ijspeelman wrote:mcfly1204 wrote:We're not still talking about Okoro's defense, are we?
The discussion is valid. Its not a question if he's good at defense, but instead if he is an elite level guard. Its a high bar and its hard to prove.
I did scouting on two games since my last comment and watched all his defensive possessions for 1/10/2023 and 1/12/2023 against UTA and POR respectively (I will do some more scouting in the games coming up and may go back if I feel like making a big post).
Basically everything I said still stands imo. I personally wouldn't put him at the level of the OG's, Mikal Bridges', and Jrue Holiday's of the world for one-on-one defense, but he definitely is no slouch. In the POR game, he had some gorgeous one-on-one possessions against Dame and Jerami Grant specifically.
PNR defense is still hard to gauge because no matter how good you are, you will still get stuck on good screens (or good moving screens). I've had a big plan to scout out what makes good PNR defense and have done some research, but have been too busy since the summer to go really far on it. From what I've seen from some of the premier PNR defenders (Jrue, Smart, Caruso), Okoro gets bounced around more than them on screens though he is really good at recovering when he has to.
I mentioned off-ball issues and I think I may have just picked a bad UTA game to watch him in so I don't want to comment on the failing there. He had two to three possessions where there was a defensive breakdown that starts with him, but they all devolved into a mess of others also failing in their duties so IDK want to harp on him. In general, he's really good at zoning up on the weakside and helping when he is the weak-side defender. His miscommunication normally comes on switches that weren't communicated (at least in these two games I scouted).
I also agree he’s not to the level of those 3 guys but they’re also DPOY caliber players. If that’s the bar for elite then I doubt he ever gets there.
His role isn’t quite the same as a guy like OG or Mikal as they aren’t really POA defenders
Do we think Caruso is an elite defender? He’s regarded as one around the league. I don’t think Okoro is quite that good as we talk today but he’s not far off.
I think the argument around elite is a bit semantic. I’d say he’s at minimum a top 10 POA defender. I have him just outside of the top 5
In no particular order
Jrue
Smart
Caruso
Jaden McDaniels
Dillon Brooks