Season Preview: Evan Mobley

 Slim Duncan, The Skinny Ticket, The Mostrich.  So Evan Mobley hasn’t earned himself a real nickname yet, but he has a lot of time.  How good will he be?  He’s not Tim Duncan, which probably disappoints those who don’t remember how goddamn good Duncan was, and how young (yeah 4 years in college but his rookie year was still age 21, and he was an all-star on a 56 win team that went to the 2nd round in a conference with 5 teams that won 56+ games that season and then there is the whole winning a title in his second season fluff on top of that rolling through Garnett’s Wolves, Shaq’s Lakers, Sabonis’ Blazers and the last relevant Knicks team 15-2).    

Sorry, I got hung up on Mobley not being Tim Duncan.

Since we started by cutting his ceiling down let’s set his floor a little.  Two odd looking comps:  Joakim Noah and Draymond Green, both of these guys show how you can make an impact defensively where your instincts are more valuable than your physical tools, and both guys turned that vision into capable passing to augment otherwise limited offensive skill sets.  These two players peaked in DLebron rating at ages 27 and 26 respectively, while more athleticism based players like Dwight peaked earlier (LEBRON only goes back to Dwight’s age 24 season but that is his peak score and from age 28 on he only puts up one season that is even half that age 24 mark).  

Mobley’s rookie season puts him roughly 3 years ahead of Draymond and 6 years ahead of Noah.  He is a combination of both high end (but not elite) physical tools and the decision making, instinctive play.  Rudy Gobert is probably the modern archetype of this player defensively though his reach might put his physical tools into the elite category.  By DLEBRON Gobert has been the best defender in the league, his 4th best season matches Draymond’s best (peak is age 28 at 27% higher than Draymond’s peak).  By this one metric Gobert was putting up DPOY caliber seasons at age 22.

TWENTY-TWO

I would rate Mobley’s defensive potential as half level or level below what Gobert became right now.  He doesn’t have the sheer insane length or standing reach that Gobert uses to great effect, though he does have more mobility, and both can read the floor extremely well.  To reach these heights Evan will have to put on significant strength without losing that fluid motion on the perimeter and become a master of all trades- shot blocking, switching, help and rebounding and then he can become the level of defender that is a one man top 10 defense.  

That extra strength is also what he needs to develop his offensive game, so that makes his offseason plans pretty simple, right?  He was in the 40th percentile for bigs in shots at the rim, but 90th percentile for short mid range, meaning he got stuck taking hooks, jumpers and floaters too often when the rim was denied him.  He did show good finishing, 71st percentile, around the rim on that modest volume and his FTr was average for a big but would be well below for a true C.  A little more bulk would help all around, deeper seals in the post, better screens, better rebounding on both ends (only 31st percentile offensive rebounder), etc.  If he manages that his second year leap could be large even without other improvements.

The other:  The other is mostly shooting, he’s not good at it.  Hist FT% is 26th percentile for bigs, that isn’t good.  His midrange shooting 37th percentile, his 3pt shooting 13th- all this for players classified as bigs.  He needs to be better here eventually to hit ‘best player on a title team’ status as a two way stud.  These are areas where he can improve, Garnett was a 70% FT shooter as a rookie and didn’t hit 80% until he was 25 but ended with a career mark of 79%.  75% would be a fine and achievable outcome for Evan.  His mid range game will matter less if he gets to the rim more frequently, and he won’t be a 25% 3pt shooter forever (or he will just have to stop taking them), but just bumping to 30% doesn’t do much for his game.  

For next season I think we see defensive growth with more strength and more experience, but the jumper will be a multi-year project with lots of noise.  If he is on a trajectory to ‘top defender’ then next season his impact will be very positive and that is what to watch in the coming year, along with deeper position on rolls, post ups and when rebounding.