Positioning. Just being in the right place affects all the other players. 

Invisible defensive skills like rim deterrence, % lower that players shoot when guarded by you, etc.

A player could be fantastic at showing on help defense to stop a drive, then getting back to their man in time to not allow an open shot. It’ll never show in the stats.

Same with a big man that makes people nope out of even trying.

Same with a player who consistently makes players shoot worse when he’s guarding them, but doesn’t get steals or blocks.

Turnover avoidance

Boxing out

Setting screens

Proper clock management

Rudy Gobert does so much that’s not in the box score, the wolves media started tracking his “neverminds”. Aka when a player moves towards the paint but then dribbles back out because Rudy is in position to protect the rim. Part of why casuals don’t respect him is this stuff doesn’t get recorded as a stat

Ball handler setting up the screen / having that timing down with the screener.

Calling out opponent’s offensive scheme and organizing your defensive assignments accordingly, during the possession. “help! screen! flair! down, down!” If a team has one of these, they are way ahead.

Self Awareness

Watch good rebounders use their body and angles. It’s artwork.

Rebounds are actually so important and no one ever really talks about it.

The “hockey assist”. Also highly noted in soccer. The past leading to the assist. But we don’t really pay a lot of attention. And I mean the intentional one that uses foresight. We are in the big stats era and a lot of “assists” now are just  passing to a guy and that guy goes iso and eventually scores.

Another skill is locking down someone off ball. Like we know the great point of attack defenders. But Cason Wallace sticking to Steph Curry like a shadow as he’s running around a million screens is admirable (not to mention Steph being both willing and physically able to run around the screens all game).

Most stars these days like to stand around when they don’t have the ball. Example Trae young was never going to be Steph anyway, but one huge gap other than talent is if he doesn’t have the ball he’s standing and Steph is in constant motion.

Defensive positioning and switching. This is why Draymond Green will be a 8ppg, 5apg, 6rpg hall of Famer.

any off ball defense 

I don’t know if there’s a specific name for it, but I love when a big man kinda boxes out the help defender after rolling, so the ballhandler has an open layup. Mitchell Robinson did a lot against the spurs

Being where you’re supposed to be.

It’s why peak Dirk was a +1 dpm and peak Carmelo was a -1 despite the fact that Carmelo should have been a much better defender athletically.

making normal passes perfectly—getting the guy the ball in the perfect spot he needs to get the shot up immediately, zipping it over there so there’s no time to react, not telegraphing it. people see flashy behind the back no look pass highlights which are awesome but making your basic passes perfectly every time is the difference between having to iso against your man and having the shot up before he can react. 

also shoutout making a good inbounds pass for all the same reasons. not flashy, but when you can’t do it (cough cough, Spurs, cough) it’s glaringly obvious

The effect of shooters on the court even when they aren’t making a shot.

The Steph Curry “gravity” thing that a lot of old heads probably still think is imaginary or exaggerated. When you have an elite shooter that can stretch the defense or a big man like Towns who can draw the opposing teams big man away from the basket it makes the TEAM defense’s lives harder even though the popular Charles Barkley , Shaq promoted narrative is when big men are missing 3s they should go inside. 3 point attempts still have a positive affect overall when missed unless it’s a guy the defense isn’t threatened enough to close out on .

That’s not to say there shouldn’t be balance of higher percentage looks inside too.

I feel like you don’t see it as much now since a lot of post play has gone away, but establishing position down low and sealing off defenders to create driving lanes and open spots in the midrange is a major skill. Someone should learn it against Wemby.

Availability/health. Mikal Bridges might be the current GOAT at that.

Cutting to make the defense react and open things for others. A well timed cut can open a lane to the basket for the ball handler, or create a wide open three for someone else

Help defense, especially weak side.

Moving without the ball

time out coaching adjustments

Hustle/added possessions. Big part of why Hugo Gonzalez is so valued by the Celtics is his ability to dive for loose balls and win those margins.

Connective passing- not passes for assists but ability to swing the ball and make defenses rotate. Creates weaknesses.

Offensive rebounding- a lot of the big man who are still in the league that can’t shoot are great at this skill specifically. Extra possessions makes up for inefficiencies elsewhere.

And yeah, said elsewhere but screen setting, setting up screens are big as well.

Good rebounding is pretty slept on until a team is getting dismantled because of it.

Play recognition is hyper important.

Off-ball movement. It’s just as much what makes Steph Curry special as his shooting ability.

Team chemistry and being a glue guy is the most underrated skill in all of sports. The number of what-ifs that happened from teams not getting along is crazy.

Smart and well timed defensive rotations

Gravitation of a star player or a 3 point shooter pulling defenders making their teammates lives easier.

Availability and stamina.

Teamwork and talking strategy

His name is Josh Hart

After having marcus smart for a season, he does so much that goes unnoticed in the stat sheet.Diving for loose balls, hyping up his team and not letting them put their head down after a mistake are two things that really stood out to me. Of course defense, hustle as well

Defensive positioning

Timing rebounds

Cutting and off ball movement are the most important things ⁴⁄₅ players are doing on the court. The amount of guys who are out of the league because they just sort of sit there when they don’t have the ball, or big men who don’t roll to the rim well is huge

I would say the Vanishing Drive is the skill that makes you most invisible

Probably gravity (and the reverse on D). Wembanyama makes a lot of his teammates look better on defense because he’s lurking out of frame, and Steph Curry did the same thing on offense.

Gotta be communicating on defense. Everyone who has been laid out from a screen they couldn’t see knows what I’m talking about.

Reading the defense to mess up plays. Kind of why I love thinking basketball, because they show these “highlights”.

Reading the defense doesnt always mean jumping a passing lane. It just means hedging to cut off the pass to the roll man, pre switching, not biting on a rotation etc. Anything to make the offense need to use up a few more seconds of the shotclock because the initial action is no longer available

For guards / backcourt or fastbreak in particular.. when the eyes are telegraphing one thing 👀 but the play is shaping up to be something different.

Sometimes it makes highlights from baseline camera angles

Tenacity.

Pulling the chair. Being able to stop a driver from drawing a foul AND forcing them to generate a turnover will forever be an underrated skill. Andrew Nembhard, jokic and Rick Mahorn were/are pretty good at it.

Ask OG….the emperor of invisible

Cutting.

Ball denial

Here’s one of my favorite MWP single game defensive highlights

drawing charges late in games and leaving little to no room for debate if it was a foul or not

Dennis Rodman, Kyle Lowry and Thaddeus Young were the names that first came to mind

Guys who have a knack for stopping 2 on 1 or even 3 on 1 fastbreaks. Specifically, Draymond and Derrick White are insane at those.

NIKOLA JOKIC

The ability to draw a charge. Raptors legend Kyle Lowry was known for this.

Defensive positioning. Being in the right place to dissuade an attack on the basket is vital but doesn’t “stat” well like blocks.

Not showing up in street clothes

Watch Josh Hart play. Everything he does.

the low man (aka the guy guarding the screener) knowing when to drop, hedge or switch on screens

Ball denial

Assists are obviously tracked, but ball placements on passes is huge in a league that is filled plays that are determined by millimeters.

So many players make a pass that is the correct read, but those plays can be ruined by a pocket pass being too low, or a ball that is outside of the shooters rhythm shot.

knowing where players are on the court at all times (especially your team’s weakest defender and the opponent’s strongest offensive player)

Leadership. If your play reflects genuine respect, care, and support for your teammates your job becomes easier & the team will be more successful.

Call it making your teammates look better, call it “a rising tide lifts all boats”, call it whatever. Basketball isn’t golf, it isn’t tennis, it’s a team sport.

Knowing and accepting your role without complaint

Ball control. The ability, especially for primary ball handlers, to take care of the ball and not lose possessions is super underrated.

Kyle Anderson screen

Kyle Anderson creating a three without touching the ball. High level team awareness

The back line of a defense talking and switching to cut off driving lanes

This is in part why vets stick for so long, they are often teaching things like the above to youngsters

Shot prevention

Getting lot of blocks means shooters are willing to take a shot near you. The greatest defenders make shot takers avoid taking it

the importance of locker room veteran guys like Mario Elie, Jared Dudley, James Jones to name a few

Precision passing to the open man during a blender. Royce O’Neale

Having a nose for the ball.

Some players just know where the ball is going to be deflected/dribbled. It’s like some baseball shit. Some players just have a knack for those types of scrappy/broken plays.

Properly taking a charge and creating an offensive foul is an art. Proper pick and roll defense is also underrated.

Setting screens. We should get highlights of people running hard into screens.

Literally knowing who you are on the court and what your role is. A guy like Nick Collison comes to mind for whatever reason. Was the top dawg at KU. Knew exactly what his role was in the NBA and had a geat career. Set screens, rebound, pass well, and score 10 ppg when you can.

When big men roll HARD to the rim, like they want to dunk on the whole defense. Especially when they dont get the ball, but rolling hard draws in the perimter defense and creates better looks on a kick out pass.

A point guard or a ball handler that can keep the defender on his hip and go anywhere on the floor. Chris Paul was a master at this. It doesn’t look that impressive but it’s incredibly important to getting around the floor.

Off ball defense. Or offense actually

Cutting. Just forcing the defense to be on their toes constantly is worth a lot even if you don’t get open or get the pass.

Doing fakes without the ball.

Hesi fakes to lose defenders and find the open space.

Pass fakes to open up easier lanes, find shooters in open space or make defense turn their heads.

I see a lot of potential metrics in this thread that I’m sure front offices have figured out how to measure. Anyone know for sure about that?

Just existing with long arms. I don’t think on TV you can fully understand how much of a difference it makes for the offensive player with long arms in their face

Quick decision making. Having a guy who takes that extra half second to process the floor vs making an immediate read will turn a wide open 3 into a contested shot every time. Guys are just too fast at scrambling and recovering.

Its overused now but offensive gravity. Going to use Dirk as an example here because hes my Goat. Dirk was amazing but a huge part of the sustained team success over all of the years was not just because he got buckets but how he forced teams to defend him. Pulling the other teams best defensive big/double teams away from the basket all game opened up so many easy opportunities for his teammates. Very few offensive players warp the court like that. Even guys that are objectively better than Dirk couldn’t change things so much by simply existing on the court.

Another great example is Steph. Hes never had the best, most eye popping stat lines but his impact at his peak, like Dirk, was well beyond simply his counting stats. The way he forces other teams to overplay and extend beyond the 3 point line opens up so many easy opportunities for his teammates its impossible to say what his true value was by any statistic.

Defense where the offensive player nopes out of a play and passes to a player taking a lower percentage shot.

Happens all the time with big guys like Rudy but on the surface it’s just a pass out, never a blight. 

Availability. Your best ability it’s your availability

Rudy Gobert’s defensive impact just by being in the paint

Shot clock/ time efficiency. You have 48 min and approx. 100 possessions to outscore the team.

Clutch ability, leadership…

That’s more intangibles though, but should NEVER be understated !

Communication

It does make a highlight reel and has been brought up but Nembhard pulling the chair is one of the most amazing things I’ve ever seen

Pace manipulation. Misdirection.