Numbers, eye test at odds on Grant

If you trust your eyes, you’re convinced Jerami Grant makes the Thunder better.

They show you the way the 6-foot-8 forward plays in the post and on the perimeter; the way he rattles the rim with those bazooka-blast dunks; they way he slides his feet in perimeter defense or slides over for a weakside blocked shot.

“He’s played anywhere from the small forward spot to the center spot for us,” Oklahoma City coach Billy Donovan said. “I love his versatility. I think he got more and more comfortable as the year went on.”

If you trust the numbers, you’re not so sure.

They tell you that the Thunder was outscored by an average of 2.2 points per game with Grant on the floor. They say that per 100 possessions, Oklahoma City gave up 5.1 more points than it scored when Grant played.

And they say those numbers were dramatically worse in the playoffs, when the Rockets outscored the Thunder by 28.7 points per 100 possessions in Grant’s minutes. So who is Grant? When the Thunder traded Ersan Ilyasova and a heavily protected draft pick in November to the Philadelphia 76ers for Grant, what exactly did it get back?

Is he a high flyer with eye-popping promise? A gifted athlete who didn’t click?

The truth likely lies between the numbers and your eyes.

Grant is limited offensively, and any statistician will tell you that defensive metrics are an inexact science. Those numbers can’t definitively say he was a defensive detriment.

And on that front, your eyes are pretty convincing.

They show you Grant fighting over a screen in Boston, then engaging Isaiah Thomas as he drives, swatting the Celtics guard’s shot out of bounds. They show Grant in Oklahoma City chasing Utah’s Gordon Hayward on the perimeter, recovering as Hayward gets a step and dives to the rim, then recovering to block the Jazz forward’s shot.

Grant had his ups and downs in his first year with OKC. But as the NBA changes gears and offenses increasingly go small and spread the floor with shooters, he’s tailormade to provide critical defensive versatility.

In the modern NBA, a power forward needs to defend the pick-and-roll, switch onto guards, provide rim protection, bang in the post and close out to contest 3-point shooting power forwards. Grant has shown the ability to do all those things.

And Grant could prove to fit into a coveted frontcourt category — the 3-and-D forward. The Thunder acquired him for the defensive piece of that equation, but Grant flashed a knack for 3-point shooting as well, shooting 37.7 percent on 1.5 attempts per game.

Grant averaged 2.1 attempts in 144 career games with the Sixers and shot 27.6 percent from 3-point range. A high-level finisher at the rim, Grant improved in Oklahoma City at putting the ball on the floor and driving.

“I think I did a good job of progressing (offensively), just staying in the gym just working on different aspects of the game, even during the season,” Grant said. “I think it definitely helped.”

And it earned him some trust from Donovan.

In fourth quarters this season, Grant averaged 7.9 minutes, tied with Westbrook and Doug McDermott for the second most on the Thunder. When Donovan went to defensive-minded lineups and let Westbrook take over offensively, Grant often got the call.

Grant’s net rating still was a negative in the fourth quarter, but only by a tenth of a point.

Donovan pointed out throughout the season — and again when it was over — that Grant missed training camp with the Thunder, which acquired him on Nov. 1, after it had played six preseason and three regular-season games.