The Redemption of Marvin Bagley

For the majority of his career Marvin Bagley has struggled to establish and accept a meaningful role in Sacramento. After a rookie season that held so much promise, as well as actual accountability from Dave Joerger, the past two years have seen Marvin given plenty of opportunities when healthy, with little positive production.

Whether it was trying to rescue a once-promising player’s career, an ill-advised attempt to increase trade value, or simple desperation for talent, over the last couple of years the Kings have done nothing more than encourage bad habits from a lifetime of Bagley being the biggest fish in much smaller ponds. When he’s played, he’s started, whether it was deserved or not. When the ball met his hands, it rarely left, often leading to poorly planned isolation attempts that ended in nothing more than missed shots. Bagley’s been gifted minutes that were unearned, and his apathy toward passing the ball or playing defense was met with a blind eye and a long leash. And the results were as unsurprising as they were poor.

This season has been different. Marvin was demoted from starter to out of the rotation to start the year, perhaps more out of pettiness from an annoyed organization than out of true competitive spirit, but whether that action woke up a former lottery selection, or whether a young player finally realized his career was looking a lot shorter than he ever imagined, Marvin Bagley has changed for the betterment of himself and his team.

Over his first three years, Marvin was one of the most egregious offensive black holes in the league. As a rookie, he posted the second-worst assist-to-usage ratio in the NBA. His second season saw him rank third-worst. Last year, he recorded the fourth-worst assist-to-usage ratio among any player who played at least 1,000 minutes. This year, while Bagley hasn’t shown himself to be the second-coming of John Stockton, he’s also not throwing up shots like a Chico State freshman at their first frat party.

Marvin currently ranks in the 29th percentile in assist-to-usage ratio, a significant improvement from those first few years. Even more important than that specific measurement, Bagley simply isn’t being featured, or forcing himself to be featured, in Sacramento’s offensive game plan. From 2018 to 2020, his usage rate ranged between 21.1% and 22.5%. It’s down to 13.7% this season. From a pure shot-frequency perspective, Bagley averaged at least 21 field goal attempts per 100 possessions through his first three years. He’s currently putting up just 13.2, a change that has resulted in him averaging 1.2 points per shot attempt, easily the best mark of his career, as well as the only time in which he’s ranked above-average in that category. On the season, Marvin has been featured in the pick-and-roll and isolation attempts fewer than 10 total times, despite averaging 3.2 of those play types per game in 2020.

In addition to his restrictions on the offensive end of the floor, there has also been a significant change in Marvin’s rebounding efforts. While he’s always been a solid rebounder due to his natural gifts, Bagley has seemingly matured into a much more aggressive glass cleaner, and he’s using a combination of positioning, effort, and athleticism to dominate the boards. On the season, he’s posting a defensive rebounding rate of 24.8%, good enough for 17th in the entire NBA, the highest percentage of any Kings player, and the best mark of his career. For a squad that has struggled as mightily on the boards as the Sacramento Kings, the ability to insert a near-elite, hardworking defensive rebounder into the game has been a bit of a godsend.

Defense and rim protection will likely never be strong points in Marvin Bagley’s skill set, but the 2022 campaign hasn’t been the complete disaster that was 2021. For the first time in his career, the Kings have actually improved defensively with Bagley on the floor, and his individual shot-defense numbers are positive as well. Of course, these sort of early-season, low-minute measurements are difficult to decipher from a long-term projection standpoint, but the eye test and the statistics sort of match up. Bagley may not be a defensive stalwart, but he’s also not Willie Cauley-Stein-ing it on a nightly basis either, once again a significant improvement from last season.

Sometimes, it’s easy to scoff at the manic celebrations of a Marvin Bagley double-double, as if that measurement actually means something, and the overemphasis of his untapped potential is a bit exaggerated at times, but that outside, excessive praise also doesn’t negate the positive changes that Bagley has made this season.

His numbers aren’t mesmerizing or awe-inspiring, but that’s kind of the point. He’s not performing at an All-Star level, and more importantly, he’s not playing like a guy who thinks he deserves that title. He’s passing the ball. His shots are coming within the flow of the offense. He’s rebounding with effort and positioning, rather than with pure athleticism. He’s actually playing some defense. Marvin Bagley’s natural skill set lends itself to that of a board crasher and a cleanup man, and to his credit, that’s exactly what he’s done this season, and he’s finally found a productive, positive identity in the process.