Nic Claxton Season Review and some thoughts on Joe Harris's playoff performance

Introduction

After the James Harden trade that resulted in former Brooklyn Net Jarrett Allen being traded to the Cleveland Cavaliers, the Nets had a gaping hole at the center position. DeAndre Jordan was no longer all-defensive team level player that he was with the Los Angeles Clippers and there was no adequate backup center to relieve him.

Here enters Nicolas Claxton, the 31st pick of the 2019 NBA Draft for the Nets. Claxton missed the first 32 games of the regular season because of a knee injury, but once he got healthy,  he was a revelation for the Nets. Today, I am going to analyze his season, showing what he was great at this season and his growth areas.

Strengths:

Elite switching defense.

When Claxton began to play for the Nets, it became very clear that he fit in perfectly with their defensive switching scheme. Because of his ability, he quickly gained a reputation as one of the best switching big men in the league. It is hard for me to write “Claxton defended player x extremely well” multiple times, so and will explain why he is good at defense.

Reason #1: Length / wingspan

According to Tankathon, Claxton is 6’11.75” with a 7’2.5” wingspan and it certainly shows on his perimeter contests.

In the 4th quarter, CJ McCollum gets Claxton on a switch after Carmelo Anthony sets the screen for him. CJ dribbles in place and is forced to settle for a jumper, but the length by Claxton makes it a more difficult shot than it normally would have been .

In clutch time, Claxton gets switched onto Damian Lillard. Lillard initially goes to a left step back but does not have the space to operate. He gets the ball back from Robert Covington and tries to resort to the same left step back, but Claxton’s length prevents him from getting the shot off. Dame also made the right play passing to Covington since Jeff Green was helping Claxton against Dame.

Even when a defender gets separation against Claxton, he can still make good contests due to his length. Take this play for example

Kemba Walker attacks Claxton, goes to his patent step back, and gets good separation against Claxton.

That level of separation would normally give Walker a clean look that he can knock down, but Claxton’s length allows him to make the shot more difficult.

Reason #2: Hip movement

When people pay attention to defense, we tend to focus more on the upper body rather than the lower body, but the lower body is extremely important to defensive prowess. Being able to change direct and respond to the movements of ball handlers can prevent defenders from being in disadvantageous situations and giving up open baskets / shots.

This is harder to explain with just text, so I decided make videos for it.

Help defense / emergency rotations.

While Claxton has become known for his perimeter defense, his help defense was excellent as well. If teammates got beat, he would rotate over and make up for it. If he sensed danger, he would rotate to interrupt offenses.

Play 1:

Jeff Green falls behind on the hand off from Thaddeus Young to Ryan Arcidiacono. Claxton notices this and comes off Lauri Markkanen to cut off the baseline drive. Arcidiacono passes it off to Young, who attacks Mike James with a euro-step that is blocked by Claxton.

Play 2:

Kevin Durant closes out poorly to Markkanen and Markkanen goes baseline. Claxton recognizes this, meets Lauri baseline, and blocks his layup attempt.

Play 3:

Kyrie gets beat on the drive by Marcus Smart. Claxton, who is the low man, rotates over to take away the drive, forcing Smart to pass it to Evan Fournier. Fournier drives and is met by Claxton in the paint, forcing a kick out to Jayson Tatum.

Play 4:

CJ gets Claxton on a switch. Harden and Claxton trap CJ, forcing the ball out of his hands and into Carmelo Anthony’s hands. Derrick Jones Jr cuts into open space and Melo passes it to him. As the ball lands in Jones Jr’s hands, Claxton senses the impending danger and rotates over for the block.

Play 5:

Terry Rozier gets Claxton on a switch and passes it off to Cody Martin. Rozier cuts behind Martin. Martin drives to the rim, but since Rozier cuts to the middle, it allowed Claxton to play off his assignment and contest the Martin shot after he beats Landry Shamet off the dribble.

Dunker spot

One of the primary ways the Nets offense utilized Claxton was by putting him in the dunker spot. The dunker spot is the area on the baseline that is outside the lane, but it does not extend to the corner. The way the Nets got him the ball was through James Harden. According to the NBA’s tracking data, Claxton received 86 passes with a pass received frequency of 19.9 percent from Harden. On passes made by Harden to Claxton, Claxton shot 62.2 percent on a small sample of 45 free goal attempts. Both marks were the highest for Claxton and any teammate.

Play 1:

Jeff Green gets Harden the ball going downhill and this puts the defense in a dilemma. If Robert Covington stays on Claxton and does not help, that means Harden will get a free floater. However, if Covington steps up ever so slightly to discourage Harden, that means Claxton will be open for a lob pass like he is in the clip.

If team stay too attached to their man or do not help enough, Harden will get this instead:

Play 2:

Same scenario of Harden going downhill and Kelly Olynyk and DJ Augustine selling out to stop the Harden drive. Doing this allows Claxton, who is in the dunker spot, to catch the alley-oop for the finish.

Play 3:

Harden has Tristan Thompson on him and is isolating at the top. He blows by Thompson and drives to the lane. As soon as Harden gets below the free throw line, Jayson Tatum stunts at Harden to deter him from taking a shot. However, this brief stunt puts Tatum out of position and allows for Harden to hit Claxton on the alley-oop.

Growth Areas:

Release valve ability.

Although he was not asked to be a release valve like Bruce Brown was for the Nets when the primary ball handlers got doubled or trapped, Claxton was used in that manner over the course of the season, but the results were mixed.

Play 1:

The Nets run a spread P&R (a P&R where everyone is behind the 3PT line) and Marcus Smart and Thompson double Kyrie Irving. Claxon positions himself at the FT for Irving to make the pass. Once Claxton gets the ball, he reads Fournier, who is sitting in the space between Tyler Johnson and Landry Shamet.

Fournier eventually slides over to Shamet once Thompson recovers, giving Claxton no pass to make. Claxton instead posts up Romeo Langford and makes the lefty hook for two.

Play 2:

The same scenario presents itself. Irving gets trapped on a P&R again and Claxton presents himself at the right elbow for a pass. When he gets the ball and is bringing it down, Claxton can see Langford sliding over to take the corner pass away.

Knowing the clock is running down, he drives on Fournier, but gets stopped and misses the hook. If he were a little more patient, he possibly could have recognized Thompson being out of position and hit Shamet for an open three.

Play 3:

The Hornets are playing zone defense against the Nets and force Irving to give up the ball. Claxton catches the ball, sees Hayward in the way of a possible pass to Jeff Green, and puts the ball down on the court.

He ends up drawing the foul but misses an open Harris for three.

Play 4:

This time, the New Orleans Pelicans trap Kevin Durant after Claxton screens for him. Claxton receives the pass and immediately hits Brown in the corner for three.

Play 5:

Irving and Claxton run a spread P&R and the Rockets ice the P&R (meaning they are forcing Irving away from the middle of the court). Irving passes to Claxton, who brings the ball down, sees Daniel House Jr. collapse on him, and kicks it out to Harris for the open three. 

Antsiness on defense / footwork

While Claxton has shown extremely high-level switching skills, he does have one area that he can improve on, which is his footwork. To me, Claxton can get antsy or overeager on switches. Sometimes he is excessively moving his feet and lunging at opponents when they are sizing him up in isolation. Because of this excess movement, he can get out of position and give opposing players avenues to attack.

Take this play for example where Claxton is isolated on the left wing against Walker.

Claxton’s help is to his left (Johnson at the nail), but Claxton’s hips and feet are initially aligned in a manner that encourages Walker to go baseline. Walker takes one step forward and Claxton legs immediately move out of control. Because of Claxton’s being off balanced, this gives Walker the ability to jab step to his right and step back left, but because of Claxton’s length and recovery he can prevent a shot from going up.

Another example is this play against Tatum.

Tatum gets Claxton on an isolation on the right wing. Claxton’s feet are initially aligned with each other, but he tries to go for a steal and overextends his right foot, giving Tatum an avenue to go left. Claxton’s recovery abilities help him stay with Tatum, but he hits Romeo Langford for a three.

In the last example, it is a similar scenario:

Tatum gets Claxton on a switch and drags him out to the left wing. On the play, we see Harden overloading on the strong side baseline, an indicator that Claxton should be positioning his feet and hips in a manner to encourage Tatum to go in that direction. However, when Tatum crosses over from his right hand to his left, Claxton lunges forward with his body and his left foot in order to swipe at the ball twice. Because of this, Tatum can attack Claxton off the dribble.

Compare this with Bam Adebayo and his switching ability on the perimeter:

When Bam is switched onto the perimeter he moves his feet and hips in response to what the ball handler is doing, but it is more fluid and controlled compared to Claxton. There is no unnecessary lunging at the ball either. As good as Claxton is right now (and he is really good) at switching onto the perimeter, he can still improve through better footwork.

Offensive bag / off hand

Two points of emphasis for Claxton in the offseason should be his offensive bag and his off-hand (right hand) finishing ability around the rim. Claxton is left hand dominant and loves to turn over his right shoulder to take hook shots with his left hand when he is not catching alley oops. However, the results are not consistent.

It would be worth it to have Claxton develop some counters instead of constantly turning over his right shoulder for hooks.

Claxton rarely went to his off hand when attacking or finishing around the rim, but when he did, the results were not pretty.

Developing a right hand would help him become a more versatile finisher around the rim.  

Conclusion

Once Claxton returned from his injury and played, he very quickly established himself as one of the best young perimeter defenders in the league. His ability to switch onto anyone 1-5 given his size is not common in the league, especially as a big. Although his switch defensive abilities garnered much deserved attention, Claxton showed high levels of defensive awareness by showing when to help to cut off driving lanes and save teammates who got beat. He has his shortcomings with his footwork and being antsy on switches, but he has the length and recovery skills to make up for it. Offensively, he has room to grow. If he is not catching alley oops from the Nets ball handlers, he loves to turn over his right shoulder and finish with a left hook, which yields inconsistent results. He does not have a reliable right hand to use on finishes. He has shown flashes of being a connect / release valve against traps and switches. In conclusion, the Nets have one of the most interesting, unique young prospects in the league and it will be fascinating to see him develop further.

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Let’s talk about Joe Harris and social media.

Before social media, the anger that fans had about their favorite team’s performance was not for public display. Now with social media’s prevalence, the aggrieved fan can readily share their thoughts with the world, spotlighting the toxic culture of sports fans. 

Here enters Joe Harris's postseason performance in the second round, which was less than ideal. Harris is probably my favorite Nets player (which is pretty funny to say when this team has KD, Kyrie, and James Harden), but he had a horrible second round after Game 2 that played a role in them losing a series. Here are the stats for Harris’ postseason performance in the first 7 games of the playoffs versus the last 5:

Harris was very conscious of the fact that he did not play to the level that he is accustomed to. In the post-media session after the game, he said “Frankly, if I'd played better, we probably would've been in a different spot." But Harris not playing to the standard we all hold him to as fans is not the point I want to make. What I want to do is talk about the toxicity that permeated social media after the Nets lost. Even though he showed a level of self-awareness and admitted that he did not perform well, Nets fans and NBA fans piled on and berated his performance in the series, pointing to him as the main reason the Nets lost. Not because Harden re-aggravated his right hamstring in the opening minutes of game one, not because Kyrie landed on Giannis’s foot and sprained his ankle in Game 4, and not because Harden returned in Game 5 and was clearly hampered by what we now know was a grade two hamstring injury. 

I have been a Nets fan since I was in 6th grade, which was back in 2006. I stopped being a fan and moved onto other things when I was in high school, but when the team moved back to Brooklyn, I became a fan again and have been one ever since. I am passionate about the team and I am emotionally invested in their success, like most fans are. However, the passion and emotional investment that us fans pour into our favorite sports team and players can be unhealthy and extremely toxic. Twitter and other social media outlets love to clown players when they perform badly or do something wrong. I too like jokes, especially when they are done in good taste. But social media users can be arsonists who can create inflammatory posts and images that spread like a wildfire. If you go to Harris’ instagram page (which he does not run, by the way), you can see a wide variety of out of pocket remarks. His family has spoken about the nonsense that they had to deal with since the series finished. And, of course, all the Shanghai Sharks / China remarks. 

Just put yourself in their shoes. Imagine if you had a dream job of playing basketball and you get paid millions to do so. Like many other athletes, you create a social media account to post whatever you want that occurs in your day-to-day life, promote yourself, and/or have a way to interact with fans. During the regular season, hundreds of thousands of fans watch your team and during the playoffs millions of fans do. Fans who root for the team you are on are emotionally invested in your performance and how it impacts the team they are rooting for. This emotional investment gets higher as the stakes for their favorite team gets raised, like when there are playoff games that determine who wins a title. Their entire mood is determined by how well the team they root for performs. When you have a poor performance in these high stake affairs, fans can share their thoughts with you due to the ease of access because of social media. They tend to be hateful, but the levels of hate get amplified when the team loses and you play poorly. That does not even account for the thousands of fans who are rooting against you, your team, or just want to be a menacing troll. It does not sound like an enjoyable experience. The easy counter argument to this is “just turn off social media, you’re not forced to use it,” which is true. But just because someone does not see your incendiary remarks does not make them any better. And people they know who use social media (like siblings or other family) who they have no control over can use social media, see the messages and their content, and relay the prevailing themes they see on platforms to those players. 

I am more empathetic than others, but I feel bad for athletes when they have bad performances in high stakes matters, whether it is Harris, Ben Simmons, or someone else. Fans say these reckless remarks because they feel untouchable behind their screen due to the anonymity social media provides. Athletes know when they perform poorly and they do not need us shouting into the void known as social media to constantly remind them with disparaging comments to them or their family. I cannot imagine the mental strain they go through knowing seeing all the outlandish remarks. In the end, the Nets coaching staff knew that Harris was struggling in the series and decided to continue to play him, showing that they trusted and supported him. As fans, we should be supporting and encouraging players in the same manner that teammates and the coaching staff do when a teammate goes through a rough stretch, regardless of the outcome.