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Dennis Smith Jr. has parlayed his athleticism into exhaustive defense at the point of attack. Relative to what he was always going to cost, in fact, he’s the player on this list whose continued availability is most surprising.
Offensive limitations are likely the primary factor behind the 26-year-old’s continued availability.
Expecting him to do basic floor-general stuff and regularly knock down threes, as a ball-handler or spot-up option, counts as overly ambitious. But the rim pressure he provides is atypical for his size and position, and he has (incrementally) leveled up his finishing over the past two seasons.
Teams with pristine spacing in the half-court can likewise leverage his downhill juice into playmaking for others. He tossed an assist last season on a somewhat staggering 15.6 percent of his drives, a top-six mark among 143 players who finished at least 300 such possessions.
Pair this with his defensive activity at the point of attack, and you’ve got a nifty drive-and-disrupt reserve on your hands. To that end, Jose Alvarado is the only other player over the past three seasons to maintain a steal rate of at least three and an assist percentage of 20 or higher.
So, um, yeah. Somebody sign this dude already.
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