Thabo Sefolosha Injury Opens Door for Atlanta Hawks' X-Factor to Shine
Rarely, if ever, do late-season, pre-NBA playoff injuries portend good times. But Thabo Sefolosha's inopportune, protracted stint on the shelf has the chance to be an exception for the Atlanta Hawks.
It means more Kent Bazemore: resident towel-waver and, now, potential postseason X-factor.
Sefolosha sustained a broken ankle Wednesday during an altercation in New York and is now done for the season, including the playoffs. Shams Charania of RealGM has the details:
The 30-year-old backs up DeMarre Carroll and is posting the team's third-highest net rating. He's someone who can stick with the opposition's most dangerous perimeter scorer, and the defense is worlds better with him on the floor. Losing him now, fewer than 10 days before the playoffs, is far from ideal.
Fortunately for the Hawks, they have Bazemore, who, while something of a postseason newbie with only nine games to his name, is more than capable of soaking up minutes at the 2 and 3 spots. As Grantland's Zach Lowe points out:
At 6'5", Bazemore can do many of the same things Sefolosha does. He's a lanky defender with great ball awareness who polices passing lanes like he's Sheriff Baze of Off-Ball Defense County.
Exhibit Baze:
Exhibit Gawd:
Exhibit "Oh my Baze Gawd":
Sometimes the way in which he defends can be detrimental to the entire possession. He likes to cheat toward the middle of the floor in hopes of swiping cross-court passes and kick-outs, making it difficult to recover on shooters and dribble drives if rival offenses can thread the needle.
Opponents are shooting at a slightly above average clip when he's guarding them, a direct result of his ball-gazing. He also struggles to defend off screens. More than one-third of his total defensive sets come against pick-and-roll ball-handlers and those working off screens, and he fails to crack the 50th percentile in points allowed per possession for either category.
Still, a lot of Bazemore's intrigue lies in his progression. He barely cracked head coach Mike Budenholzer's rotation to start the season after returning from right foot surgery, yet he's now a nightly staple.
Injuries and the absence of something to play for this late in the season are helping him gain more exposure, but he's not solely a garbage-game, last-resort option. His minutes have increased over the course of the entire campaign, peaking in February:
Additional playing time has brought improvement with it. Bazemore has been even better on the defensive end, balancing gambles with a more collectively conservative approach. He has more defensive win shares than Sefolosha and is one of just 10 players to amass 1.8 while logging fewer than 1,300 total minutes.
But Bazemore always projected as a serviceable defender, if only because of his length and the fact that, as a seldom-used reserve, he wouldn't go nose to nose with stat-stocking superheroes regularly.
Offense remains the chief concern when assessing his value.
Dating back to his time with the Golden State Warriors and Los Angeles Lakers, Bazemore has never shot especially well. His range is limited, he turns the ball over a ton for someone who was never a top option and he's a career minus on the offensive end in general.
Some of those demons have even followed him to Atlanta. His offensive win shares are in the red, which is tough to do when playing for one of the NBA's six-best point-piling machines.
Generally speaking, though, Bazemore has looked serviceable. He's finding nylon on a career-best 38.8 percent of his treys and limiting his turnovers—the extent of what the Hawks need him to do on the offensive end.
Atlanta doesn't rely on Sefolosha to create his own shot or get to the foul line. He's strictly valued as someone who makes smart decisions with the ball and remains in constant motion, orbiting the three-point line, preparing himself for Jeff Teague's and Dennis Schroder's drive-and-kicks and Al Horford's defense-collapsing post moves.
And, at the moment, the bar isn't set very high to replace those contributions. Sefolosha is shooting just 31.1 percent on spot-up treys this season and has been an offensive blister since returning from a calf injury in late March. Bazemore will actually end up being an upgrade with the way he's playing.
Not only is the 25-year-old putting in 39.8 percent of his long balls since the start of December but he's drilling nearly 42 percent of his standstill missiles for the entire season. And while Sefolosha has been struggling, Bazemore is thriving.
"Kent's been great," a smiling Budenholzer said, per Vice Sports' Jordan White. "He's got such great energy, we're really lucky to have him."
Yes, he's an offensive minus overall. And sure, he's also a defensive minus for the season. But things are gradually changing.
Bazemore is a defensive plus since March 1, during which time he's posting a positive net rating that exceeds those of Horford, Teague and Schroder.
The Hawks can work with this.
Really, they can work with any in-house option. The brand of basketball they play is selfless, unique and, most importantly, demanding. Every player on the roster buys in—otherwise he wouldn't be on the roster. So this devout sense of camaraderie and purpose stretches the length of the depth chart, making it easier for those who are next in line to succeed.
As Alex Kennedy underscores for Basketball Insiders:
"The Hawks will be fine. They’re an unselfish team plays a winning brand of basketball, trusting each other and putting the team’s success over their own. At times, much like the Spurs, they look like a well-oiled machine because their players are so in sync and well-prepared that they seem one step ahead of the opposition. This is a Hawks team that is hard to game-plan against, especially in a seven-game playoff series since Budenholzer is a great coach who can make adjustments and this team has so many talented players to account for.
"
While not a main attraction, Bazemore is one of those talents. More importantly, he's fit to play the role at hand.
He isn't going to start. He isn't replacing Kyle Korver or even Carroll. He'll back them up; he'll be something of an insurance policy the Hawks have no choice but to use.
Yet, as the playoffs rage on, he could emerge as something more.
Under brighter lights, on a national stage, with the promise of postseason playing time, Bazemore has the opportunity to carve out a more prominent role that lasts—both deep into the playoffs and beyond.
Stats are courtesy of Basketball-Reference.com and NBA.com and are accurate heading into games on April 9 unless otherwise cited.
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