Old Reliable?
Hey, where are all those “Dillon Brooks Is Going To Play For The Shanghai Sharks!” takes? The “Rockets Were Only Bidding Against Themselves For Brooks, LOL!” remarks from clever podcasters? The “What a terrible overpay and deal, hope you like Dillon shooting a lot!” predictions?
Anyone with the above sentiments from the NBA blog-pod-social-media commentariart care to drop by for some Southern fried hot crow? Over the past two seasons Dillon Brooks has been worth what the Rockets paid him, and then some.
Some might have thought that Dillon’s defense slipped a bit this season, and perhaps it did, but it’s hard to see it from the company he kept with his individual defensive rating. Dillon ended up with a very good Defensive Player Rating. About the best in the NBA over the regular season, with enough games played to qualify for an NBA award (65), and enough minutes to qualify as a starter (30+), was around 104.
The NBA’s Defensive Player of the Year, Evan Mobley compiled a 108.6 rating. Dillon Brooks? 108.8. That seems pretty good. Good overall defenses tend to have good individual defense scores and the Rockets are no exception (Do good individual defensive efforts produce good team defense? It’s a kind of chicken and egg situation perhaps.). Amen Thompson clocked in at 107.9, Alperen Sengun at 107.4 (!), and the Rockets were lead by Jabari Smith at 106.1 (well, Steven Adams had the best score, but his minutes/games don’t qualify him).
Dillon’s main problem on defensive is that he’s not a great rebounder. Fortunately, that’s not a problem on the Rockets, who have great individual rebounders, and by some metrics were the best rebounding team in the NBA.
Dillon was second in technical fouls this season at 19, behind Anthony Edwards at 20. The execrable Draymond Green had 18. How is this possible? How did Fred VanVleet and Amen Thompson have more regular season ejections than Draymond, and Dillon the same number? You’ll have to ask the NBA Referees Association, as the standard for Dillon Brooks and Ant Edwards technicals and the one for Draymond is wildly different.
But good defense, technical fouls, being an irritant and jackass is the book on Brooks right? So how is it he’s been worth his contract and more? Why was last season a great one for Brooks? In a word, offense.
Dillon shot 40% from three point range on 6.3 attempts per game. He had a True Shooting percentage of .555%. This was better than Jalen Green, Alperen Sengun, and Fred VanVleet. Of the starter/heavy rotation players Dillon was slightly exceeded by Jabari and Tari in this statistic, and also by Amen Thompson.
Dillon was, surprisingly decent on his drives, too. I may have started the season calling them “Dillon’s Dribblin’ Adventures!” but they were effective, and for the most part either within the context of the offense or was an attempt to generate offense when the Rockets were bogged down in the half court, which was often.
The drives, and turnaround jumpers from Kanadian Kobe might have looked odd, but they were effective. His usage might have seemed high in some games, but it wasn’t. Dillon had a 17% usage rate.
All this didn’t produce an All Star player, or even close to it, but it did offer consistent effort on defense, some scorching hot nights on offense, and generally good value for Dillon’s deal. I believe a lot of teams would like a big, tough, physical defender who almost never takes a play off at wing or power forward.
It’s probably impossible to calculate, but difficult to overstate Dillon’s effect on the effort level and toughness of the young Rockets, which saw a marked turnaround last season with the addition of Ime Udoka, Fred VanVleet and Dillon Brooks. Dillon might be a hothead, and an irritant, but the horrible defending, uninspired, soft, young Rockets from before Dillon’s arrival needed his fiery presence.
It may be that Dillon’s future lies elsewhere, as judging by the numbers, and age, the Rockets really do need to find more minutes from Jabari Smith, Tari Eason (if he can play back to backs) and Amen Thompson if Thibs Minutes Levels are ok for him, (and even Cam Whitmore if your team scoring matters at all in the NBA). The Rockets also have the 10th pick in this draft, which I suspect has Carter Bryant, a big, young, athletic, great defending, intense, mediocre at best on offense, player waiting for the Rockets to bring him to his Forever Home.
In any case, stay or go, Dillon Brooks has been worth it for the Rockets, no matter how you look at it.