Mirotic12 wrote:Bob8 wrote:Is defense really that important for Eurolegue pg/sg? Teodosic is incredible bad defender, Larkin incredible bad defender, De Colo bad defender, Spanoulis bad defender, Goudelock incredible bad defender, Heurtel incredible bad defender, Langford bad defender, Llull very bad in defense last year...Sergio Rodriguez is coming back this year and he's bad defender too.
And don't forget that Doncic is far the best rebounder from this group.
Because of Llull's absence Doncic will play more minutes and take more shots and this is not even debatable.
Llull and Spanoulis are most definitely not bad defenders. Llull can't play as much defense when his coach has him running every set. No player can do that. It does not mean he's bad at defense. He's OK at guarding most point guards (just not the ones with a good first step), and he's very good at guarding shooting guards.
Spanoulis is a very good defender. He has elite lateral quickness and can keep all the guards in front of him. The only time he struggles on defense, is when Olympiacos uses that super small 4 guard lineup and he ends up having to guard small forwards and power forwards. That's just a result of an offensive gimmick from his coach. When he's guarding at the guard position, he's very good on defense.
So those two should in no way count as bad defenders. If they are bad defenders, then every single player in Europe is bad at defense.
You have a point in, Llull can't play much defense when he has to do so much on offense, and when Olympiacos goes way small for 5-10 minutes a game, Spanoulis sometimes gets posted or has bigger guys shot over him. Other than that, both are quite good at defense, and certainly better than Doncic is.
As far as defense not mattering at point guard in EuroLeague.........I think it does not matter at all (not even 1%) in NBA. But yes, it matters in EuroLeague. That's why for example, CSKA had to have a guy like Aaron Jackson all those years, because Teodosic and De Colo (he should be on your "incredible bad defender" list and not just "bad defender" list) are so horrible on defense.
You have a valid argument, as it applies to the NBA. It's absolutely totally meaningless in NBA, where not a single point guard can guard anyone, and the rules actually make it impossible to do so. But unfortunately for Doncic, he's not going to be playing defense against point guards in NBA. He will be guarding wings, where the defense does matter some.
In EuroLeague terms, yes it matters. I can remember the whole time Jasekivicius was in Panathinaikos, they had Spanoulis guarding the one, and Diamantidis always guarding the best offensive wing of the opponent, and they almost always played zones when he was in the games......He would go to the bench, and almost immediately man to man schemes would come.
I was talking about last years Euroleague. The best guards didn't do much in defense. Llull has the tools but didn't even try to do something and Spanoulis is too old or always having some kind of injury to play good defense. Others (Teo, Heurtel, Larkin, Goudelock, De Colo, Langford....) are always very bad in defense but playing 30 minutes/game, Cska had many minutes, especially in last Q, Teo and De Colo together in the court, so I really can't understand why defense should be problem for Doncic, who's at least trying and has body advantage over this players. You can put him to guard sf it the guards are to quick to him. Where can you hide Teo, Larkin, Heurtel...?
