Blocks are a vanity stat and deterrence is the job

The best rim protector on the floor is often the one whose block column looks unremarkable, because nothing got taken at him.

A block is an event. It happens because someone decided to shoot. Which means every block is also a small piece of evidence that the deterrent failed.

That sounds like a cheap paradox but it is the honest way to read the stat. The centre who swats four a night is the centre whose opponents are still willing to challenge. The one who genuinely scares people gets two, sees fewer attempts inside six feet than anyone in the league, and watches guards pull up from twelve feet rather than come into the paint. His block column looks like a backup's.

The metric that gets closer is opponent attempts at the rim per game with him on the floor, and the field goal percentage on those. Both are widely available now and both are still less quoted than blocks, because blocks make a highlight and a rate does not.

There is a technique argument underneath this that I think is settled and still not universally coached. Verticality beats chasing. A big who stays vertical, hands up, absorbing contact on the chest, gives up a higher percentage on the individual attempt than one who leaps at the ball. He also gives up far fewer and-ones, stays on the floor in the fourth quarter, and keeps his own rebound position, because a man who jumped sideways at a shot is not boxing anybody out.

The foul trouble part is where the value really compounds. A rim protector on the bench with four fouls in the third quarter is worth zero, and the swat-happy version of that player gets there twice a week. Nobody prices the availability. They price the highlight.

The place blocks do genuinely matter is the second one. Blocking a shot and having it go out of bounds resets the shot clock and gives the ball back. Blocking it to a teammate ends the possession and starts a break. Big men who keep blocks inbounds are doing something meaningfully different and hardly anyone separates the two in a public dataset, which is a bit mad.

If you are evaluating a centre and the only defensive thing you can tell me is his block average, you have not watched him. Tell me how many people came into the paint at all.