that he's a poor spacer on the offensive end, he's absolutely useless defensively.

Just go watch the 4th against the Lakers. It was a close game and Memphis could not score because Edey was clogging up the paint and the Lakers were just abusing him defensively. AD coming down the floor hitting pull up mid range shots because he knows Edey can't come out and guard him. Putting Edey in PnR over and over again. Lakers missed a lot of open shots where Edey was just stuck in no mans land because he can't do anything but play drop

zzzzz. They're all similarly talented centers that aren't high end starters but still see the floor and have productive NBA careers. THAT is how they "resemble" each other. Gobert has been gifted all of his DPOY awards. Every time I've watched him play he's been a massive liability in space against literally anyone. I've seen him getting bullied down low, posterized and overall being useless except for the few times a game some offensive player with low BBIQ and athletic ability takes it right at him. It's his presence for the most part that alters offensive players that I believe Edey can eventually have. Basically the defender Gobert actually is not the guy laughably winning DPOY awards.

Gobert is one of the 10 best defenders in league history.

lmao. This is embarrassing

Wilt
Russell
Kareem
Pippen
Jordan
Artest
Kawhi
Hakeem
AD
Rodman
Wallace
Payton
Moncrief
KG
Robinson
Duncan
Mourning
Mutombo
Thurmond
Eaton
Cooper
Howard
Havlicek
Frazier
Walton
Giannis

[babyjax13]

zzzzz. They're all similarly talented centers that aren't high end starters but still see the floor and have productive NBA careers. THAT is how they "resemble" each other. Gobert has been gifted all of his DPOY awards. Every time I've watched him play he's been a massive liability in space against literally anyone. I've seen him getting bullied down low, posterized and overall being useless except for the few times a game some offensive player with low BBIQ and athletic ability takes it right at him. It's his presence for the most part that alters offensive players that I believe Edey can eventually have. Basically the defender Gobert actually is not the guy laughably winning DPOY awards.

Gobert is one of the 10 best defenders in league history.

lmao. This is embarrassing

Wilt
Russell
Kareem
Pippen
Jordan
Artest
Kawhi
Hakeem
AD
Rodman
Wallace
Payton
Moncrief
KG
Robinson
Duncan
Mourning
Mutombo
Thurmond
Eaton
Cooper
Howard
Havlicek
Frazier
Walton
Giannis

Yah, he's better than most of those guys, specifically I think he's clearly better at his peak than Mutumbo, Mourning, Giannis, Robinson, Artest, Kawhi and Pippin, and likely better than a lot of the older players I havent had a chance to watch extensively. But even if he's not exactly top 10, he is among a very select group. From reading your original post I don't think you've watched him much or really dug into his impact. But, like usual, anyone who disagrees with you gets a nice insult.

[ItsDanger]

There are 2 rookies with decent minutes that are positive BPM: Jared McCain and Zach Edey.

Edey has the clear lead in WS/48.

Top 50 defensive rating with >20 minutes.

Shooting splits last 5 games 58/80/93.

[FarBeyondDriven]

Gobert is one of the 10 best defenders in league history.

lmao. This is embarrassing

Wilt
Russell
Kareem
Pippen
Jordan
Artest
Kawhi
Hakeem
AD
Rodman
Wallace
Payton
Moncrief
KG
Robinson
Duncan
Mourning
Mutombo
Thurmond
Eaton
Cooper
Howard
Havlicek
Frazier
Walton
Giannis

Yah, he's better than most of those guys, specifically I think he's clearly better at his peak than Mutumbo, Mourning, Giannis, Robinson, Artest, Kawhi and Pippin, and likely better than a lot of the older players I havent had a chance to watch extensively. But even if he's not exactly top 10, he is among a very select group. From reading your original post I don't think you've watched him much or really dug into his impact. But, like usual, anyone who disagrees with you gets a nice insult.

whines about insults while insulting my credibility suggesting I haven't watched him while at the same time admitting you yourself haven't watched many of these players extensively while at the same time claiming he's better than most of them. IF he was actually one of the top 10 defenders of all-time then yeah, it'd be a "select group" but he's arguably not even a top 30 defender.

I've watched him extensively and the guy doesn't deserve to be winning DPOY awards. He's winning these due to the antiquated bias voters have for blocked shots. The guy cannot defend the perimeter and is actually a liability out there. And unless someone drives to him he's not blocking shots either. His impact is that he's tall and CAN block shots.

Gobert blocks per season are like 2 a game. Guys like Mourning, Mutombo and Robinson (like Gobert, mostly known for their shot-blocking) were blocking 3-5 per game. Mourning blocked at least 2.5 per game 9 times! Mutombo 12 times!! Robinson 9 times! Gobert has done it...TWO TIMES!! lmao.

Gobert is similar to guys like Eaton and Bol in that he is tall and that accounts for him being a presence. But he's not even as good as they were as one-trick Ponies.

And seriously? You think Gobert is better than some of the best wing defenders (Pippen, Artest, Kawhi) of all time? C'mon man, get serious. On what basis?

I think the current NBA is a joke, especially on defense, so maybe because in contrast to most, Gobert actually is good and deserves to be in the DPOY discussion almost by default. But back in the 90s and before, there was seemingly a guy like him on half the rosters in the league and he wouldn't have stood out like he does now.

[babyjax13]

lmao. This is embarrassing

Wilt
Russell
Kareem
Pippen
Jordan
Artest
Kawhi
Hakeem
AD
Rodman
Wallace
Payton
Moncrief
KG
Robinson
Duncan
Mourning
Mutombo
Thurmond
Eaton
Cooper
Howard
Havlicek
Frazier
Walton
Giannis

Yah, he's better than most of those guys, specifically I think he's clearly better at his peak than Mutumbo, Mourning, Giannis, Robinson, Artest, Kawhi and Pippin, and likely better than a lot of the older players I havent had a chance to watch extensively. But even if he's not exactly top 10, he is among a very select group. From reading your original post I don't think you've watched him much or really dug into his impact. But, like usual, anyone who disagrees with you gets a nice insult.

whines about insults while insulting my credibility suggesting I haven't watched him while at the same time admitting you yourself haven't watched many of these players extensively while at the same time claiming he's better than most of them. IF he was actually one of the top 10 defenders of all-time then yeah, it'd be a "select group" but he's arguably not even a top 30 defender.

I've watched him extensively and the guy doesn't deserve to be winning DPOY awards. He's winning these due to the antiquated bias voters have for blocked shots. The guy cannot defend the perimeter and is actually a liability out there. And unless someone drives to him he's not blocking shots either. His impact is that he's tall and CAN block shots.

Gobert blocks per season are like 2 a game. Guys like Mourning, Mutombo and Robinson (like Gobert, mostly known for their shot-blocking) were blocking 3-5 per game. Mourning blocked at least 2.5 per game 9 times! Mutombo 12 times!! Robinson 9 times! Gobert has done it...TWO TIMES!! lmao.

Gobert is similar to guys like Eaton and Bol in that he is tall and that accounts for him being a presence. But he's not even as good as they were as one-trick Ponies.

And seriously? You think Gobert is better than some of the best wing defenders (Pippen, Artest, Kawhi) of all time? C'mon man, get serious. On what basis?

I think the current NBA is a joke, especially on defense, so maybe because in contrast to most, Gobert actually is good and deserves to be in the DPOY discussion almost by default. But back in the 90s and before, there was seemingly a guy like him on half the rosters in the league and he wouldn't have stood out like he does now.

Rudy doesn't block *that many* shots (3rd in career BPG among active players, 23rd all time). He had one or two years where he did (2.6 and 2.7), but teams move the ball out of his area to avoid him. Instead, he has been the best player in the last decade at altering shots and warping the shot charts of teams he plays. This article has some really nice graphs that show his impact relative to players since circa 2011 (some stats start slightly before/after): https://www.thespax.com/nba/the-multi-season-defensive-dominance-of-rudy-gobert/

If you sort by defensive points saved, like all NBA metrics (esp. on defense) it is extremely era-dependent, but there is only one player whose prime overlaps with Rudy above him, and that is Andre Drummond: https://nbamath.com/nba-individual-seasons/

I suspect some of this is due to how bad Detroit was in general, but also compared to Drummond on vs. off.

But you'll see that, in general, the best seasons come from the slowest eras. If you exclude eras they have to estimate for, rather than measure (pre-1976 [edit: it is actually 72-73 and before they estimate, so Sam Lacey, Wes Unseld, and Kareem also get in]) you end up with 8 players who have had better seasons (Ben Wallace, Marcus Camby, Mark Eaton, Dikembe Mutumbo, David Robinson, Kevin Garnett, Andre Drummond, and Hakeem Olajuwon). If you account for the volume of threes that make it harder for centers to save more points, the guys clustered within 30 points of him are Drummond, Robinson, and Mutumbo. Now, my eye test from seeing a lot of early 2000s basketball to now says that Gobert is clearly better than Drummond and Camby (but the #s say I'm likely wrong on Camby's peak), and I think he was better than Mutumbo, but I've only seen his earlier career on a few NBA classic games.

Now, all these metrics say that perimeter defenders are way less valuable, and I tend to agree, but if you disagree that will affect how you rate great defensive centers. But I think Gobert should be in the discussion for a top-10 defensive player of all time, and he's easily in the upper bounds of all-time players (i.e., I think it would be extremely difficult to argue that he isn't top 5% all time). Regardless of hyperbole either way, though, lumping Gobert with Adams/Poeltl/Olynyk/Kessler isn't defensible on any measurable basis other than your individual perception of how good they are. Numbers say you are very, very wrong - and as much as I don't think individual awards are the best measure of player quality (especially all-stars), he does have four DPOY awards and there are a lot of smart people who think he deserved those awards.

[JMAC3]

There are 2 rookies with decent minutes that are positive BPM: Jared McCain and Zach Edey.

Edey has the clear lead in WS/48.

Top 50 defensive rating with >20 minutes.

Shooting splits last 5 games 58/80/93.

WS/48 is a pretty useless stat.

The 2020 draft WS/48 leaders
Onyeka is 2nd
Paul Reed is 3rd
Nick Richards is 5th

Even last year Lively and TJD are WS/48 darlings.

It is clear the stat focuses way too much on FG% so the bigs always great out way above water there.

[JMAC3]

Are people actually excited about Edey at this point? I truly don't know where most stand. Yes, he looks fine but I still think I prefer Missi, Ware and Flip over him based on what I have seen from eye test.

In my opinion it is just much easier for a big to look serviceable early because most are just grabbing a fair amount of boards, shooting the high% looks and we aren't really looking into defensive data too heavily yet to try and label them as good or bad yet.

[GreatWhiteStiff]

STFU about Gobert, kindly, and thank you.

[Big J]

Are people actually excited about Edey at this point? I truly don't know where most stand. Yes, he looks fine but I still think I prefer Missi, Ware and Flip over him based on what I have seen from eye test.

In my opinion it is just much easier for a big to look serviceable early because most are just grabbing a fair amount of boards, shooting the high% looks and we aren't really looking into defensive data too heavily yet to try and label them as good or bad yet.

Edey has looked legit turrible on D the times I've watched him. It's not something fixable either. When teams whip the ball around he can't move fast enough to complete his rotations. He's dead in the water when teams do this against him.

[ItsDanger]

Zach Edey has a good defensive rating and has a positive DBPM. Yet, there are people still criticizing. There are no shutouts in NBA. On defense, its preferable to concede certain shots.

[JRoy]

There are 2 rookies with decent minutes that are positive BPM: Jared McCain and Zach Edey.

Edey has the clear lead in WS/48.

Top 50 defensive rating with >20 minutes.

Shooting splits last 5 games 58/80/93.

Glad to see Edey enjoying some success in the league.

[FrodoBaggins]

Seasonal EPM is now live: https://dunksandthrees.com/stats/player

Zach is +1.1 EPM [+0.8 off; +0.3 def]. Clingan is -2.4 EPM [-0.9 off; -1.5 def]. Jared McCain is +2.6 EPM [+3.2 off; -0.6 def]; Dalton Knecht is +1.8 EPM [+2.7 off; -0.9 def].