Jonas Valanciunas vs. Deandre Ayton

[Alatan]

Valanciunas brings constant paint pressure. Ayton just floats around doing nothing. Give me Val.

[bonita_the_frog]

Valanciunas plays like a championship center, i can rely on him to bring home the bacon, so easily Valanciunas over Ayton.

[remiga007]

Jonas has lead feet. The man cannot move. I know we all hate and despise Ayton but Ayton is superior at everything.

Everything? I would rather Ayton play defense sure, but everything else I would take Jonas, rebounding, shooting, scoring the ball, setting screens etc. Jonas is one of those players, where if you feed him, he could still get more free throw attempts in one game than Ayton would get in two weeks. Ayton being better at everything is just ridiculous comment, it is almost opposite of the truth, most thing Jonas is better at, but he is worse at most important thing, which is defense, and thats why it is a debate.

Two things to add. One, Jonas is now also much better at passing/game reading, to boot. Last year had 3.9 AST per 36, while Aytons best season was 2.1 AST per 36... half a decade ago. Two, Jonas is slow but id much rather have his current defence over that of a decade ago. See Marc, Brook etc. Sure hes much worse than them but the pattern fits.
So much lunacy in this thread. Kind of understandable though as most posters rarely or never watch Jonas play thus just assume things.

[remiga007]

In my opinion Valanciunas is the worst defensive center in the NBA and by far and also the worst defensive player overall in the whole NBA.

He is an elite offensive rebounder and a good offensive player but it's not enough to offset his awful defense.

He is not close to being the worst defensive player in the NBA.

He's close. Only 3 centers in the league give up worse defensive numbers near the rim than Jonas. Alex Len who is not in the NBA anymore, washed Drummond and Mitchell Robinson off injury.

He offsets it by being one of the best rebounders in the league and a very good post up player offensively. I don't know why anyone would defend JV defensively.

Id much rather give up slightly higher percentage shots and then secure the rebound, than vice versa. Ending defensive possessions is crucial and is one of the reasons his teams tend to do pretty well defensively, at least when Val is not surrounded by bad defensive players.