Why Alex Caruso is the most valuable player on the trading block

Key Highlights:

As the ever-so-frustrating Chicago Bulls continue to descend from mediocrity to just plain ole’ bad (their 4-7 record has them sitting at 12th in the uninspiring Eastern Conference), the team may be looking to unload the clip on their current roster and begin anew.

And if they decide to do that, the player that may prove to be the most valuable is All-League defensive guard Alex Caruso. In fact, some might argue (I myself being one of them) that if the Bulls make Caruso available, he should be deemed the most important player on the trading block.

Caruso Can Change Your Defense Overnight

Caruso has been an analytics darling for years. According to the website Dunks & Threes, Caruso has graded in the 94th percentile or higher in Defensive Estimated Plus-Minus in each of the past four seasons (we don’t have those numbers for this season yet).

But why do those nerdy numbers favor Caruso so much? We mentioned this in our breakdown of the Minnesota Timberwolves defense last week, but great defenses are usually fortified through great rim protection or great perimeter defense. However, the downside to building your defense through the latter is that rim protection is hard to come by, and the players who provide a lot of it usually hinder your spacing on offense (more on this in a minute).

Even if you do have good interior defense, it doesn’t mean much if your other guys are training to be matadors. The Indiana Pacers have a good rim protector in Myles Turner. But he can’t do anything to stymie the Tyrese Maxey/Joel Embiid pick-and-roll possessions included below because Bruce Brown can’t keep Maxey in front of him.

Now, this isn’t to rag on Brown. He’s a good point-of-attack defender relative to the rest of the league. But he’s not an elite point-of-attack defender, which is exactly what Caruso is.

Here, we see a possession where Caruso is forced to navigate both off-ball and on-ball screens. Regardless of what (or who) it is, Caruso is able to keep his assignment in front of him. He avoids conceding any advantage to the defense.

In today’s super-spaced, ultra-skilled game, offenses have become so good at maintaining and completing advantages after they create them (sequences like this are littered throughout every single game). So, the best-case scenario usually occurs when you have personnel who can keep the action flat and maintain the balance of the floor (meaning they don’t allow any advantages to unfold for the offense). 

Caruso is the master of keeping the floor balanced, and it shows when you look at his statistical footprint on his team’s defense. Last season, the Bulls, despite otherwise unfavorable defensive personnel, had the fifth-best defensive in the league and ranked in the 97th percentile when Caruso was on the court (per Cleaning the Glass). This year, the Bulls’ defense has fallen off significantly (22nd in defensive rating), but when Caruso is on the floor, they are still slightly above average (54th percentile).

On top of that, Caruso is also one of the very best defensive playmakers in the sport. He’s been in the 96th percentile or higher in steal rate every season since 2019-20. Remember, there is a 100% chance the other team doesn’t score in any possession that ends with your defense getting a steal.

(Sidebar: Caruso is also a pretty good rim protector for his position. According to Cleaning the Glass, he’s placed in the 98th percentile in the last two years in block percentage for his position.) 

He Won’t Hurt Your Offense Too Much

As we alluded to earlier, many of the league’s best defenders bleed some value on the offensive end of the floor. That isn’t a deal breaker per se, but it does mean that you have to build your team around them to get the most out of them.

You don’t really have that issue with Caruso. Yes, he’s a shaky shooter, but he also isn’t a complete non-shooter. Over the last three seasons, he sits in the 47th percentile in catch-and-shoot 3-point percentage (per Thinking Basketball). He’s also an instinctive cutter, as evidenced by his offensive rebounding rate being in the 74th percentile or higher for his position in each of the last four seasons.

Caruso is also a criminally underrated passer. He won’t dissect your defense like he’s some bald version of Luka Doncic. But he can hit the target on some quick time connector feeds (first clip in the montage below), transition escapades (second clip), and novice pick-and-roll actions (third clip).

One of the best publicly available measures of a player’s passing ability is Ben Taylor’s Passer Rating metric (an estimate of a player’s passing ability on an ‘approximately’ 1-10 scale). And based on that measure, Caruso is in the 83rd percentile as a passer, with a Passer Rating of 7.1.

Caruso is also adept at driving closeouts when the defense tries to run him off the 3-point line. He’s in the 83rd percentile on drive efficiency so far this season.

In summary, Caruso is not a defense-only player that opposing teams can completely ignore on offense. In fact, over the last two years, the Bulls’ offense is better with Caruso on the floor. Last year, Chicago’s offense was 2.7 points better per 100 possessions when Caruso was on the floor compared to when he was on the bench. And this year (in a smaller sample size), their offense is 4.7 points better per 100.

This all isn’t to say he’s some sneaky underrated offensive god; he’s just not a complete negative.

Why He’s The Best Trade Piece

Caruso is not the best player who could be available for a trade this season. He’s not better than Pascal Siakam, OG Anunoby, or Karl Anthony-Towns. Hell, he’s not even better than his teammates, DeMar DeRozan and Zach LaVine. But he is more of a plug-and-play asset than all five of them for two reasons. 

First, Caruso costs way less than all of those guys. None of those five makes less than 18 million dollars a year (and three of them make at least 36 million dollars annually). Meanwhile, Caruso only costs his 2023-24 employer 9.46 million dollars (per Spotrac). So, teams can acquire him without worrying too much about balancing their budget sheet.

Second, with the exception of Anunoby, all those players come with a significant weakness that the team acquiring them needs to swallow/build around.

With LaVine, you are getting a flawed creator and below-average defender on an expensive long-term deal. With DeRozan, you have another mediocre defender who creates major spacing concerns on offense. Anthony-Towns is also expensive and is an even worse defender at a position where defense is paramount. Siakam is probably the most balanced of the bunch, but his contract ends after this season, so you’ll need to worry about that (Caruso’s deal extends through the 2024-25 season).

With Caruso, you get a massive boost to your defense while only sacrificing a little bit of versatility and spacing (from his lackluster shooting) on offense.

Caruso can make so many different types of teams better. He can take teams with elite offenses and help make them respectable on defense (think the Sacramento Kings or Dallas Mavericks). He can take teams with elite defensive personnel and make them virtually impenetrable (the Miami Heat, Minnesota Timberwolves, or Los Angeles Lakers). And he can take a really balanced team and raise them to another tier (the Philadelphia 76ers).

Simply put, Caruso can take one of the many very good teams we have in the NBA and evolve them into a unit that can hang with the Boston Celtics or Denver Nuggets. That’s right. This goofy, headband-wearing, 7.8-point-per-game scorer has the ability to turn a good team into a title contender overnight.

And it’s that power that makes Caruso the trade chip that could swing the entire race for the 2024 NBA Championship.