How High Is Bones Hyland’s Defensive Upside, And Can He Reach It? [Film Study]

As a rookie with the Denver Nuggets, Bones Hyland was thrust into an unexpectedly large role, getting a big midseason promotion after earning the trust of head coach Michael Malone, who bumped him up to the full-time backup point guard position in order to help remedy the team’s untenably disastrous bench play.

In the upcoming year, as I wrote recently for Forbes, the Nuggets are betting big on Hyland to capably expand his role even further. His responsibilities and prominence in Denver’s rotation will only keep growing in tandem with an increased minutes load and more chances to start, as regular starter Jamal Murray gets periodic rest days while he continues ramping back up from the ACL injury which sidelined him for over a full season.

There is little reason to doubt Hyland’s continued growth on the offensive end of the court, where he electrified fans as a rookie with his long bomb three-point shooting, an array of shake-and-bake moves to get to the rim in isolation, and importantly, some impressively solid playmaking that helped secure his role as point guard after previously spending more time at the shooting guard position early in the season.

There are more questions around Hyland’s defense, however. According to Cleaning the Glass, with Bones on the court last season, the Nuggets were outscored by opponents by 1.5 points per 100 possessions (pp100p). This is still a respectable net rating for a rookie, and as this metric reflects team performance, there is almost certainly a drag effect on Hyland’s individual numbers from Denver’s overall poor bench play in the first half of the season.

But the salient point here is the disparity between offense, where the Nuggets were a plus-2.4 with Bones on the court, and defense, where their opponents were a plus-3.9. More simply put, although the difference was rather small, for the season as a whole when Hyland was on the court, Denver’s offense was good but their opponents’ offense was better.

Moreover, as I wrote in my previous article, both his production and efficiency improved from the first to the second half of his rookie season. But a look at his overall efficiency numbers shows that while this improvement reflects big gains on offense while he was on the court, there was also some less pronounced slippage on defense.

According to NBA.com, when comparing the first half to the second half of the season, Denver’s offense with Hyland on the court made a huge leap from 109.2 pp100p to 117.1, roughly equivalent to improving from fifth-worst to the best in the NBA. On the flip side of that, however, their defense slipped from allowing 110.3 pp100p to 112.8, approximating a drop from around 13th to 21st defense in the league. So while big offensive gains more than offset that defensive slippage, going forward, reasons for concern on the defensive end remain.

And this raises the question of whether Bones Hyland has the defensive upside to begin alleviating some of those concerns by becoming a more complete twoway player, and if so, what his path might be of achieving that goal.

Digging Into Bones Hyland’s Defense [Film Study]

Individually, Bones Hyland was not unlike most rookies in his first year with the Nuggets in that his defense tended to be a mixed bag, with some flashes of solid play sprinkled in among a larger share of moments displaying how much he still has to learn to defend competently at the NBA level.

At times he was genuinely dialed in defensively and able not only to make the right reads but also to execute with some effectiveness. Below, Hyland does a good enough job of sticking with Golden State’s Jordan Poole as he drives in after the switch, and funneling him into the help defense from JaMychal Green. And in the next clip, Bones makes the correct read after Jonathan Kuminga gives up the ball, crossing the paint in time to help contest Otto Porter Jr.’s driving floater.

At other times, however, Hyland had a propensity to look rather lost out on the court as a defender.

In the first clip below, Hyland initially does a good job of staying in front of Minnesota’s Jordan McLaughlin, but then does a bit of ball watching and loses track of his mark cutting to the basket, resulting in Zeke Nnaji peeling off Malik Beasley at the arc, and then both Nuggets players being too far away to recover and contest when Beasley receives the ball to drain the three-pointer.

Next, a similar pattern ensues as Hyland does a good job of bodying up on Poole at the three-point line, but then drifts into the paint seemingly to try to get into position to help as the Warriors swing the ball around, but then leaving himself in no man’s land and again, too far off to recover. Such lapses in positional awareness and communication are seen the subsequent plays as well, as Hyland is seen variably overhelping and unable to recover (often to the corner), unnecessarily going under screens, or in the final instance just falling asleep on the inbound play.

All of these are potential learning experiences for Hyland, points which he should hopefully be able to improve on as he continues adjusting to the speed and complexity of the NBA game, growing more experienced, and establishing both better comprehension individually and better communication with his teammates. Bones has already proven himself to be a smart player with a great feel for the game and an aptitude for quick learning, so it would almost be surprising if he didn’t show meaningful growth in some of these areas this season.

Perhaps the larger, longer-term concern is simply Hyland’s slender physical stature and frame – there is a reason, after all, that his nickname is Bones.

Hyland shared on Nuggets media day that he had gained six pounds over the offseason by lifting weights twice a day and drinking shakes, and that it’s a challenge for him to bulk up because his metabolism is so fast. But he also added that he would prefer to stay around the same weight, because if he became a “hulk type of guy” he might lose some aspects of his game such as his quickness and twitch that helps him drive into the lane, and the long range of his three-point shot.

In that sense, the notion that Hyland might never build up too much bulk may bode well for his offensive game, but at the other end of the court, whether it comes to defending the league’s bigger, stronger guards or fighting through screens, it could be a concern that hovers over his entire NBA career.

As seen in the plays above, Hyland has a tendency to get caught on screens and end up trailing his assignment, or as displayed in the last clip, to just get kind of pushed around and bullied by guards with more size, in this case by Boston’s Derrick White, who has about t20 pounds and two inches on Bones.

But while Hyland’s slight frame may be a liability, the good news for him and the Nuggets is that he does possess some skills and physical tools which should provide a degree of counterbalance, and if he learns to optimize these attributes his defensive upside could be higher than might be expected based on his build.

As mentioned before, Hyland’s positional awareness is still a work in progress. But there is more than one kind of awareness on the basketball court, and Bones is a high IQ player with a superb feel for the game who has a keen comprehension of how plays are unfolding in real time.

With his intuitive grasp of reading plays and monitoring passing lanes (even if sometimes, as seen above, it can have the downside of drifting away from the player he’s guarding), Hyland often finds his way to picking off opponents’ passes.

But what makes this skill even more valuable is how adept Hyland is at doing something Malone absolutely loves, which is turning defense into offense. More often than not when Bones gets the interception, he is gone, baby, gone down the court in a flash, finishing with either a score or assist (when the opposing team doesn’t stop the fast break with a “take foul,” an issue which rule changes should hopefully take care of this season).

And although Hyland may lack the size of many NBA guards in certain respects, he by no means is lacking in length. With a wingspan over six-foot-nine, Bones has the long reach to grab hold of some balls which might be out of range for some other players.

That wingspan factors into just about every film category here, and as Hyland continues learning to optimize his use of it, it should be one of his most potent defensive tools.

But when it comes to picking opposing players’ pockets, it’s often the quickness of the hands at the ends of those wings that Bones deploys.

Hyland makes great use of his quick hands in combination with his foot speed to get into opponents’ space and grab or deflect the ball away. The fact that he often gets hung up on screens accentuates the value of this skill, as at times even when he has gotten beat off the dribble he’s able to stay with his man and sneak in from the side or behind to snatch the ball.

Additionally, much like how shot blockers swatting the ball into the stands, while dramatic, is a less valuable play than a player deflecting it to himself or a teammate, Hyland does a good job of retaining possession of the ball, frequently deflecting it in productive directions when he can’t keep hold of it himself.

Of course, there are other times that can’t be done, but Hyland’s prowess for disruption will at least break up the play.

Whether he knocks the ball out of bounds or, as seen in the fourth clip above which results in a JaMychal Green block, buys a bit more time for a teammate to help with the next defensive play, Hyland again puts his length and hand quickness to good use here.

But perhaps Hyland’s most impressive use of his lengthy wingspan is put towards blocking some shots himself. One area where he has shown a very promising ability in this respect is blocking shot attempts around the perimeter.

One of the more encouraging plays here is seen in the second clip, where Bones uses his speed to close out on the Clippers’ Brandon Boston in the corner, then utilizes his length and athleticism to block the shot while flying by Boston’s side in order to avoid the foul.

Defending and contesting shots without fouling in general, and specifically this type of closing out to the side, has been a major point of emphasis from Malone and his Nuggets coaching staff, and the more competence Hyland develops in executing on defensive plays like this, not only the better his overall defense will become, but in practical terms, the less likely his coach with little tolerance for defensive mistakes will be to pull him off the court in high leverage situations.

Hyland’s ability to get some blocks and deflections isn’t limited to the perimeter, however.

The third play here is an excellent example of how Hyland should be able to at least partially offset some physical disadvantages (his frame) with other counterbalancing physical advantages (his length and speed), as despite getting badly caught on the screen, he’s able to recover and block the Suns’ Cameron Payne on his midrange jumper attempt.

A statistical look at Hyland’s defense in his rookie season is not exactly something to write home about. According to Cleaning the Glass, his block percentage of 0.7% places him in a very respectable 71st percentile at the combo guard position, but his 1.3% steal rate is in the 41st percentile, and his aforementioned defensive rating of -3.9 is in the 19th percentile.

Granted, these numbers should be taken with some hefty grains of salt, as for one thing Hyland was a rookie learning the ropes, and for another, defense is notoriously hard to meaningfully capture statistically. Even so, viewing Bones’ defense holistically with both the “eye test” and the stats, there is clearly much room for improvement.

But that may not be as big of a problem as some have anticipated based largely on Hyland’s slim frame, as he has already demonstrated that he has the mind, the skills and the physical tools to countervail some of his limitations.

The biggest questions, then, are to what extent he will learn to make the most of these attributes that imbue him with the potential to become a legitimate plus defender, or short of that at least a non-negative, and if he can make those strides, how quickly he can get closer to reaching his defensive upside.

Considering the crucial role he’ll play for the Nuggets as full-time backup point guard and occasional starter, the answer to those questions could significantly influence Denver’s fortunes this season and beyond.