(January 6th) If the running theme of Desmond Claude’s first player profile was that he very definitely knows who he is as a player, then this should just serve as more evidence of the same. Every single sentence written in the initial profile for this year stands exactly as true of this one. The slashing is still elite, the playmaking for others still elite, and the defense still very good but understated by his steals, which are up from last year. Technically, Claude’s steal rate did drop from the 43rd percentile to the 31st, but with infrequent events like steals, even relatively large swings may not actually represent a real change in output.
(December 12th) Des Claude has largely picked up where he left off at Xavier, both for good and for bad. He’s phenomenal at getting to the line by drawing contact as a slasher (98th percentile FTr), he’s a good playmaker for others (86th percentile in assists) and for himself (94th percentile true shooting with an 86th percentile offensive load). He’s a good defender (75th percentile DBPM), whose defensive skill is heavily understated by the limitations of the box score because he doesn’t chase steals (43rd percentile steal rate). He also really doesn’t shoot the three (1st percentile 3PAr).
There’s something to be said for knowing who you are as a player, especially when who you are as a player is as good as Claude is. However, there are some flaws that NBA teams tend to overreact to, and among them are not shooting the three and low steal and block rates. To that end, it’s encouraging that, while Claude is not taking a large enough volume for it to change NBA perceptions, he has largely made what threes he has taken this year – 5/15 for 33%, with a small adjustment to 33.2% due to the sample size correction. That’s probably not going to change the minds of a team, but it’s only a few makes away from something that would. Similarly, while Claude’s steal rate is still far lower than his overall defensive skill, it is also much higher, at the 43rd percentile, than it was last year, when it generally floated in the 20’s. Effectively, Claude doesn’t have to overhaul who he is as a player – his strengths are enough that an NBA team should see a path for him to contribute to their roster – he just has to mitigate the weaknesses just enough so that NBA teams can look past them to his strengths, and it looks like Claude is managing to do just that so far.