The winning magic of efficient 3 and D

Why I won’t shut up about Toumani Camara

BY HENRY ABBOTT

The Blazers’ second-year forward makes $1.9 million, has Jrue Holiday-like defensive statistics, and makes 3s better than Klay Thompson. HARRY HOW/GETTY IMAGES

With 37 seconds left in Saturday’s game, the Rockets and Blazers were tied. Playing on the road, the Blazers came in as underdogs and had lost to the Rockets by 28 the night before. But somehow, the Blazers would win this game by six. Many weird things made it so.

Two of the biggest were Toumani Camara. On one play, the second-year Blazers forward hounded Rockets star Fred VanVleet the length of the floor, decreasing the odds they would run some slick team action. To my eyes, VanVleet, as a $40-million star, determined that the referees would smile on him if there were contact with Camara, who makes $1.9 million. The result, though, was the piece-o-crappiest running 3-pointer you ever did see. There was a little contact but no foul call. 

Seconds later, VanVleet committed a cardinal sin by fouling Camara before the ball was inbounded, giving the Blazers a free throw, the ball, and the win. VanVleet then appeared to poke a referee in the head. He was ejected and later fined $50,000.

What’s not weird: Camara makes it tough to score. Like last year, Camara ranks among the best defenders in the league in advanced statistics. On Dunks and Threes, as of Monday, he’s 24th in the league in defensive rating—ahead of celebrated defenders like Anthony Davis, Jalen Suggs, Marcus Smart, Herb Jones, Jrue Holiday, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, and Giannis Antetokounmpo. 

It’s rare to be elite in defensive plus/minus as a wing, rarer still on a bad team, and rarest of all when your routine assignments include stars like Luka, Giannis, and Zion. It almost never happens with a 24-year-old under contract for this year plus two more. 

If you’re trying to turn a bad team into a winning team, the primary task is to acquire stars, who cost precious lottery picks that result from painful years of losing. The crisis of the rebuild, though, is the not-quite star–a player who has dominated the ball all through his early development, is only OK on defense, but isn’t mind-blowing scoring against elite NBA defense. (Does it seem like I’m picking on Jalen Green?) In time, they’ll have to improve, play off the bench, or be replaced–because winning teams make good choices with the ball.

The entire time, however, teams need players who can thrive alongside stars and help you win without needing too much of the ball or the salary cap. 

That’s Toumani Camara. 

Two summers ago, the Blazers overhauled their roster with a monster trade—11 players and picks changed hands in an instant. Of them all, Camara was arguably the least famous, depending how you rate the fame of the Bucks’ 2029 first-round pick. 

Camara split his college years between Georgia and Dayton. He made it to the draft from the Portsmouth Invitational Tournament, where there are teams sponsored by landscaping companies but no blue-chip prospects. (The MVP of that tournament, Sir’Jabari Rice, is now in the G-League.) The Ringer predicted the Belgian Camara would be drafted 58th in the 2023 draft, but the Suns reached for him with the 52nd, after players like Mojave King and Tristan Vukčević. 

At the time, RotoWire said, “there’s a development track for Camara to become a starter down the road.” The development track was nine games. By the 10th, Camara was the starter, a job he held most of last season. He was mic’d up for a game last week. The takeaway: He is a non-stop talker with the hottest motor.

But coming into camp this year, things were less certain. The Blazers’ best player is forward Jerami Grant. On draft day, they traded quite a lot for forward Deni Avdija. Meanwhile, the team is overloaded with four maybe-starter centers (Deandre Ayton, Donovan Clingan, Robert Williams III, Duop Reath) and four maybe-starter guards (Anfernee Simons, Shaedon Sharpe, Scoot Henderson, Dalano Banton). It was hard to form a starting five that included Camara. 

But Camara arrived from the offseason looking like one big muscle—a muscle that made 34 percent of his 3s last season, but 39 percent so far this year. Camara and Grant are the only Blazers who have started all 17 games this NBA season. 

Camara was a revelation. But this year, he’s far more valuable, because he has become a legitimate 3-and-D player. For now, by some measures, he plays better D than Jrue Holiday and makes 3s at a higher rate than Klay Thompson. Duh, that’s valuable. 

Even more important, though, about his jump from Year One to Year Two: improvement might be the NBA’s most valuable skill. Everyone works hard in the summer; most players don’t leap forward. Yet, somehow Camara solved the riddle of growing more effective. That he did proves he has learned how to learn, which makes you wonder what good things might happen next summer, and the one after that.

I bring up Toumani Camara in almost every TrueHoop editorial meeting, to the groans of David, Jarod, and Travis. My hope is, they will catch the fever and spread the gospel; instead, we write stories about undefeated teams or Zach Edey. By now I have broached him far too many times—they stopped listening months ago. And so it’s left to me to appreciate the one they call “Tou.”

Camara’s young. He’s affordable. He’s improving. He’s long and athletic. He doesn’t need the ball. These are the players who make bad teams good. 

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