Memphis Grizzlies: 5 goals for Mike Conley in 2017-18
By Greg Cassoli
3. Defend well enough
Before we start here let me be quite clear: Mike Conley is a competent defender. He certainly defends better than most players that shoulder a comparable offensive load for their teams. At one point Conley was probably even in the conversation as one of the better defensive point guards in all of basketball.
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That hasn’t been the case in recent years. He can still get after it when it counts, but the Grizzlies have been better defensively with Conley off the court in three of the past four seasons, and he’s only cracked the top 15 of Defensive Real Plus-Minus once in that time. The on/off differences aren’t huge, and Conley still rates out as essentially neutral after accounting for context.
That’s all that the Grizzlies need him to be, and really that’s as good as he has to be. Memphis needs Conley on offense more than on defense. He’s their only credible creator, and if he needs to conserve a bit of energy on defense to make things run more effectively, so be it. Even the best perimeter defenders only have so much of an impact on the game.
So then what’s the goal here? We’ll go with the Grizzlies having whatever defensive rating they need to make their net rating with Conley on the floor be +3.5 points per 100 possessions. That’s just a hair lower than the 3.9 mark they posted last year (per Basketball-Reference).