Conversely, is it possible you may be overestimating his defense? He doesn't "flash" defensively like a Pons or Keon. His defense is average. His offense is nonexistent, though I've noted many, many times that we don't need him to score a bunch of points. We need him to be a threat to score, which he's not...not even close...and we need him to rebound the basketball (he has 0 in 14 minutes over two games).
It is perhaps skewed because of the number of games and the number of minutes he's played, but ON's defensive rating is the 2nd worst on the team, so far. EJA, not far ahead in that category, but also has 7 boards to his credit. ON has gotten lost or been unaware of spacing, defensively, a couple times in his 14 minutes. I don't know that either guy is going to give us an advantage on defense, and I don't believe we need either guy to be a major offensive contributor, but I know which one gives us the advantage on the boards, to this point.