Thread by @HotHandTheory

🔥📽️🧵🔥

Donovan Clingan played the best game of his brief NBA career. Today we will dive into the film+data and focus on four areas:

-screening
-rebounding
-shot contests
-passive defensive impact

to show how his impact goes well beyond the box score.

Right out of the gate Clingan shows good chemistry with Scoot Henderson. You'll see Clingan is already advanced in flipping screens/inverting the angles. Scoot has struggled thus far, having a p&r parter who'll help him create advantages could be HUGE.

Rob Dillingham rejects Rudy Gobert's screen and easily slides past Jerami Grant. Clingan stunts Dillingham's drive and easy recovers to contest Gobert's floater. Simple but effective.

More good chemistry with Scoot. I wanted to highlight this play because most players who profile like Clingan are mostly lob/putback threats offensively. But Clingan has good hands and nice touch that could be relevant to his overall development.

Clingan is so massive he makes this stuff look easy. Dillingham attacks and Clingan almost lures him to the basket. By the time Dillingham realizes he shouldn't shoot Clingan has already anticipated it and cut off his passing angle to create a turnover.

Clingan's biggest weakness atm is when opponents go small. His slow footspeed makes it tough on him to move in and out of the paint. The TWolves tried this with Reid+Randle and Clingan had Randle in absolute hell all night.

Seriously when was the last time you saw Scoot with a runway like this? Jaden McDaniels is guarding him but Gobert, a smart defender, is anticipating an effective screen from Clingan and is pre-hedging which puts him out of position after Scoot rejects.

lol ya right

Clingan has a preposterous 13.4% BLK% which is lapping the field in the NBA. Only two other players (Wemby, Jay Huff) are in double digits. Notice how often Clingan pushes the ball ahead to get the Blazers out in transition as well?

Chauncy Billups opens the second half using Clingan as a screener for multiple Blazers to help them create separation in this set. Grant misses Clingan on the roll (a common theme sadly) so Clingan just decides to get the offensive rebound and try again.

This sequence highlights some potential areas of growth for Clingan; first he shows at the level but is late recovering because of his slow foot-speed. Then his wild contest leaves the paint unoccupied for Gobert to easily put away the offensive rebound.

Clingan just has such good feel for the game. Gobert is a MASTER of these 1v2s. You can see him feeling for Clingan who keeps repositioning himself so that, if Gobert helps on Grant, he's set up to penalize a failed contest, which is exactly what happens.

Block merchant you say? Not so fast. Let's track his impact here:

1) stays in front of Randle
2) stunts Reid's drive to allow Deni Avdija to recover
3) recovers down low to contest & reject Nickeil Alexander-Walker
4) pokes the rebound to Shaedon Sharpe

Clingan is once again missed on the roll (imagine him with Trae Young?) so he prepares himself for another offensive rebound. Watch as he continuously repositions himself based on where the ball is. This is how you swallow up a ridiculous 15.7% of OREBs.

You could actively see the confidence of Billups+Clingan's teammates in him grow progressively throughout the night. Here he's used as a hub and he craftily leverages his size in the DHO to give Kris Murray a runway to the basket for the slam over Gobert.

He's already a one man defense inside the arc. The Blazers allowed 58 points in the ~31 minutes Clingan played (~89 per 48 minutes) and 40 points in the ~17 minutes (~113 per 48 minutes). He was everywhere last night.

Randle thought he finally caught a break in the early offense with Grant on him. But Clingan is always lurking.

When we talk about passive impact we talk about the effect your mere presence has on the game. Anthony Edwards has a step here but he pulls up early because he knows Clingan is waiting. Clingan then defends the 1v2 perfectly to create another turnover.

Portlands seems to play a more egalitarian brand of basketball when Clingan is involved in the action. Look at the man movement as the ball hops around. Dalano Banton makes a poor pass but Clingan takes it from Gobert & plays volleyball off the backboard.

Again, more settling from a great player. He has the potential to single-handedly keep opponents out of the paint.

At this point Clingan is exhausted (his stamina is another thing he needs to work on) having played by far his most minutes and longest shift of the season. Gobert steals the rebound from him so Clingan just casually rejects him without even jumping.

Missed on the roll again. Snags the offense rebound to create a second opportunity for his team...again.

By my count Randle was 1-6 with Clingan as the closest defender and was rejected 3 times. No wonder he want Draymond Green to exact revenge (knee to the groin).

Clingan's final tally was ludicrous. An efficient 17 points, 12 boards (6 offensive) and 8 blocks. But these numbers don't tell the full story. Clingan helps his team on both ends of the court through a number of avenues (passive impact) you won't see on a standard box score.

Clingan needs to improve his stamina and foot speed. He's prone to fouling (set your feet on screens!). There is a ton of room for growth. But his screening, rebounding, size, IQ, and rim protection give him a remarkably high floor night in and night out.

Thanks for reading.