LOS ANGELES — With each passing game, it’s become more clear: The Clippers’ trade-deadline acquisition of Ivica Zubac from the Lakers was a fleecing.
Zubac quietly has become one of the game’s better rim-protectors at just 22 years old. His 7-foot-1 frame (and 7-4 wingspan) make him one of the biggest players, and he’s learned how to leverage that size in close quarters. He’s not a swat machine like, say, Joel Embiid or Rudy Gobert, but more of a positionally sound defender who will alter shots in the mold of Marc Gasol or Steven Adams.
Since Zubac’s debut as the Clippers’ starting center on Feb. 9 in Boston, the Clippers are 9-4 and have posted a 102.4 defensive rating in the 264 minutes he has been on the court. That is better than the Milwaukee Bucks’ league-best defensive rating (104.6) by over 2.0 points per 100 possessions and better than L.A.’s season-long defensive rating by over 7.0 points per 100 possessions (109.9, 19th-best in the NBA).
Zubac’s full-season 102.2 defensive rating ranks 17th among all qualified players (40-plus games and 15-plus minutes per game) and fifth among centers.
“He’s a very good defensive pick-and-roll player,” Clippers forward Danilo Gallinari said. “He can protect the rim very well. He knows how to use his body. He knows how to be vertical. He’s been doing great for us.”
Before the Feb. 7 trade deadline, the Clippers had a defensive rating of 110.2, the 19th-best mark in the league. But over the past 13 games, with Zubac starting at center, the team has posted a 108.8 defensive rating, 11th-best in the league. Before their 125-104 loss to the Portland Trail Blazers on Tuesday, the Clippers were a top-seven defense with Zubac.
“We have a rim-protector. Bottom line,” coach Doc Rivers said. “Trezz [Montrezl Harris] does it at times. But Zu is a true rim-protector, and Zu has been great at it. So that’s why (we’ve improved).”
The Clippers’ base defense has a simple list of responsibilities for its center: Protect the rim, prevent lobs to their man, drop back toward the free-throw line against most ball-handlers in the pick and roll — off-the-dribble snipers like Stephen Curry, Damian Lillard and Kyrie Irving are among the exceptions — and clean the defensive glass.
If a 5 can handle those basic objectives, he is more than competent in the Clippers’
defensive scheme.
The problem for the Clippers earlier this season was that they had two centers, Marcin Gortat and Boban Marjanovic, who couldn’t execute those responsibilities consistently, both because of age and their waning athleticism and foot speed. Zubac is much younger and more lithe than both and, frankly, has better defensive instincts.
“We just play our same defense, except for now when a big drives, Zu is back there and it makes a difference,” Rivers said.
Zubac’s ability to act as a deterrent in the paint and at the rim has transformed the Clippers’ defense outside of just their defensive rating. He’s impacting where opponents shoot and how they score.
With Zubac on the floor, opponents are averaging 7.0 fewer second-chance points, 3.3 fewer fast-break points and 3.1 fewer points in the paint per 100 possessions than when he’s off the court. Opponents shoot marginally worse and get to the free-throw line significantly less with Zubac out there as well.
That, in large part, is because his presence has changed how his teammates approach their defensive tasks.
Now, perimeter defenders like Patrick Beverley and Shai Gilgeous-Alexander aren’t as worried that their man will score in the paint if they get beat on the perimeter. That allows them to play up on the ball more aggressively, knowing that Zubac will block or contest the shot.
“If someone beats our guy, I’ll always be down there trying to help, trying to protect the rim,” Zubac said.
“He’s not one of those guys who cares about getting dunked on or anything,” Beverley added. “Pressure from me and Shai, send them to Zu, Zu cleaning up.”
The Clippers’ Garrett Temple has played for eight teams in his nine NBA seasons and defended alongside Tim Duncan, Marc Gasol and Andrew Bogut — all elite rim-protectors and perennial Defensive Player of the Year candidates (Gasol won the award in 2012-13).
Though he’s quick to admit Zubac isn’t close to that level of defending yet — Temple pointed out that Zubac can still improve his communication and defensive rebounding — he sees the kernels of a dominant defensive presence.
“His verticality is the biggest thing,” Temple said. “He’s 7-foot-1. He’s got a pretty good amount of girth to him, too. Being able to go straight up and be vertical. Then, getting his hands on passes. Having active hands when they try to pass and stuff like that.
“His verticality is something you can’t teach.”
All things considered, Zubac is at least a notch or two below Gobert, Embiid, Anthony Davis and a few other elite rim-protectors.
But opponents are shooting just 52.9 percent against him at the rim, which is the eighth-best percentage in the NBA, and ahead of leading Defensive Player of the Year candidates such as Gobert, Embiid and Myles Turner. His Clipper average of 0.8 blocks per game pales in comparison to those three centers, but shooting percentage allowed at the rim is arguably a better indicator of a true protector.
Zubac’s ability to wall off incoming defenders — either standing pat and sticking his arms straight up, or jumping slightly under the verticality rules, à la Roy Hibbert several years ago — makes it difficult for incoming opponents, including both larger players and the game’s finishers, to score when he’s in the vicinity.
“It’s great to have a guy you can funnel (players) to and you like your chances,” Temple said. “He’s one of those guys.”
At this point, a few things are holding Zubac back from becoming more of a household defensive name.
First: Montrezl Harrell, his teammate. For as good as Zubac has been, Harrell is a much better offensive player, which is why Harrell (26.5 minutes per game) plays more than Zubac (20.3). As long as Harrell is ahead of him in the team’s hierarchy, Zubac’s role will be limited — even as the starter — and Harrell will close games.
Second: Zubac continues to foul too much, with an average of 5.0 per 36 minutes this season. Part of that comes with the territory. If he’s going to contest shots and try to block some, he’s going to pick up fouls. As he gains more game experience, he should find himself in foul trouble less frequently.
With the NBA shifting out to the perimeter more each season, plodding big men such as Zubac are put in more uncomfortable and foreign defensive situations, which can also lead to reaching and, thus, more fouling. Zubac’s conditioning can also use some improvement. He appears gassed after five- to six-minute stretches and needs to get in better shape this summer.
Finally, in the short term, Zubac is battling injuries to both hands. In his right (and dominant) hand, he has hyperextended tendons. In his left hand, he has a fractured bone in his middle finger. He is gutting it out and playing through the injuries, but they have clearly affected his play.
The effects have been more obvious on offense, where he has dropped passes, blown dunks and layups, and bricked jump shots by several feet. It’s been easier for him to hide his limitations defensively, but it’s manifested in him struggling to corral rebounds at times. Even so, Zubac leads all Clippers in defensive rebounding percentage including Harrell, Gortat and Marjanovic — and the team has rebounded better with him on the floor.
That’s what makes Zubac’s defensive impact even more impressive. He’s been doing all of this at far from 100 percent. And that’s why the Lakers’ decision to give up on him is so confounding.
Much has been made of the Lakers’ motivations for trading Zubac for Mike Muscala. They apparently didn’t feel they could afford to re-sign Zubac this summer and decided it was smarter to flip him for an asset — targeting more shooting — than lose him for nothing, not unlike the way the Clippers operated with their
Tobias Harris trade.
Opponents are shooting just 52.9 percent against Ivica Zubac at the rim. (Russ Isabella / USA TODAY Sports)
But in that deal, the Clippers received a massive haul of four draft picks (two first-rounders and two seconds), standout rookie Landry Shamet and Muscala (who was then flipped for Zubac) in exchange for Harris. They maximized Harris’ value. The Lakers did the opposite with Zubac. They received Muscala, who is worse than Zubac, nearly six years older and has barely played for the Lakers, falling out of the rotation in favor of younger alternatives like Moritz Wagner and Johnathan Williams.
The Lakers essentially lost Zubac for nothing, anyway, and would have been better served just keeping him.
If the Lakers have any defense of their nonsensical decision, it’s that even Zubac’s Clippers teammates, coaches and staffers have claim not to have been aware of how good he was before acquiring him.
“Hats off to Zu,” Beverley said. “I didn’t know Zu was that good until he came over here.”
That has been a common sentiment in Clipper Land.
Twenty-two-year-old 7-footers who can screen, roll, rim-run, finish, rebound and protect the paint are rare commodities, even in today’s perimeter-oriented game. Centers haven’t gone away yet. If anything, there’s been something of a center renaissance over the past few years, with a new batch of young 5s growing with and adapting to the game’s modern principles.
Whether Zubac is the Clippers’ long-term answer at center will be determined this offseason, and that depends on how he fares in his first postseason, how he develops his body, if he can extend more of his game to the perimeter on both ends and who the Clippers sign in free agency. At the very least, Zubac has the tools to be an elite backup center, and the Clippers now control his destiny as he enters restricted free agency this summer.
“He’s a big piece of what we’re trying to do over here,” Beverley said.
“We thank the Lakers. We appreciate it.”
[\SPOILER]
this is easily the WOAT FO
.
