Kevon Looney's Coming Out Party
Everyone saw what Stephen Curry did against the Sacramento Kings, but what Looney did on both ends of the court might have been the most impressive.
(Thanks SFGate)
When you average 7 points and 9 rebounds a game in the regular season, it doesn’t strike you as an impact player. On a team with Stephen Curry, Klay Thompson, Andrew Wiggins, and Jordan Poole scoring the basketball, it doesn’t leave very many chances to make a splash on offense. While most defensive attention is given to Draymond Green (well deserved), Looney's contributions get overlooked.
But if you watched the entire seven-game series the Golden State Warriors just completed against the Sacramento Kings, Looney's impact was unmatched. Looney guarded Kings All-Star Domantas Sabonis. Not only did he win the battle against the All-Star, but he made Sabonis almost non-existent. Let's look at some of the stats you might not have known about the series.
In the video, you can see Looney's defensive impact on Sabonis in the paint. When you look at the fact that Sabonis had 77 touches in the area and shot 19 for 39 from the floor. He managed to score 46 points in the paint. Sabonis averaged 0.60 points per paint touch in the series. (He averaged 0.87 points per paint touch in the regular season). Only one other player in the NBA (with 20 or more touches) had a lower success rate and that was Looney. Kevon only had 21 shots in the paint and scored 30 points. (Thanks PBPdata.com)
On the glass, Looney was even more dominant. Sabonis led the league and was the only player to average more than 12 rebounds per game. In the series, Looney made sure that the league’s leading rebounder would not make an impact on the glass.
In the regular season, Sabonis averaged 9.1 rebounds per game on the defensive glass. He grabbed 63% of the rebounds he got. Looney led Domantas to 49% of his chances in the playoffs. The main factor behind Sabonis having such a low defensive rebound percentage was that Looney collected 58% of the offensive glass rebounds.
If you look at the chart below, Looney grabbed rebounds from every area the Warriors took shots from.
By looking at the chart above, all of the red O’s are shots on the offensive end and the green D’s are shots that the Kings took. As you can see, Looney controlled the defensive glass in the series. He grabbed 66% of the total chances he had for defensive rebounds. All of these color shots led to Looney averaging 15.1 rebounds a game in the series.
So as you watch the Golden State Warriors versus the Los Angeles Lakers on Tuesday night in San Francisco, can Kevon Looney deliver the same output and effort against Lakers star Anthony Davis? Because if the repeats this same performance, you might can that Looney might be the second-best player on the Warriors in the 2023 NBA Playoffs.