Moose On the Loose (Power Forward D - post two)
As usual in each other's way When Rob and I talked about Greg Monroe on the podcast a while back, we were both lukewarm on him as a piece around which a contender can be built. For a number of reasons, he's somewhere between the poor man's Al Jefferson and the homeless man's Kevin Love, between his relatively plodding, though skilled, style, his subservience to gravity and his questionable defense at an extremely important defensive position.
To some extent, Monroe's defensive struggles aren't specifically his fault. Much like the negative synergy he has offensively when sharing the floor with Drummond and Smith, the trio is a bit of wreck defensively. By basically any measure, Detroit is better when only two of the three share the floor (the Drummond/Smith pairing fairing the best, with the Drummond/Monroe pairing the worst by a decent margin, suggesting that Monroe and Drummond, perhaps unsurprisingly, don't share the floor well.) Additionally, many of Monroe's individual struggles come in the pick-and-roll game, where Brandon Jennings might be the single worst defender of the ball-handler in the league.
HOWEVER, these mitigating factors cannot explain the degree to which the Pistons are better defensively with him off the court (by around 4 pts/100 possessions). While they make up for this on offense, Monroe's defensive deficiencies are a glaring weakness in his game. On the ball, he's actually a very stout post defender, holding opponents to only .55 PPP on post attempts, forcing a low FG% while rarely fouling. At every other spot on the floor, his lack of athleticism makes him below average at best in terms of defending isolations, spot ups, screens and especially (as I'll go into great detail about below) the pick-and-roll game.
HOWEVER, these mitigating factors cannot explain the degree to which the Pistons are better defensively with him off the court (by around 4 pts/100 possessions). While they make up for this on offense, Monroe's defensive deficiencies are a glaring weakness in his game. On the ball, he's actually a very stout post defender, holding opponents to only .55 PPP on post attempts, forcing a low FG% while rarely fouling. At every other spot on the floor, his lack of athleticism makes him below average at best in terms of defending isolations, spot ups, screens and especially (as I'll go into great detail about below) the pick-and-roll game.
Too Slow
Calling back to my taxonomy of bad help D, one trait sticks out from all others with respect to Monroe: he's just too damn slow. Despite his lack of shot blocking prowess he's a better rim protector than Kevin Love, using his greater bulk to be in the way a lot, much in the way he is a solid man defender on the block. Opponents are shooting around 45% at the rim with Monroe present. This is a top third of the league mark among bigs, though this number is probably highly influenced by the amount of shot blocking he plays alongside. Further, that number only applies when he gets to the rim area in time to protect it:
His lack of foot speed is apparent in many different areas. Of course, in transition he can be beat down the floor leading to layup opportunities for his own man. But his lack of fleetness also causes pain by making him habitually late in arriving on the scene of an impending PnR, leaving Detroit open to all sorts of awfulness:
This also leaves him vulnerable to his man "slipping" the screen:
Even when he starts a sequence in the right position, his lack of speed causes him to "cheat" to get a head start on recovering to his man. Again part of this is the Pistons' curious apparent scheme of having him hedge on high pick and rolls, but his hedges tend to be more of a wave in order to give himself a step or so less ground to recover:
He's not really doing anything there except making the screen Jennings has to navigate bigger. His lack of ability to contain the PnR creates a sort of vicious cycle with Jennings' own dire efforts:
A common theme to a lot of these malfunctions is the poor fit between player and scheme - Detroit appears to want him to hedge hard on screens, which is certainly curious for a player with his limited lateral quickness. Dropping under the pick would clearly fit his talents better:
Though his inability to move his feet presents problems in this coverage as well:
How to Make It Work
The first area for improvement would be to acquire a point guard who isn't a disaster defending the ball in a PnR. Monroe is bad, but the fact that Jennings dies on virtually every screen hangs him out to dry a bit. And in tandem:
Caveat: NBA defense is hard. Statement: Jennings remains awful at it. Smart team will involve Jennings/Mornoe in endless PNRs in playoffs
That said, the ideal foil for Monroe would be a more mobile player so that Monroe rarely had to leave the paint area, and probably a guy with some weakside shotblocking ability. Two years ago, I would have said Josh Smith fit this bill to a T. In two years, Drummond might get there. Right now, the guy who seems like the best possible fit would be someone like Serge Ibaka, who brings the added benefit of not needing to be inside on offense.
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