therealbig3 wrote:DarkXaero wrote:NyCeEvO wrote:To be honest, I’m actually glad that we have Harden as a defender.
For years, we’ve had undersized and/or very skinny guards, which would kill us defensively. With Harden, we actually have a “normal sized” SG who can bully the opposition as opposed to us getting bullied. I love it.
Harden has exceptionally quick and strong hands, which he utilized on his steals, and he’s an elite post defender. He’s going to improve our defense, especially in the half-court.
And this is why I'm puzzled by everyone trashing our defense after this trade. Harden is easily a defensive upgrade on Levert, and actually helps us improve on some of our defensive issues. I understand that losing Allen is a blow, and something we need to replace in some form, but I honestly don't believe our defense is any worse than before the trade, all things considered.
I disagree, I think Allen is a stud defensively...it is a major blow to our defense, also because that means Jordan gets the bulk of the C minutes now, and he's a below average defender at best.
Harden has some issues defensively too, he's not perfect, but I think his rebounding will be big...he's one of the best rebounding guards in the league, he'll help us out a lot in that regard, because I feel like so many of our issues were those long rebounds and our guards just having no nose for the ball at all. Harden just has that innate skill of knowing where the ball is gonna bounce and being there at the right time.
Allen can be very good defensively, but he's still quite inconsistent. When he's motivated, he can be a monster defensively, but we saw a good amount of games this early season, where he just wasn't good enough. DJ played very well in the Knicks game, and poorly tonight against an all star caliber center. But overall, I didn't feel our defense was any worse tonight than before. The mistakes being made were the same mistakes the Nets have been making all season, and I think earlier in the season (with no Kyrie but having Levert & Allen), we would have definitely lost the game the way we played tonight.
I think Harden's strength as a guard, his quick hands on defense, and his switchability on defense, it's an upgrade to our defense, that helps make up for what we're losing defensively with Allen. On top of that, Harden improves our rebounding a bit too. Obviously Allen's rim protection and overall defensive ability needs to be replaced to some degree, but it's very doable with moves.
