Why the Portland Trail Blazers should keep Rondae Hollis-Jefferson

2: Defensive versatility

Hollis-Jefferson has never been very well known for his offensive game, but his calling card has been his defensive versatility since college. He is 6’7″, has a 7’2″ wingspan and weighs 219 lbs.

Hollis-Jefferson can defend every position on the court. Kind of like the current Trail Blazer Robert Covington. Not too many guys in the NBA can actually do that, and now Portland has two players who can.

During the 2019-20 season, Scott Rafferty wrote an article about Hollis-Jeffersons defense. In that article, he uses some stats from Narsu and Miller’s data, Rafferty in his article says,

"“Hollis-Jefferson has the defensive versatility rating of 94.2 to this point of the season, the result of him spending an almost equal amount of time guarding point guards (18.3 percent), shooting guards (23.6 percent), small forwards (19.3 percent), power forwards (21.0 percent) and centers (17.7 percent).”"

The Toronto Raptors had the second-best defensive rating in the league in 2019-2020, and Portland has two players from that team on their squad in Powell and Hollis-Jefferson. Maybe those guys can teach the players and even coaches on the team some defensive tricks.

RHJ won’t make the Blazers an elite defense and may not even play that much to make an impact, but he gives the Blazers another body to eat up some fouls and throw at players like LeBron James, Giannis Antetokounmpo, James Harden, Steph Curry, etc.