Anybody knows how Tyreke has been on defense this year? He was supposed to be a solid defensive player out of college. But never really played on good defensive teams...
Can he actually guard in the playoffs?
I'm PRO trading for him
https://www.basketball-reference.com/teams/MEM/2018/on-off/
Don't know how accurate the stats here are, but Grizzlies are 2.8 pts better defensively with Evans playing. Also interestingly they are worse offensively and defensively when Gasol plays.
Off/on numbers are generally unreliable, especially for dumpster teams like Memphis. He's basically going to be compared to the guy replacing him. If that person sucks, he's going to look like a great defender. The more accurate measure to look at is DBPM (defensive box plus minus) which removes this bias and compares him to the league average defender (0.0). His DBPM is -0.7, which means that's he a slightly below average defender, not terrible. That's not really important though, because his OBPM (offensive box plus minus) is +4.7!! and his VORP (value over replacement player is 2.2). Put that into context, here are our starters VORPs:
Kyrie is 3.2
Brown is 0.7
Tatum is 1.4
Horford is 2.6
Baynes is -0.1
Smart is 0.4
In terms of advanced analytics, he would theoretically be our 3rd most valuable player. So in terms of advanced analytics (and if we consider ourselves contenders for this year), trading our 2018 1st round pick for Tyreke seems like a no-brainer. Add to the mix that just by joining Boston in Brad Stevens' defense, he's going to get a DBPM bump (it seems to be about a 2.0 swing, roughly, based on how the new additions are overachieving here), he could really help us get to the finals.
