San Antonio Spurs: Can Thomas Robinson revive his career in NBA Summer League?

What do advanced metrics suggest about Robinson’s potential return?

For the better part of the decade, Dwight Howard was used as a cautionary tale for what could happen when immensely athletic bigs failed to advance their games with range. For Robinson, a return would help to rewrite a bit of that narrative.

For a 6’11” forward, there’s surprisingly little footage that suggests that he needs a back-to-basket game in order to thrive. That being the case, Robinson’s argument for being portable in different systems becomes that much easier. Analytics suggest what anyone who has watched Robinson likely already knows: He’s close to as low-maintenance a big as possible, and doesn’t need the traditional “touch” to make an impact on the court.

In 2015-16, he made 71 appearances as a rotational piece for the Brooklyn Nets. That season, Robinson ranked fourth in the NBA in put-back frequency, finding net on 0.99 points per possession (among contemporaries such as Pau Gasol, DeAndre Jordan and Steven Adams). The very next season, he raised that up to 1.14 points per possession, solid enough for a 62nd percentile ranking.

To further that standing: Over the course of his 313-game career, Robinson only needed assists on 54.2 percent of his shots, which is an egregiously low number when compared to bigs with shooting deficiencies today.

Clint Capela, for example, needed 81.2 percent of his shots to be products of assists, and Rudy Gobert (73.5 percent), Steven Adams (64.2 percent) all required a bit more assistance in getting those looks. Those numbers reflect the same narrative, should you look a notch lower at a player of a similar play style (say, Ed Davis). Davis, like those aforementioned centers, needed over 60 percent of his shots assisted.

Robinson’s play style screams “do-it-myself” if need be, which means teams would be getting a player who can either: A) create opportunities for himself, or B) do so in a pick-and-roll setting.

After a struggle in 2013-14 (the first season the NBA.com actively tracked defensive metrics), Robinson became the type of player that had defensive stalwart potential in limited minutes. Though teams attacked the 6’10” power forward on roughly four of every 10 possessions, opponents only shot 49.1 percent against him within six feet of the rim during his time in Portland.

And then, in Brooklyn, opposing players shot 54.4 percent on Robinson (second-best mark behind Brook Lopez), before he struggled to reach that same level of deterrence in Los Angeles.

Generally, 50 percent passes the unofficial litmus test for efficiency, which would paint Robinson’s interior defense in his early years as unspectacular. Though, putting into context of 2018-19 numbers: per PBP stats, players shot 51.3 percent on assisted 2-pointers, which suggests that Robinson has the potential to be an average-to-above average defender in an evolving NBA.

If none of those metrics speak to the eye, Robinson put it in video form time and time again, using his previously mentioned wingspan and 35.5″ vertical to its proper use, like on this play, which some call the best of his career: