Omari Spellman is a throwback to NBA eras past. The Atlanta Hawks rookie is listed at 6-foot-9, 245 pounds, but is probably about an inch shorter and at least 10 pounds heavier. That's a problem in today's league, as the game grows faster and faster and smaller and smaller — perhaps changed forever by the proliferation of small-ball and increased understanding of the merits of pace and space.
Unsurprisingly, the Villanova product has struggled defensively this season, to the extent he's become something close to a punchline among Hawks followers. On Thursday, Omari Spellman clapped back at SB Nation's Peachtree Hoops on twitter, criticizing the blog for frequently singling out his defense while also promising to improve.
https://twitter.com/Omarispellman/status/1090857937805819904
Credit Spellman for acknowledging there's some truth behind Peachtree Hoops' critique. Even rookies with prototype defensive tools are notoriously slow to understand NBA concepts. Much more surprising than Spellman struggling on that side of the floor would be him approximating anything close to average defensive performance.
Numbers aren't everything, obviously, but it's worth noting that on-off splits don't exactly support the notion that Spellman is “getting killed on defense.” Atlanta actually allows slightly fewer points per 100 possessions when he's on the floor compared to the bench, a dynamic that applies to both statistics compiled over the season's entirety as well as the last 10 games (when Spellman was recalled from the G-League and became a part of Lloyd Pierce's rotation).
Is Spellman where he needs to be defensively? No way, and there's a chance he never gets there. Big men not fleet enough to chase shooters around screens and not long enough to protect the rim will almost always be tricky defensive fits. Time and experience will surely help Spellman mitigate those inherent weaknesses, though, and his self-aware, confident attitude should come in handy, too.
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