Is Raul Neto actually Utah's best PG?

[Coach Ellis]

Neto is good value. Not flashy, but gets the job done and has totally embraced his role. Hope he sticks around for awhile.

 

[Sandman822]

What's the proof that Neto is a defensive liability? He's short? Well CP3 is shorter and he's been doing great in a switch-all defense.
Utah posted 93.4 DRTG with Neto on the floor last season. That's a pretty large sample size. And it's 102.0 this season, still good enough for league's #1 defense.
As Daryl Morey recently noted there is no reliable metric to determine individual defensive performance. Team DEFRTG is as good as it gets and most other metrics are only misleading.

Neto is putting those number mostly against bench guys and is not tested as a starter. He may do well or fail. But a young guy leading the team in NETRTG in consecutive years deserves a role upgrade consideration. And our poor shooting inconsistent PGs make me think Raul Neto may actually help Utah win more games in Q's system.

His tracking numbers are flat out awful, on average players are shooting close to 12% better than league average when Neto defends them, so if he gets switched onto someone and they attack him good luck stopping him without help defense. I'm not a big fan of DRPM for the Jazz since I think Gobert heavily influences the results, but he has the worst of all 3 of the Jazz guards at -0.66. Exum is a -0.42 for comparison. According to bball reference's On/Off stats while in his limited minutes the Jazz have a much higher ORTG, their DRTG has a slight down tick when Neto is on the floor. Also while Neto does have a lot of lineups with frankly insane DRTGs, his top 3 most played lineups according to NBA.com all have higher DRTGs than what the Jazz on average have.

When you watch him play defense he's pretty similar to Korver in that he's a smart defender who knows where he should be and what he needs to do most of the time, and for the regular season against most teams in the NBA he will be fine. But if he gets ISO'd against any of the many talented PGs not just in the West but in the NBA in general he simply can't guard them due to his size limitations, but also his average at best lateral movement (Rubio struggles with this too while Exum is very good moving laterally), and smarts only get him so far, and the same happens with Korver in the playoffs which is why the Cavs would only play him for 20 - 25 mins a night in the playoffs.

CP3 makes it work because he's one of the best PGs in the NBA at stripping the player of the ball, and he's also very good at contesting 3pt shots without fouling which isn't something I would say for Neto. CP3's tracking numbers aren't all that impressive either but you can clearly see he's at least serviceable if he gets attacked off a switch while Neto gets completely abused in comparison.

If you want to argue that Neto is an average defender I wouldn't necessarily disagree, but he's not a good defender and he's not a guy who can successfully play within a switching defense. I think he's a below average defender who is good at team defense but if he gets targeted you're going to have to pull him off the floor, which I wouldn't say about Exum and to a lesser degree Rubio.

 

[Piso]

I'm a big Neto fan and I think he would be fine in a backup PG role if Rubio wasn't re-signed in the offseason, but he's a huge liability compared to Exum or Rubio because of his size limitations on the defensive end. You really can't get Neto to switch off his man otherwise he ends up having to guard much bigger and stronger guys, and the results are usually not great (e.g. Neto vs Harden in last years playoffs). But in Neto's defense, the Per 36 numbers are surprisingly close between all three of the guys (14.8/6/4.6 for Neto, 16.3/6/3.7 for Exum, 15.8/7.6/4.4 for Rubio), and Neto's TS% is miles higher than Exum or Rubio (61.7% for Neto, 53.0% for Exum, 51.0% for Rubio).

My biggest concerns over Neto's numbers is how sustainable they are, who they're coming against for the most part, and how little defense is being played as there is a large portion of the minutes being played in garbage time. That combined with him really not being versatile enough defensively due to his size limitations should be enough for most people to realise that he isn't the best PG on this team. That's ignoring his health issues

But as I said before I'm a big Neto fan and I would be down with him getting the backup PG role full time if Rubio were to be let go in the offseason.

I don't think Neto's better than those guys offensively either. He's just a solid PG that won't hurt you on the floor coming off the bench for 15 - 20 minutes a night offensively, but I don't really think he's a guy that makes your team better offensively either.

Brazillian DJ Augustin would be my ceiling for Neto, which is a solid backup PG.

His tracking numbers are flat out awful, on average players are shooting close to 12% better than league average when Neto defends them, so if he gets switched onto someone and they attack him good luck stopping him without help defense. I'm not a big fan of DRPM for the Jazz since I think Gobert heavily influences the results, but he has the worst of all 3 of the Jazz guards at -0.66. Exum is a -0.42 for comparison. According to bball reference's On/Off stats while in his limited minutes the Jazz have a much higher ORTG, their DRTG has a slight down tick when Neto is on the floor. Also while Neto does have a lot of lineups with frankly insane DRTGs, his top 3 most played lineups according to NBA.com all have higher DRTGs than what the Jazz on average have.

When you watch him play defense he's pretty similar to Korver in that he's a smart defender who knows where he should be and what he needs to do most of the time, and for the regular season against most teams in the NBA he will be fine. But if he gets ISO'd against any of the many talented PGs not just in the West but in the NBA in general he simply can't guard them due to his size limitations, but also his average at best lateral movement (Rubio struggles with this too while Exum is very good moving laterally), and smarts only get him so far, and the same happens with Korver in the playoffs which is why the Cavs would only play him for 20 - 25 mins a night in the playoffs.

CP3 makes it work because he's one of the best PGs in the NBA at stripping the player of the ball, and he's also very good at contesting 3pt shots without fouling which isn't something I would say for Neto. CP3's tracking numbers aren't all that impressive either but you can clearly see he's at least serviceable if he gets attacked off a switch while Neto gets completely abused in comparison.

If you want to argue that Neto is an average defender I wouldn't necessarily disagree, but he's not a good defender and he's not a guy who can successfully play within a switching defense. I think he's a below average defender who is good at team defense but if he gets targeted you're going to have to pull him off the floor, which I wouldn't say about Exum and to a lesser degree Rubio.

You're not a big Neto fan. You're a big Exum fan.

 

[Sandman822]

You're not a big Neto fan. You're a big Exum fan.

I don't see why both can't be true. I'm a fan of Neto as he's just a solid PG who's not going to hurt you unless he's targeted defensively and he gets everyone involved, but he has obvious limitations. I'm a fan of Exum and think he brings unique elements to the team like his ability to straight out get to the rim at will without a pull up jumper, his ability to throw on point lob passes to the big guys, and his ability to lock up some of the best players in the NBA 1 v1, yet he's historically been inconsistent and has often hurt the team with his poor handle/inability to finish at the rim consistently/lazy turnovers/poor off the ball defense or playing out of the scheme.

 

[Jack Strop]

Solid backup, better than a lot give him credit for. Perfect fit as a 3rd string PG.

 

[LifeOnaPlate]

Neto is an ideal third string guard.