I've heard he's a lockdown defender, that's all well and good, but at that position you need at least some scoring and shooting. He has neither of those things. His shot reconstruction has been ugly to say the least. IDK it feels like compared the hype he's never really lived up to it.
that's the thing though, in the past he was crafty as fuck taking dudes off the dribble, cutting, and just getting to the rim and finishing. and that was when his shot was worse than it is now and people could just hang off him. and trust me the shot reconstruction was huge, his shot was just that bad before. his elbow would be all weird and he'd shoot on the way down, worse than what you're seeing now. and tbh he hasn't been consistently great on defense this season either, which is the biggest thing for me. this is a dude that has put some garbage ass al jefferson playing defense at center teams on his back to be a top defensive and defensive rebounding team in the nba.
so yeah, he doesn't look great this season but I just don't know if it's a consistency thing from the two injuries, time off, and time off with no contact allowed, or if his mental game is off now because the injuries are affecting how hard he'll go in terms of effort and intensity because that's one of his hallmarks
edit: look at this shit