Thunder Playbook: How Enes Kanter Fits With OKC

Jan 30, 2015; Salt Lake City, UT, USA; Golden State Warriors guard Klay Thompson (11) dribbles the ball as Utah Jazz center Enes Kanter (0) defends during the second half at EnergySolutions Arena. The Jazz won 110-100. Mandatory Credit: Russ Isabella-USA TODAY Sports

Kanter on Defense 

This is where the real question marks are raised. Before he even got to Oklahoma City, everyone knew that Kanter was a budding offensive asset for the Jazz. However, everyone also knew that he was basically a minus defender whose best asset was gobbling up rebounds (currently averaging an absurd 13.2 per 36 minutes in Oklahoma City). 

More from Thunder News

• Stealing one player from every Southwest Division team for the OKC Thunder
• Should the OKC Thunder chase after a disgruntled hometown hero?
• 3 OKC Thunder players who can step up in Aleksej Pokusevski’s absence
• Aleksej Pokusevski sidelined approximately 6 weeks with ankle injury
• Damian Lillard does not fit with the OKC Thunder

Unfortunately, being called a minus defender may be an understatement. For his career, he has a 109 points per 100 possessions defensive rating. In layman’s terms, if the average player went up against Kanter on 100 straight possessions, they would come away with roughly 109 points in that span. That’s not good. To put that in perspective, that’s five points worse than Reggie Jackson’s worst season in a Thunder uniform. 

It’s not entirely fair to reduce his impact to purely metrics though. A lot of Kanter’s deficiencies on defense were exacerbated by the players around him with the Jazz and that has shown most notably through his improved play in Oklahoma City (his defensive rating is up to around 104 now). But how does he stack up on the eye test? 

In the first two plays of the video, we see Kanter’s biggest holes in his defensive game. In the first play, Kanter does a good job of utilizing his frame to keep Jefferson away from the basket. Unfortunately, Kanter has a nasty habit of biting hard on pump-fakes and the slight jump he gives puts him just out of position and allows for an easy Jefferson basket. Seasoned post players will exploit this tendency and utilize it to get Kanter into foul trouble or to get easy shots at the rim. Either way, that’s a problem that Kanter must work to minimize. 

The second play is even more telling. Kanter is manned up on Blake Griffin, which is already a mismatch given the disparity in the two players’ respective athleticism. However, Kanter does an excellent job of utilizing his lower body strength to keep Blake at a safe distance from the hoop. Where Kanter goes wrong is biting too hard on Griffin’s body-fakes. Griffin first gives Kanter a head-fake inside which Enes bites on. Blake then starts to spin outside and Kanter doubles down on his first mistake by attempting to go for the steal. This leaves Kanter totally out of position and Griffin steps right by him and slams one home. 

That’s not to say it’s all bad for Kanter though. Both plays are examples of Kanter being in the right place and just demonstrating poor fundamentals in on-ball defense. When Kanter plants his feet and doesn’t bite on simple ball-fakes he’s actually quite effective. This is demonstrated in the video below when Josh McRoberts attempts to back Kanter down into the post. 

Kanter slides his feet and instead of jumping wildly for the block like he did in the Jefferson mistake above, he lets his gargantuan size do the work for him. He doesn’t even have to jump to deny McRoberts and if McBob had merely been ball-faking, Kanter wouldn’t have been out of position to recover. 

However, Kanter’s biggest deficiency likely stems from his help defense. Kanter has a nasty habit of gravitating to the paint and losing his man in the process. Players like LaMarcus Aldridge and Zach Randolph will exploit this to no end, gashing the Thunder for mid-range points. Fortunately, Oklahoma City is one of the few teams that covers this problem area because of a combination of their length and having Serge Ibaka as shot-blocking insurance. 

it becomes even more paramount that when Kanter is on the floor, he needs a shot blocker alongside him

With all this in mind it becomes even more paramount that when Kanter is on the floor, he needs a shot blocker alongside him. It will work two-fold as it a) mitigates the threat of Kanter feeling obligated to camp in the paint and b) lessens the need for Kanter to sell out for unnecessary blocks. 

All told, Enes is a usable piece defensively. His size and rebounding ability would be an asset to any team. However, his issues with help defense and biting on fakes needs to be covered by players like Ibaka and Adams. So long as the Thunder are careful of covering that, there’s really no reason to think that Kanter can’t be a valuable two-way player.  

Kanter is already making a splash in the Sooner State. His combination of size, athleticism, and touch at the rim has already won over both the team and the fan base. Offensively, he totally changes what OKC can do. Being able to feed someone in the post and get steady points is going to be huge in the playoffs, especially on nights where Westbrook and Durant simply aren’t getting shots to fall, such as in the Memphis series last year. Furthermore, his defense is actually better than advertised, especially when playing alongside a capable rim-protector. Simply put, Kanter was actually what Oklahoma City needed all along– even if we didn’t realize it until now. 

Brace yourself, NBA. The Turkish Hammer is coming.

Next: Kanter vs. Adams: Who Should Start?