getrichordie wrote:spearsy23 wrote:getrichordie wrote:
Completely agree, but he's always going to share the court with at least 2 other gifted scorers (Durant, Westbrook, Kanter, Ibaka, etc.). He has to learn to be efficient in his role and he will. He does the little things right now which isn't good enough for OKC fans. I never hear anyone pointing out the big threes Singler hits or his awesome hustle plays. You think someone on this forum would appreciate that with how much trash is talked about our defense.
Can you point out some of these "big threes"? He doesn't even play in crunch time generally. Personally I'm fine with him as the 9th/10th man, but the fact is he sucks as an offensive weapon at everything besides spotting up in the corner. He plays solid positional defense but gets blown by every single time anyone tries to take him off the dribble and he is a walking foul. He tries hard and can hit threes sometimes, that's the extent of Kyle Singler's value. I don't know why you have such a hard-on for the guy.
Payne looked awful on defense. I know everyone is in love with the kid and while there is no doubting his offensive skillset, let's be real: the kid struggles on defense. Foye, Waiters, and Singlers are far better for what we are trying to do. Notice that I said, "for what we are trying to do." As much as our defense struggles, do we really need Payne's offensive skillset? No. While he's fun to watch, why do you want to continue to let his lack of defense hurt our rotation when Foye and Waiters are obvious upgrades on the defensive end. I guarantee you that if you gave Payne 20 minutes and Dion only 10, our defense would suffer, mightily. A lot of fans on here underrate Waiters defensively and overrate Payne defensively.
Foye and Waiters are both worse on defense and offense. Cam is a poor defender, Dion is an abhorrent defender and the largest net negative player getting minutes on any contender (and maybe in the entire league). You're just completely off base and I'm thinking you might actually be Royce Young.
On Singler's threes. I could go and pick apart some videos and show you some Singler threes that were key 3s in helping us build a lead. Singler's defense isn't the best in ISO, sure, but he sticks on his man and you don't have to worry about him forgetting his guy. Durant straight up will leave his guy sometimes. So will Westbrook. Singler does not do that. I value that on our team. Singler is shooting about 37% over his last 15 games. Big improvement from where he started out in the season. Why such an improvement? He's starting to feel more comfortable in his role. You can't expect Singler to a great defender and I don't think he is a great defender. I think he gets the job done. He's our back up SF. Not everyone has the luxury of having Iguodala coming off the bench.
Every three helps build a lead or shrink a deficit, as the name implies they are worth three points. And Singler definitely does get lost, it happens fairly often actually. Watch the golden state game and you'll see him lose track of Klay Thompson in a big moment. This happens to everyone in The NBA and it's not really a criticism I'd make of Singler. And I don't expect Singler to be a great anything, that's why I wouldn't run any offensive sets specifically for him. He took 30+ games to get an assist, isn't adept at handling the ball, isn't a knock down shooter coming off of screens, his offensive utility is in swinging the ball and hitting open threes off of kickouts. I'm not saying he is Dion level trash, he is smart and knows his role, he just shouldn't have that role increased.
Second off, what would you recommend adjusting in our rotation? More Morrow? He can't defend AT ALL. Do you slide Westbrook over to the 2 and give Payne more minutes at the 1? I'm honestly asking what would you change to our lineup.
more Morrow, more Roberson, and significantly more Payne, yes. Morrow is a marginally worse defender than Dion and actually has offensive value. There are two ends of the court and a player that is good on one and abysmal on the other is much more valuable than a player that is abhorrent on one and terrible on the other. Cam has been the only player off our bench to show a positive contribution through impact stats, there is zero legitimate reason to sit him for Foye or Waiters, and if your eye test tells you otherwise then you need to re-evaluate.
Dion's game is deceiving by its very nature, offensively he seemingly has every tool because he is flashy and can create space almost at will, plus has those occasional games where his jumper gets incredibly hot and he goes for an efficient 16-20 points. The problem is that he is still taking and missing those shots in 9 out of 10 games, he heavily relies on a jumper that isn't good in the first place because he is terrible at finishing at the rim. Pil posted the stat last week, and prior to the Kings game Dion had missed more layups than he had made. That's just incredible for a player at any level above Jr. High. Defensively he relies too heavily on athleticism that isn't particularly outstanding and has no awareness of positioning. Watch him in any critical possession and you'll see one of two things
1) if he is on the ball he'll force the offensive player to switch directions once or twice, but he'll get blown by on the second move. He plays too tight and uses his hands and body trying to keep guys in front of him, it negates his length and gives the offensive player a half step advantage immediately.
2)If he is off the ball he overplays the passing lanes and keeps contact with his man. That's effective at preventing threes but it leads to easy backcuts which lead to easy layups before the bigs even have time to help. Teams have exploited him numerous times in one possession games because he plays stupid.
Basically, unless the player tries to post him up or he manages to strip the ball Dion's defense is a lot of fruitless effort, which should be his nickname.
