MoneyTalks41890 wrote:Giddey is a premier playmaker and is disruptive on defense. Barnes is a slightly better rebounder. Giddey projects to be a better shooter over time. It’s close. And yeah Giddey is trending up.
"Projects" to be a better shooter is irrelevant though in the context of this year's ROY race. Right now, Giddey is a 10.8 ppg, 46.5% TS scorer while Barnes is a 14.8 ppg, 52.7% TS scorer. And when Giddey is on the court, opponents score 14.2 points per 100 possessions more. For comparison, Bazley is at +10.9 points per 100 more for opponents when he's on the court and then no one else on the team is even close. So clearly, the evidence is there that Giddey has been pretty bad defensively, despite being "disruptive." He's also spotting a -3.7 Defensive RAPTOR. Barnes hasn't been that great of a defender, but he's certainly been better than Giddey.
Now, by the end of the season things could change, because there's a lot of time left. But
just right now, I don't see any reason to put Giddey close to Barnes unless you're solely looking at the pts/reb/ast slashline, which largely has to do with opportunities, rather than taking into account efficiency and impact. And actually even just looking at those three stats, Barnes' total of the three is still higher. Per 100 possessions, they're even rebounders at 12.0. But Giddey's team rebounds much better when he's off the court (53.2% TRB off vs 48.1% TRB on) whereas Scottie's is slightly better (51.5% on vs 51.1% off), so it begs the question how much of the rebounding falls under gimme rebounds. Delving further, Giddey is averaging 2.3 contested boards a game while Scottie is at 3.2, and Barnes is averaging 56% more offensive rebounds.
So Barnes has been a clearly better scorer, a better rebounder, and a better defender (even though he's currently below average) while Giddey has been the better playmaker. He has ground to make up still before it's actually close imo.