As the Brooklyn Nets gear up for the regular season, it makes sense to take a closer look at how each player on the roster factors into the team’s plans, and what growth the team is looking for as they rebuild the roster. First up in this endeavor is a newly minted $100 million man, Nic Claxton.
What does Claxton bring to the court?
Standing at 6-11 215 pounds with a 7-foot-2.5-inch wingspan, the 25-year-old Claxton has made a name for himself as one of the most potent defensive weapons in the league. Last season, he ranked 14th in the NBA with a 111.0 defensive rating showcasing his game-changing impact on that end of the floor.
His freakish agility and superior instincts allow him to truly guard one through five, serving as a point-of-attack defender against smaller guards while also showing elite rim protection skills, as evidenced by his 6.2% block percentage which ranked in the 97th percentile in the league, per CraftedNBA.
The only issue Claxton has on the defensive end is with offensively skilled, massive true centers who can take advantage of his skinny frame and out-muscle him in the low post. Fortunately, the offensive evolution of the game has made such players fewer and further between. Still, it limits his effectiveness against chief rivals like Joel Embiid and the Philadelphia 76ers.
Offensively, Claxton’s skillset is much more limited. While he led the NBA in shooting percentage at 70.5% in 2022-2023 and averaged 11.8 points per game last season, his offensive game is mostly limited to that of a rim runner catching lobs and finishing at the rim when set up by his teammates. While there’s value in that, the one-dimensional nature of his offensive game means that his production on that end is greatly influenced by the play of his teammates.
Where can Claxton improve?
While Nets fans would love to see the big man add a three-point shot to his arsenal, that does not appear likely. Last season, he only took five threes all year. Now entering his sixth NBA season, it looks as though if that were a skill he could develop, he’d have done it by now.
Instead, there are two areas that Claxton can reasonably improve that will make him a more well-rounded player. First among them is his ability to convert between 5 and 9 feet. Of Claxton’s 582 field goal attempts last season, 432 came less than five feet from the rim. On those attempts, he converted 71.8% of them. He only totaled 38 attempts from 10 feet and beyond but did put up 112 shots from the five to nine-foot range, only connecting on just 37.5% of them.
For reference, one of Claxton’s most commonly comped peers is Dallas Mavericks’ center Daniel Gafford. Both players have similar play styles and physical attributes, but Gafford was much more efficient between 5 and 9 feet converting 50.9% of his opportunities. If Claxton can develop some ability to fight through contact and hit floaters with touch when his lane is cut off while rolling to the basket he’ll be able to improve his scoring average while becoming a bit harder to defend.
The second area of improvement that can vault Claxton’s offensive game to the next level is his court vision and passing. He played a pseudo-point big position during his time at the University of Georgia so he does have some instincts for reading defenses and passing out of the post to set up teammates when his path to the basket is cut off. That said, his ability to do this at the NBA level has yet to fully develop.
Per CraftedNBA, Claxton’s passer rating of 3.6 last season was good for the 40th percentile in the NBA. Comparatively, former Knicks’ center Isaiah Hartenstein is regarded as an excellent passer whose 5.9 passer rating was in the 76th percentile last year. Claxton doesn’t need to get up to that elite level, but getting to be an above-average secondary creator would go a long way toward maximizing his offensive value.
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Nic Claxton’s 2024-2025 projected role
Barring injury, Claxton is locked in as the Nets starting center in 2024-2025. In the last two seasons, his minute totals have been consistent, averaging 29.9 minutes per game in 2022-2023 and 29.8 minutes per game in 2023-2024 so expect more of the same in 2024-2025.
He’ll be called upon as a defensive stopper, and while he might not spend all his time guarding the opposition’s best scorer (especially if it’s a wing or a guard) expect to see him matched up on them in pivotal moments. Offensively, if he can make the improvements above, he’ll prove to be a solid role player who can convert when set up by the team’s playmakers.
His extension foreshadows that he’ll be here for the long haul and that the Nets view him as a crucial piece of their next contending team.