This one is kind of personal. I have written off and written back on few players more than Tristan Thompson. He shows enough flashes of athleticism to suck you in, and then enough flashes of everything else to make you think he just sucks. He’s a hard worker and seems like a good guy, but at times he doesn’t totally seem to get it on the basketball court.

Perhaps this is unfair. Perhaps too much was expected of Tristan during his first few years. Maybe he was drafted a little too high and we hoped for a little too much. He isn’t the sort of player you can just throw the ball to and get out of the way. He is the sort of player who is at his best when he’s out of the way, and I mean that as a compliment, really.

He’s a rebounder and hustler and an energy guy, and there is definitely a place for him on this Cavs team. He’ll be asked to do the dirty work, and he doesn’t seem to have any problem with that. He’ll run the floor and grab rebounds and dunk the ball and be an athletic young man. He should do well with that limited list of responsibilities.

So what will Tristan’s game look like for the Cavs this year? Behold:

Garbage Man

Tristan’s main job this year will be mixing it up inside. Don’t expect him to be a Perkinsian enforcer, but he will be asked to provide a legitimate inside presence along with Kevin Love and Anderson Varejao.

It has become accepted truth that the Cavs will be an awesome rebounding team and, well, yeah, chances are they will. Thompson will be part of that, as he has been a very solid rebounder since he first entered the league. He hauled in 21.8% of available defensive rebounds last year, a top-30 mark. Love and Varejao are both in the top five, so the Cavs should surrender precious few second chances.

And speaking of second chances, Tristan also ranked 16th in offensive rebound percentage. There exists a school of thought that says crashing the boards is overrated, especially if it comes at the expense of transition defense, but extending and adding possessions is a good thing, especially for an offense with actual NBA-caliber players. And, while this is anecdotal, an offensive rebound can deflate an opponent. Watching the ball get kicked back out and playing defense for an extra 24 seconds is not fun.

More important than Tristan’s rebounding will be his interior defense. He may well be the Cavs’ starting center, which means that he will defend opposing centers (and to think, you’re reading these insights for free!). His starting would be a way to preserve Andy, and Tristan has played some five in the past.

Double T is not a shot blocker; he averaged less than half a block per game last year and has never averaged more than one. Worse, he was among the most wretched defenders in the league at defending shots at the rim—opponents converted 58% of such shots against him. These are not encouraging stats considering all the kvetching about the Cavs’ lack of a rim protector.

A caveat here is that the Cavs were a wreck last year. A basketball team does not inspire a book called Season of Huh by being good. If the Cavs’ perimeter defense spends less time imitating matadors, the bigs could look at lot better.

Tristan is still young, at just 23 years old. LeBron wears number 23. Ergo, Tristan will be a better defender this year. There are no coincidences in this world.

The Right (Hand) Stuff

Tristan’s shooting hand-switching experiment is old news, but now we have a year’s worth of data to look at to see if it did any darn bit of good.

It did, sort of. Double T’s free throw percentage jumped up to a respectable 69.3% last year, a significant improvement over his first two seasons, when he shot a combined 58.6%. . His free throw volume increased along with his efficiency, as he set career highs in freebies attempted and made. This is obviously an encouraging development. His form still looks more like “hopeful fling” than “refined marksmanship,” but it’s getting better.

Tristan should get bushels of easy scoring chances this year, and opponents can’t just hack him if he’s converting from the line at a decent rate.

Tristan’s overall field goal percentage actually declined overall last year, to 47.7%. One would hope that a big man who rarely leaves the paint could shoot better than this. A silver lining is that his increased production from the free throw line bumped his true shooting percentage (which factors in free throws and threes) to 52.8%, another career high. This isn’t an outstanding number, but it’s not bad, either. To compare him to other big men of note last year: Tim Duncan’s TS% was 53.5%, Al Jefferson’s was 53.2%, Greg Monroe’s was 53.1%, and Marc Gasol’s was 52.6%.

Playing Hook-y

Tristan can score—or at least try to score—with either hand around the rim, though he favors his pet right hook when driving from the left side. This shot is not pretty, but Thompson has developed it into a workable scoring option. Per NBA.com, he shot 47.6% on all hook shots last year. That won’t be confused with Dirk’s deadly one-legger any time soon, but it’s much better than the 30% Tristan shot on conventional jumpers. It’s nice that he has a defined go-to move, even if he won’t be called on to use it that often. It’s better to have confidence in one thing than to vacillate between five.

By virtue of shot quality alone, Tristan’s percentages should go up across the board, even if his raw numbers don’t. He should act like a hyena on offense, scavenging for easy points while defenses worry about the more threatening predators on the floor.

Energy!

If nothing else, Thompson can tire out opposing big men by forcing them to chase him. He cuts a track star’s figure according to NBA.com’s player tracking stats. He logged 190.8 total in-game miles last year, top-20 in the league and trailing only Joakim Noah and Thaddeus Young among big men. His average on-court speed was 4.4 miles per hour, ranking eighth among all players who logged at least 25 minutes per game. Tristan is no stiff. If he can’t outplay you, he’ll at least outrun you.

We saw a glimpse of this speed in the exhibition against Maccabi Tel Aviv, when Tristan beat everyone down the floor and dunked off of a Kevin Love outlet pass. Rebounding will be TT’s primary job, so don’t expect to see him leaking out on a regular basis, but he could sneak one in here and there.

If the Cavs are going to run a lot this year—and please Cavs, run a lot this year—a mobile big man like Tristan can be a real weapon. Even if he isn’t getting the ball, his rim runs affect defenses. One defender focusing on him means one less defender in driving lanes or running out at three point shooters. In uneven fast break situations, that can make a world of difference.

This speed can be an asset on defense, too, in the form of chasing ball-handlers and making quick rotations. The LeBron-era Heat were at their best when their swarming defense turned opponents over. We don’t yet know what defensive tactics David Blatt will lean on most, but he is likely to employ some trapping schemes at least part-time to capitalize on the Cavs’ team speed, and Tristan is an important part of that.

Brinks Truck Coming Soon

Tristan is almost certainly going to get a lot of money from the Cavs. It’s just a matter of when. It will probably be more than most think he’s worth. There will likely be better players making less money. But that’s what you can get when you latch onto the right coattails as a very tall 23 year-old.

There’s little sense in worrying too much about Tristan’s new deal. LeBron and LeBron’s agent and LeBron’s agent’s other clients come with their own set of rules, and this is just part of that framework. One can only hope that it isn’t the sort of deal that looks awful after a year, or as league insiders call it, an Amare.

La Fin.

God help me, I have high hopes for Tristan Thompson this year. He brings some very good things to the table, chief among them durability—he has played every single game over the past two seasons. There will be times when he is overmatched down low, but if he can make his opponents work hard and/or piss them off a little, that’s a win.

His “Tigger” nickname never quite took off, but after spending some time reading about A.A. Milne’s character (albeit on Wikipedia), it seems like a decent sobriquet. Per Wikipedia, Tigger “often undertakes tasks with gusto,” “is always filled with great energy and optimism,” and “his actions have sometimes led to chaos and trouble for himself and his friends.”

Gusto! Energy! Sometimes chaos and trouble! That’s Tristan!

He’s a safe bet to keep playing hard. If he can cause chaos and trouble for Cavs’ opponents instead of the Cavs themselves, he will come close to earning whatever ungodly sum he will soon be earning.