How 10 seconds of brilliance last night perfectly defined Andre Iguodala
It was about a 10-second stretch of basketball in the second quarter of what turned out to be a 23-point blowout on a night where all seven games on the NBA schedule were decided by at least eight points and five of seven were decided by double-digits.
In other words, in the grand scheme of things, it mattered little. But anyone watching Warriors/Mavericks late in the first half was treated to an unbelievable sequence from Andre Iguodala - the type of two-way excitement few others in the Association can deliver...
That's Iguodala, first destroying a two-on-one Mavs fast break as the last man back with the authoritative denial on Shawn Marion, then destroying the rim with a thunderous putback jam on a bricked Stephen Curry jumper. If you kept watching long enough, Iggy got himself another impressive block just minutes later.
That he made such a memorable highlight in what turned out to be a nondescript game on a pretty nondescript night is fitting for Iguodala these days. He may not produce the sheer number of highlight-reel plays he once did in Philadelphia, and his modest numbers - 9.3 points, 4.7 rebounds, 4.3 assists, 1.6 steals, 13.33 PER - aren't going to attract the attention of the average NBA fan, but the 30-year-old is quietly going about his business as one of the most valuable players in the league right now.
Yes, you read that correctly. A guy averaging less than 10 points a game with a below average PER is also one of the league's most valuable to his team.
Iguodala's defensive contributions cannot be fully measured or put into words, but there's a reason the Warriors allow just 95.9 points per 100 possessions with him on the floor (a mark that would rank 2nd only to Indiana) as opposed to 102.9 with him off of it (a mark that would tie for 12th). There's a reason that a team that hasn't finished higher than 13th in defensive efficiency over the last six years now finds itself with the third-ranked defense in Iguodala's first season in The Bay Area (although Bogut and other Warriors also obviously deserve credit) and that the 76ers and Nuggets both saw their defenses regress in their first years without him.
There's a reason why a team that outscores opponents by an average of 13 points per 48 minutes with him on the court is then outscored by 4.7 points per 48 with him on the bench, per NBA.com. There's a reason why Iguodala leads the league in both on-court/off-court net point-differential and Regularized Adjusted Plus/Minus. And there's a reason why the 41-24 Warriors, now just 1.5 games behind fifth-place Portland in the West and within four games of the third-place Clippers, went 5-7 when Iguodala missed time with a hamstring injury earlier this season.
It's because he's one of the game's absolutely elite defenders, and while his offensive numbers and base statistics have taken a dive in recent years, he's still one of the game's better two-way wings, even at 30-years-old.
In an awesome feature piece on Paul George last month for ESPN The Magazine, Pacers coach Frank Vogel, in praise of George's defense, said that "If Paul didn't score a point -- a point -- he'd still be a top-15 player in the game." Iguodala isn't young enough to be spoken of in those terms anymore, and unless a fan is enthusiastic enough or has enough time to really dig beyond the basic numbers, he also doesn't score nearly enough for most to take notice. But make no mistake, he's still one of the bigger difference makers on an NBA court.
If only in a brief moment of highlight glory, it was nice to see Iguodala remind people of that on Tuesday night in a way that any basketball fan can understand. Block, run, rebound, dunk, cue the 'Roaracle' crowd.