Rui Hachimura

[nate33]

From the Golden State game thread:

Westbrook has stolen at least 4 of Hachimura's rebounds so far. Hachimura does all the work of boxing a guy out, the ball is coming right to his hands, and Westbrook flies in and grabs it. IDGAF what the Rui haters say, Rui is totally fine as a rebounder. He's not elite or anything, but his low rebound rate on the stat sheet is not representative of his rebounding ability. Westbrook steals so many of them.

Also, Rui was a pretty bad rebounder last year. Is there a stathead way to see how well Rui rebounds without Russ on the court? You might be able to gauge improvement in rebounding that way.

Good idea. I looked it up with NBA Wowy.

When Russ is on the court, Hachimura has a TRB% of 8.0%, which is terrible.
When Russ is off the court, Hachimura has a TRB% of 13.3%, which is quite good.

Here are the TRB% of other notable power forwards:
Julius Randle 15.6%
John Collins 14.1%
Lebron James 13.0%
Ben Simmons 12.8%
Zion Williamson 12.1%
Larry Nance Jr. 12.0%
PJ Washington 11.9%
Brandon Clarke 11.4%
Pascal Siakam 11.3%

[Chocolate City Jordanaire]

Really good stuff Nate.

I have changed my mind on Rui Hachimura. Maybe he was just “Japanese-humble” when he first came into the league...By that I think I mean he naturally deferred a bit more than the typical rookie. Maybe there was a language curve or cultural difference.

I think he would be best utilized as Kawhi Leonard was at the small forward position on a great team. I could be wrong about that but I see him becoming a better ball handler and a better passer and a very good player, in time.

That is saying I was totally wrong in thinking he is just “meh.”

[payitforward]

Really good stuff Nate.

I have changed my mind on Rui Hachimura. Maybe he was just “Japanese-humble” when he first came into the league...By that I think I mean he naturally deferred a bit more than the typical rookie. Maybe there was a language curve or cultural difference.

I think he would be best utilized as Kawhi Leonard was at the small forward position on a great team. I could be wrong about that but I see him becoming a better ball handler and a better passer and a very good player, in time.

That is saying I was totally wrong in thinking he is just “meh.”

Nah. You were totally right. It's just that people here twist the numbers when it comes to Rui -- in ways I have never seen done for others. Thus, nate -- who is obviously perfectly capable of quite objective & sophisticated analysis in all other cases, feels free to write:

...When Russ is off the court, Hachimura has a TRB% of 13.3%, which is quite good.....

And then goes on to compare that number to the overall numbers of other PFs!

...Here are the TRB% of other notable power forwards:
Julius Randle 15.6%
John Collins 14.1%
Lebron James 13.0%
Ben Simmons 12.8%
Zion Williamson 12.1%
Larry Nance Jr. 12.0%
PJ Washington 11.9%
Brandon Clarke 11.4%
Pascal Siakam 11.3%

...without any sense that one should compare overall numbers to overall numbers! Without, in other words, feeling that it's worth mentioning that Rui's TRB% this year is 9.8% & that last year (no Russ) it was 11.1% -- worse than anyone on his list!

&, I can assure you, I will be called a "Rui-hater" for having mentioned these facts -- just for mentioning them! As if by doing so I created the reality which they represent.

That said, I do think the decline in Rui's already bad rebounding % can be attributed to Russ.

But, even saying that, I'll still be called a Rui-hater, because everybody knows how much better a scorer Rui is this year than last, & I'm about to point out that this simply isn't true. Rui's a little better. He scores less than last year -- less not more -- but he does it with slightly improved efficiency -- slightly improved not a lot improved.

Last year, per 36 minutes, Rui scored 16.2 points at a TS% of .535. This year, per 36 minutes, Rui is scoring 15.8 points at a TS% of .550.

That's it. All there is. Not exactly a jaw-dropping improvement. & when you add in that (aside from his rebounding having dropped), he also gets fewer assists than last year & commits slightly more turnovers, what you have is a 2d year player whose overall numbers have actually slipped from last year -- despite the slight improvement in scoring.

To put it another way, improvement is improvement, & overall Rui's slightly better as a scorer: his TS% has gone from .535 to .550. An improvement of less than 3% -- on slightly lower usage.

But, unfortunately, just as "improvement is improvement" so too "getting worse is getting worse." We don't get to crow about the improvement while throwing a blanket over the getting worse part.

Right now, on the season as a whole, Rui Hachimura is performing at a slightly lower level than he did as a rookie. Why would I mention this? Must be because I'm just such a terrible Rui-hater, right? What other reason would a person have for pointing out that a fact is just a fact & nothing else.

[wall_glizzy]

In some ways, it's a shame that we have Russ on the team this year - love the guy, but it's certainly possible that his presence (and intentional utilization as a defensive-rebound-to-fast-break conduit) is confusing the question of whether Rui's rebounding, in a vacuum, has improved at all from year one to year two. If only there was some way to get a sense of how Rui might rebound were he not sharing the court with Russ...

[nate33]

Nah. You were totally right. It's just that people here twist the numbers when it comes to Rui -- in ways I have never seen done for others. Thus, nate -- who is obviously perfectly capable of quite objective & sophisticated analysis in all other cases, feels free to write:

...When Russ is off the court, Hachimura has a TRB% of 13.3%, which is quite good.....

And then goes on to compare that number to the overall numbers of other PFs!

...Here are the TRB% of other notable power forwards:
Julius Randle 15.6%
John Collins 14.1%
Lebron James 13.0%
Ben Simmons 12.8%
Zion Williamson 12.1%
Larry Nance Jr. 12.0%
PJ Washington 11.9%
Brandon Clarke 11.4%
Pascal Siakam 11.3%

...without any sense that one should compare overall numbers to overall numbers! Without, in other words, feeling that it's worth mentioning that Rui's TRB% this year is 9.8% & that last year (no Russ) it was 11.1% -- worse than anyone on his list!

WTF are you talking about?

My entire premise is that Rui is a fine rebounder except when Westbrook is stealing his rebounds. I posted Rui's rebounding percentage with Westbrook and without, and then posted the rebounding percentage of other power forwards (because most people don't think in terms of rebounding percentage). There's nothing slanted about the numbers I posted. Of course I used the overall rebounding percentage of those other power forwards. How else am I supposed to present the numbers? I cant post the numbers of other power forwards with and without Westbrook because Westbrook doesn't play on their team!

[BearlyBallin]

Nate & PIF, I’m not as knowledgeable about statistics as either of you. Therefore I apologize if this is totally wrong, but would Rui’s TRB% when Westbrook is off the court compared to other PF’s TRB% when their best rebounding guard is off the court be an appropriate comparison ?

Not that I know how to do it but I have to admit in my mind I’m curious to see those numbers.

[wall_glizzy]

Nate & PIF, I’m not as knowledgeable about statistics as either of you. Therefore I apologize if this is totally wrong, but would Rui’s TRB% when Westbrook is off the court compared to other PF’s TRB% when their best rebounding guard is off the court be an appropriate comparison ?

Not that I know how to do it but I have to admit in my mind I’m curious to see those numbers.

You're right to point out that every PF in the league would see their TRB% improve to some extent if we discounted their minutes alongside whichever PG on their team rebounded the best. So you're not off the mark at all. However, the idea here is that Westbrook's rebounding is such an outlier for his position that even correcting for that you'd still see a disproportionate swing in the TRB% of Rui (or whoever else happens to be on the court with the Wizards).

The numbers are out there - I use a site called NBAWowy (with or without you) that allows you to filter player stats by whether they were sharing the court or playing without other specific players on the team. I believe Nate noted this was his original data source as well. It'd be a bit of a pain to run it for every team at this hour, so for now I'll leave you with this: https://www.basketball-reference.com/leagues/NBA_2021_advanced.html

If you sort the table in order of descending TRB% and note the players listed as PGs, you'll find: Russell Westbrook at #23, LeBron James at #37, Ben Simmons at #39, Luka Doncic at #41, Bruce Brown at #43, James Harden at #49, Dejounte Murray at #55, LaMelo Ball at #61, Kyle Lowry at #94, Steph Curry at #95, and Chris Paul at #100.

That's the entire list of PGs in the top 100 in the league in TRB%, and I'd personally object to considering any of LeBron, Simmons, Doncic, Brown (maybe), or Harden to be point guards. The drop in TRB% from Russ at #23 and Murray at #55 is 16.0 to 11.5, and in-between them lie, for example, Bam Adebayo, Julius Randle, Michael Porter Jr and John Collins. That means that when Russ is on the court, he's getting a greater share of available rebounds than any of those guys do in their time on the floor. For additional fun, try sorting the list by DRB%, where Rui is particularly deficient compared to the average PF, and see where Russ is ranked.

Given this, I think it's fair to conclude that Russ has an outsized effect - many times over - on the rebounding of the wings and bigs that he shares the floor with, relative to other point guards. If someone's got some time and wants to run a bunch of queries on NBAWowy, though, I would be interested to see the exact numbers.

[queridiculo]

Nah. You were totally right. It's just that people here twist the numbers when it comes to Rui -- in ways I have never seen done for others. Thus, nate -- who is obviously perfectly capable of quite objective & sophisticated analysis in all other cases, feels free to write:

...When Russ is off the court, Hachimura has a TRB% of 13.3%, which is quite good.....

And then goes on to compare that number to the overall numbers of other PFs!

...Here are the TRB% of other notable power forwards:
Julius Randle 15.6%
John Collins 14.1%
Lebron James 13.0%
Ben Simmons 12.8%
Zion Williamson 12.1%
Larry Nance Jr. 12.0%
PJ Washington 11.9%
Brandon Clarke 11.4%
Pascal Siakam 11.3%

...without any sense that one should compare overall numbers to overall numbers! Without, in other words, feeling that it's worth mentioning that Rui's TRB% this year is 9.8% & that last year (no Russ) it was 11.1% -- worse than anyone on his list!

WTF are you talking about?

My entire premise is that Rui is a fine rebounder except when Westbrook is stealing his rebounds. I posted Rui's rebounding percentage with Westbrook and without, and then posted the rebounding percentage of other power forwards (because most people don't think in terms of rebounding percentage). There's nothing slanted about the numbers I posted. Of course I used the overall rebounding percentage of those other power forwards. How else am I supposed to present the numbers? I cant post the numbers of other power forwards with and without Westbrook because Westbrook doesn't play on their team!

Psst, that 11.1% is too close to golden boy Clarke, hence the allergic reaction.

[Ruzious]

Nate & PIF, I’m not as knowledgeable about statistics as either of you. Therefore I apologize if this is totally wrong, but would Rui’s TRB% when Westbrook is off the court compared to other PF’s TRB% when their best rebounding guard is off the court be an appropriate comparison ?

Not that I know how to do it but I have to admit in my mind I’m curious to see those numbers.

Valid point, but... No guard has anywhere near the amount of rebounds that Westbrook gets. His 11.5 per 36 minutes crushes everyone. Even Ben Simmons gets only 8.3 per 36. James Harden is getting a career-high 8.4 this season, but his lifetime average is only 5.7. With Russ being so out of the realm, it's obvious that's going to have an effect on teammates, and just Watching The Games, you can see it - as he snatches balls away from his teammates. Nate's post of Rui's numbers with and without Westbrook was what was asked for, and when he provided it, that should have been enough to show everyone that Westbrook likely does significantly affect Rui's numbers. How much the effect is - is debatable - but whether or not there is an effect is not debatable.

[queridiculo]

Nate & PIF, I’m not as knowledgeable about statistics as either of you. Therefore I apologize if this is totally wrong, but would Rui’s TRB% when Westbrook is off the court compared to other PF’s TRB% when their best rebounding guard is off the court be an appropriate comparison ?

Not that I know how to do it but I have to admit in my mind I’m curious to see those numbers.

Valid point, but... No guard has anywhere near the amount of rebounds that Westbrook gets. His 11.5 per 36 minutes crushes everyone. Even Ben Simmons gets only 8.3 per 36. James Harden is getting a career-high 8.4 this season, but his lifetime average is only 5.7. With Russ being so out of the realm, it's obvious that's going to have an effect on teammates, and just Watching The Games, you can see it - as he snatches balls away from his teammates. Nate's post of Rui's numbers with and without Westbrook was what was asked for, and when he provided it, that should have been enough to show everyone that Westbrook likely does significantly affect Rui's numbers. How much the effect is - is debatable - but whether or not there is an effect is not debatable.

Big picture, does it even matter?

Somebody has to get the rebound and whether that's Westbrook or somebody else is pretty meaingless.

Far more interesting would be to find out is if there's a discernible difference in offensive efficiency following a Westbrook rebound vs. anybody else.

What's the team rebounding rate with Westbrook on or off the floor?

[Ruzious]

Nate & PIF, I’m not as knowledgeable about statistics as either of you. Therefore I apologize if this is totally wrong, but would Rui’s TRB% when Westbrook is off the court compared to other PF’s TRB% when their best rebounding guard is off the court be an appropriate comparison ?

Not that I know how to do it but I have to admit in my mind I’m curious to see those numbers.

Valid point, but... No guard has anywhere near the amount of rebounds that Westbrook gets. His 11.5 per 36 minutes crushes everyone. Even Ben Simmons gets only 8.3 per 36. James Harden is getting a career-high 8.4 this season, but his lifetime average is only 5.7. With Russ being so out of the realm, it's obvious that's going to have an effect on teammates, and just Watching The Games, you can see it - as he snatches balls away from his teammates. Nate's post of Rui's numbers with and without Westbrook was what was asked for, and when he provided it, that should have been enough to show everyone that Westbrook likely does significantly affect Rui's numbers. How much the effect is - is debatable - but whether or not there is an effect is not debatable.

Big picture, does it even matter?

Somebody has to get the rebound and whether that's Westbrook or somebody else is pretty meaingless.

Far more interesting would be to find out is if there's a discernible difference in offensive efficiency following a Westbrook rebound vs. anybody else.

What's the team rebounding rate with Westbrook on or off the floor?

It matters to the extent of evaluating other players - particularly Rui. Does it matter to the team? Probably not much. Maybe it helps a little - with Russ getting the team running. Otoh, other teams have their PG downcourt already in transition, so maybe it hurts a little by not having your fastest player as an option to pass to in transition.

[doclinkin]

Valid point, but... No guard has anywhere near the amount of rebounds that Westbrook gets. His 11.5 per 36 minutes crushes everyone. Even Ben Simmons gets only 8.3 per 36. James Harden is getting a career-high 8.4 this season, but his lifetime average is only 5.7. With Russ being so out of the realm, it's obvious that's going to have an effect on teammates, and just Watching The Games, you can see it - as he snatches balls away from his teammates. Nate's post of Rui's numbers with and without Westbrook was what was asked for, and when he provided it, that should have been enough to show everyone that Westbrook likely does significantly affect Rui's numbers. How much the effect is - is debatable - but whether or not there is an effect is not debatable.

Big picture, does it even matter?

Somebody has to get the rebound and whether that's Westbrook or somebody else is pretty meaingless.

Far more interesting would be to find out is if there's a discernible difference in offensive efficiency following a Westbrook rebound vs. anybody else.

What's the team rebounding rate with Westbrook on or off the floor?

It matters to the extent of evaluating other players - particularly Rui. Does it matter to the team? Probably not much. Maybe it helps a little - with Russ getting the team running. Otoh, other teams have their PG downcourt already in transition, so maybe it hurts a little by not having your fastest player as an option to pass to in transition.

It matters for the exact reason Russ does it: It puts the ball in the hand of your most high volume under-efficient gunner. If Russ would fire it ahead to whichever player is leaking out then awesome, but more often than not he dribbles up to a set defense and then dribbles until he decides if this is the Russ show or not. Recently the answer has been: not. So we have had a more efficient Russ, and I don't mind him taking it up, but yes, it leads to a less efficient offensive opportunity.

[Ruzious]

Big picture, does it even matter?

Somebody has to get the rebound and whether that's Westbrook or somebody else is pretty meaingless.

Far more interesting would be to find out is if there's a discernible difference in offensive efficiency following a Westbrook rebound vs. anybody else.

What's the team rebounding rate with Westbrook on or off the floor?

It matters to the extent of evaluating other players - particularly Rui. Does it matter to the team? Probably not much. Maybe it helps a little - with Russ getting the team running. Otoh, other teams have their PG downcourt already in transition, so maybe it hurts a little by not having your fastest player as an option to pass to in transition.

It matters for the exact reason Russ does it: It puts the ball in the hand of your most high volume under-efficient gunner. If Russ would fire it ahead to whichever player is leaking out then awesome, but more often than not he dribbles up to a set defense and then dribbles until he decides if this is the Russ show or not. Recently the answer has been: not. So we have had a more efficient Russ, and I don't mind him taking it up, but yes, it leads to a less efficient offensive opportunity.

True to the extent you mentioned, but he's not just a shooter; Russ is also our best creator for others and our best assist man - so that's gotta be factored into the equation. Getting the ball into his hands quicker probably leads to more assists.

[wall_glizzy]

Big picture, does it even matter?

Somebody has to get the rebound and whether that's Westbrook or somebody else is pretty meaingless.

Far more interesting would be to find out is if there's a discernible difference in offensive efficiency following a Westbrook rebound vs. anybody else.

What's the team rebounding rate with Westbrook on or off the floor?

It matters to the extent of evaluating other players - particularly Rui. Does it matter to the team? Probably not much. Maybe it helps a little - with Russ getting the team running. Otoh, other teams have their PG downcourt already in transition, so maybe it hurts a little by not having your fastest player as an option to pass to in transition.

It matters for the exact reason Russ does it: It puts the ball in the hand of your most high volume under-efficient gunner. If Russ would fire it ahead to whichever player is leaking out then awesome, but more often than not he dribbles up to a set defense and then dribbles until he decides if this is the Russ show or not. Recently the answer has been: not. So we have had a more efficient Russ, and I don't mind him taking it up, but yes, it leads to a less efficient offensive opportunity.

I disagree. Russ personally is probably not as good at leading the break as he might've been in the solo OKC years (when this strategy developed), but our transition offense is still better than what we can run in the half-court. We're middle-of-the-pack in transition as far as offensive efficiency goes, with a 112 ORtg, but fourth in the league in terms of the percentage of our offensive possessions that qualify. This is all in comparison to an overall 109.2 ORtg (or, per my back of the envelope math, a 108.6 ORtg outside of transition plays). The NBA doesn't publish transition offense info on a per-ballhandler / per-finisher basis, unfortunately, but it's obvious that we're making a conscious decision to push the ball to Russ in starting the break. (Also, re: getting the ball into the hand of your least efficient player - that's exactly what you want in transition, provided of course that said player is adept at passing and ballhandling. If you have players who are more effective shooters and/or finishers at the rim, those are the guys you want in position to do that.)

Anyway, what we're comparing here isn't Russ running the ball up the court vs. Russ making an outlet pass to somebody already magically at the opponent's basket, it's Russ getting the rebound himself and immediately transitioning into a fast break vs. somebody else getting the rebound, locating Russ, and passing it to him to start running. When Russ grabs a board and immediately start sprinting, that's not a situation where the defense is fully set by the time he gets to the other side of the court.

edit: me and Ruzious woke up on the same page today!

[MDStar]

Seeing the news about LaMarcus Aldridge today and watching some of his highlights from both Portland and San Antonio, I was wondering if Rui has a bit of a Poor Man's LMA to his game? Some of his mid-range stuff, especially that step-back free-throw jumper, looks really similar. Thoughts?

Per 36 Minutes (2nd Season)
Rk Player From To G GS MP FG FGA FG% 3P 3PA 3P% 2P 2PA 2P% FT FTA FT% ORB DRB TRB AST STL BLK TOV PF PTS
1 LaMarcus Aldridge 2008 2008 76 76 2649 7.6 15.8 .484 0.0 0.1 .143 7.6 15.7 .486 3.1 4.0 .762 3.0 4.9 7.9 1.7 0.7 1.3 1.7 3.3 18.3
2 Rui Hachimura 2020 2021 93 93 2871 6.2 13.2 .470 0.8 2.5 .308 5.4 10.7 .508 2.8 3.5 .801 1.5 5.5 7.0 1.9 0.9 0.1 1.4 2.5 15.9

Per 100 Poss (2nd Season)
Rk Player From To G GS MP FG FGA FG% 3P 3PA 3P% 2P 2PA 2P% FT FTA FT% ORB DRB TRB AST STL BLK TOV PF PTS ORtg DRtg
1 LaMarcus Aldridge 2008 2008 76 76 2649 11.6 23.9 .484 0.0 0.1 .143 11.5 23.8 .486 4.7 6.1 .762 4.5 7.4 11.9 2.5 1.1 1.9 2.6 4.9 27.8 108 107
2 Rui Hachimura 2020 2021 93 93 2871 8.0 17.0 .470 1.0 3.2 .308 7.0 13.8 .508 3.6 4.5 .801 1.9 7.1 9.0 2.5 1.2 0.2 1.8 3.3 20.6 108 116

[NatP4]

That would be great. Aldridge was a double digit rebound guy and a quality rim protector/paint defender for a good portion of his career though.

Rui has shown no signs of interior defense

[Ruzious]

I just don't see any comparison, tbh. LMA's just bigger and better at everything - a gifted 7 footer vs a 6'8 solid player.

[MDStar]

I remember LMA being a phenomenal rebounder as well, however looking at his career stats, he didn't break 9 rebounds a game until year 7. For the 1st 6 years of his career, he averaged about 7.5 per game, which is in the realm of possibility for Rui. Now the rim protector part currently seems like a reach for Rui but even LMA only averaged about a block per game throughout his career.

[payitforward]

Nah. You were totally right. It's just that people here twist the numbers when it comes to Rui -- in ways I have never seen done for others. Thus, nate -- who is obviously perfectly capable of quite objective & sophisticated analysis in all other cases, feels free to write:

...When Russ is off the court, Hachimura has a TRB% of 13.3%, which is quite good.....

And then goes on to compare that number to the overall numbers of other PFs!

...Here are the TRB% of other notable power forwards:
Julius Randle 15.6%
John Collins 14.1%
Lebron James 13.0%
Ben Simmons 12.8%
Zion Williamson 12.1%
Larry Nance Jr. 12.0%
PJ Washington 11.9%
Brandon Clarke 11.4%
Pascal Siakam 11.3%

...without any sense that one should compare overall numbers to overall numbers! Without, in other words, feeling that it's worth mentioning that Rui's TRB% this year is 9.8% & that last year (no Russ) it was 11.1% -- worse than anyone on his list!

WTF are you talking about?

My entire premise is that Rui is a fine rebounder except when Westbrook is stealing his rebounds. I posted Rui's rebounding percentage with Westbrook and without, and then posted the rebounding percentage of other power forwards (because most people don't think in terms of rebounding percentage). There's nothing slanted about the numbers I posted. Of course I used the overall rebounding percentage of those other power forwards. How else am I supposed to present the numbers? I cant post the numbers of other power forwards with and without Westbrook because Westbrook doesn't play on their team!

Fair enough. But every player is on the court with multiple lineups. Presumably, that means that said player will be on the court in some lineups where the other 4 players include a strong rebounder (or more than 1) & other lineups where the opposite is the case.

IOW, we would expect any player to have somewhat different rebounding %s in different lineups. Thus, if one wants to compare Rui's rebounding % w/ & w/o Russ & use the results to compare him to other guys at the position, we need more than their overall % to create a meaningful comparison.

For that matter, how about Rui last year? Were there lineups in which he rebounded at a higher rate vs. others where his rate was lower?

That kind of information would actually tell us something about Rui's rebounding -- both whether one could conclude that he "is a fine rebounder" & whether one can conclude that he's actually improved this year (once we factor out Russ).

It's also worth mentioning that in your rush to WTF level discourse, you left out the sentence where I wrote that I was more than willing to accept that Russ was responsible for the decline in Rui's rebounding this year.

In fact, Rui's defensive rebounding % this year is only slightly down from last year (17% > 16.5%). But, his offensive rebounding % has been cut in half! Yet, Russ's astounding rebounding is almost entirely on the defensive end. So... why the decline in Rui's boards on the offensive end of the court? How does Russ impact that?

As well, this year Bradley Beal is playing most of his minutes with Russ. Yet, Brad's rebounding % is up from last year rather than down. Why no Westbrook effect in his case?

For that matter, last year we started Bryant at Center. For much of this year, it's been Lopez (though that's changed recently). Lopez is a far weaker rebounder than Bryant. More boards available.

I'm not suggesting there's some definitive explanation or even some definitive problem with Rui; but, before anyone concludes that Rui Hachimura is "a fine rebounder," the subjects above would need to some investigation & some thought.

[payitforward]

I remember LMA being a phenomenal rebounder as well...

Ah memory, ain't it great the way you can't rely on it?

In his 15 year career, Aldridge had exactly 3 years in which he grabbed more rebounds overall than an average NBA big.

But, LMA was an exceptional offensive rebounder. As a rookie -- a rookie! -- his offensive rebounding percentage was 12.6%. Rui's was 5.7%. This year it's 3%

But... did you ever watch LMA? Is he anything like Rui Hachimura? Like him physically? Play a similar game?

I've never seen any player discussed in the variety of irrelevant ways that Rui's discussed. It's really stunning. By a bunch of obviously intelligent people too.... I just don't get it. For example, this...

Now the rim protector part currently seems like a reach for Rui but evenLMA only averaged about a block per game throughout his career.

As a rookie -- a rookie! -- LMA's blocked shot % was more than 8 times as high as Rui's.