NBA Draft: How JT Thor will impact the Charlotte Hornets

Versatility is once again the keyword when talking about Thor’s abilities as a defender, he is able to cover different situations effectively.

Thor is probably known more for his defensive upside as he played a solid role in the Auburn defensive system. His double dimension (perimeter or inside player) helped him with displaying different abilities even on this end of the floor underlining once again his versatility.

Per Bart Torvik, he posted 5.8% blocks and 1.9% steal percentages, those indicators measure how many times a defensive possession ends up with a block or a steal over 100 possession. Those are elite numbers and help us to understand how good of a defender he was last year. Scouts often use these numbers as a good indicator of hand-eye coordination, if a young player has active hands and collects a good number of blocks and steal his coordination is probably better than others.

In the minutes he was used as a center he needed to defend a good amount of pick and rolls, during these situations he was proactive as he tried to blitz hard or he accepted the switches without any problem. Thor is not the type of big you are forced to play with a heavy drop coverage under the basket, he is able to move pretty quickly and the Hornets will love to exploit this. The recent NBA Playoffs told us that mobile bigs are very useful and not that common, being able to already hit a good level is a great starting point for the rookie.

When Thor was forced away from the rim against much more perimetral players he did handle his own showing a good overall ability and quickness at sliding his feet to contain dribble penetration. He is not the most polished defender because of his big frame and that is why he can get blown by sometimes. In these situations, he never gave up on plays trying his best to recover and a good amount of his blocks came this way.

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As we pointed out for Jones’ defensive abilities, even Thor fits really well in the Hornets defensive scheme where every player is asked to handle his own against different types of players. He may play both the center and the forward position even on the defensive end thanks to the one-through-five switching scheme built by Charlotte during the last two years.

Thor will really help the Hornets rebounding as well. With five total rebounds in 23 minutes, he was very productive in this, and as we all know, Charlotte has a multi-annual problem when talking about rebounding.