There’s no doubt that Toumani Camara is a defensive maven; from the crumbs of exposure that national sports media breaks off for the Blazers to Damian Lillard’s borderline effusive praise for him while still a member of the Bucks. Watching home broadcasts of Camara drawing offensive fouls sees Portland’s broadcast team gleefully musing about adding “another one," while away broadcasts are caught at the crossroads of disbelief and latent envy.
Camara drew 106 offensive fouls last season, good for 1.3 per game and a whopping 40 more than second place. The NBA at large loves to bring this stat to our attention, illustrating sheer dominance on that end and reinforcing the idea that every team wants or needs a guy like Camara.
Good news for the league: there IS another guy out there like Camara. Bad news for the league: the Blazers have him too. His name is Sidy Cissoko.
Sidy Cissoko is earning the backup wing minutes over everyone
Despite playing just 52% of the minutes that Camara did, Cissoko drew 50 offensive fouls, good for an astonishing fifth in the entire NBA. Those 50 drawn fouls were achieved despite playing over 1,000 fewer minutes than third and fourth place—held by Nickiel Alexander-Walker and Jalen Brunson, respectively—and over 400 fewer minutes than second place, Jamal Shead.
Shead played 1,852 minutes last season to Cissoko’s 1,435, putting Shead’s per-minute offensive fouls drawn (PMOFD) at 0.036 to Cissoko’s 0.035. To put that into perspective, Camara’s PMOFD is 0.039. Nobody else in the top-30 sniffs a PMOFD north of 0.024.
Sidy would have needed to draw just six more offensive fouls in the same number of minutes to surpass Camara’s metrics. That number is only expected to rise under another year of Camara’s tutelage and an increased role on the team.
In fact, Camara’s year-one, age-23 season numbers are strikingly similar to Cissoko’s year-three, age-21 season numbers. Camara played four seasons in college while Cissoko played one season in the secondary Spanish league at age 17, then just 30 seconds in one game for Baskonia of Spain’s top-tier ACB at age 18 before heading to the G League Ignite.
There were many questions surrounding the Blazers’ rotational structures entering the preseason, but most of them focused on Ja Morant. The bench rotations were extra murky; while the Morant saga had its tendrils in this as well, questions arose as to who would fill the voids left by Jerami Grant, Matisse Thybulle, and Kris Murray.
It was thought that Vít Krejčí would earn backup wing minutes over Cissoko this season, but Krejčí has not taken advantage of preseason minutes allocated to him. Friday’s preseason finale will answer the question as to who will be Portland’s first wing off the bench, if it hasn’t been decided already.
Up to this point however, it is Cissoko who has answered the call, checking into each of the Blazers’ three preseason games halfway into the first quarter; twice for Deni Avdija and once for Jrue Holiday. Much like last season, his output on the floor is directly correlated to the pieces around him; he isn’t much of a focal point of the game plan but rather a supplemental piece that does the little things, just like in Toumani’s first season.
Unlike Camara, Cissoko’s three-point shooting percentages are rather low despite taking a good number of shots. Whether this is due to the lack of a second unit unable to find him quality looks remains to be seen, but he has hit three of five longballs in the preseason, including a game in which he shot three and made all of them. Also included was a handful of drawn offensive fouls.
While last season was the NBA’s first extended look at Cissoko, he responded to the increased playing time by drastically boosting his defensive metrics from years prior, and if the shot comes around, the Blazers will have yet another steal on their hands.
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