Quick Stat Hits: Let's get to know Jason Thompson

After the last two weeks of pushing the very limits of the title of this series, we'll make this one short and sweet. Let's take a quick look at the new guy, Jason Thompson.

First, Thompson hasn't played much this year for Golden State -- 179 minutes in total across 28 games. That's about 6 minutes a game, and only sporadically, so not much to go on. Let's look instead at his numbers from prior seasons.

Let's start with offence. Um, Thompson provides basically none.

- His individual ORTG barely creeps past 100 most seasons

- His outside shooting is serviceable but not great (40% or so from 10 feet out for his career), and doesn't extend to the three point line (1-for-27 for his career and the one came six years ago)

- He mostly lives off of put backs (OREB% around 8% typically, which would rank third on the Raptors behind the centres)

- His offensive box-plus-minus (an approximation of a player's impact on his teammates) has always been a significant negative (between -2 and -3 the past few years). So don't hope for much here besides energy and the occasional open long jumper.

Now, defense. Much better news here.

- His defensive rebounding is very strong (around 20% DREB% of late, would rank just above Scola on the Raptors)

- His defensive box-plus-minus scores have been consistently positive (since his rookie season, between 0 and +1 every season except one)

- He also blocks shots at a greater rate than Scola or Patterson - though that's a low bar (~2.5% BLK% the past few years to Scola's 1.5% and Patterson's 1.1%)

So, looks like a defensive upgrade on Scola, though not really on Patterson, and no sort of upgrade offensively. But that's what you expect from a waiver pick up. And he provides some real tangible NBA skills if he is needed on the court, something that sadly could not really be said for the version of Anthony Bennett we saw sporadically this season.

Overall, he posts a middling career TS% of 53%, a low 17% usage, a PER of 13.5 and a .075 WS/48 rate. These are all below average numbers, so don't get too excited, but he's a capable player and none of those numbers are that far below average that he hurts you when you have him on the court. There's value in depth, and that's exactly what the Raptors get in Thompson.

Does anyone have anything to add on Thompson? Any stats of particular interest that I skipped over?