Hendrix wrote:Nope, it's pretty ridiculous. 2 weeks on the sidelines listening to someone is not anywhere in the ballpark of the amount of time and effort it takes for players to make a major difference in their game.
You literaly just said he was a magician at turning players into better defenders, but he can't make magic?
It was an exaggeration, that was clear enough. If Casey could make magic then it would have worked with every single player he's worked with, but it's obvious that's not the case. Ed Davis doesn't look like a beneficiary of his, even if it should being how much potential defensively he showed in his rookie year. Part of it also comes with the players willing to listen who have open ears, and clearly Bargnani, Jonas, and Chandler before them are those types of players. It's obvious you haven't watched any of Jonas' games overseas and you probably won't, rather sticking to your baseless guns. Here's a post from a person who watched Jonas more than me:
Los Manos wrote:Valanciunas is never a passenger defensively or offensively. His level of focus out there never wavers and while he makes mistakes on both ends, he never takes that to the next play and gets straight back into it.
The biggest difference with his fouling is being so much smarter with his hands and not being put into switches as often on the perimter. In Europe and at FIBA level he too often compensated for switches by trying to use his hands on the ball handler to slow down his progress to the hoop. The defensive principles that Casey preaches are relatively easy to follow if you're smart, it requires quick reactions to positioning and hedging that are set in stone and I haven't seen him very often hung out to dry trying to keep up with the foot speed of guards from the perimeter. That allows him to get back to his position, set himself and get his hands in the air before the ball handler enters his space and the refs are showing him the respect for playing those situations correctly.
You just don't see defenses set up like ours conventionally in FIBA. Coaches rely on a lot of switches which just can't happen in the NBA with the speed of the guards and the even more limited contact that refs allow. As I say Valanciunas has rarely been left hanging out to dry guarding a perimeter player where his eagerness to make a difference defensively can often result in him instinctively using his hands when his feet can't keep up with the ball-handler in an attempt to slow him down. In last years LKL finals games when he had two horrendous games of foul trouble, the majority of them were because the defense dictated that he switch and had guards taking him off the dribble and as soon as his hands reached to the body the refs called the foul.
The clarification by the refs in the NBA over the last few years has helped him too with clear guidelines on how you can legally absorb contact in the post and not be called for a foul if you are straight up with your hands in the air and Casey and the coaching staff have drilled him remarkably well in such a short time. I'll take a player who is 7ft & long-armed with quick feet and positionally sound 90% of the game over a drifting athletic shot blocker any day. The impact that Valanciunas has had by simply following our defensive principles and making himself big in the paint without over-reaching and trying to block everything has made a huge difference to our interior defense.
Not he didn't. He's been decent at post defense for a few years now, but he was not anywhere near competent last year in team defense And, this year during preseason games he's varried between looking competent and awful from game to game in respect to team D.
Your hate for Bargnani still precedes you. Awful? He's hardly looked awful, maybe you're mistaking him for DeRozan; he's looked decent to good so far. Bargnani's strengths on defense came from his man defense, not his team defense, which he's looked better at last year before his injury and so far in preseason.
He's always been a great defender. I'm not sure how a DPOY award is supposed to prove. He didn't win it while with Casey, but rather with a complete different team. How does Caset get this credit? And, it's an award that doesn't mean much as Dwight lost it more than Chanlder won it, and it's voted on by a bunch of journalists that get influenced by things other than who the best defender is.
He's better now than before; if that wasn't the case, there was no way that Charlotte would have settled for a package of Matt Carroll and Erick Dampier, and before him Jose Calderon. He did something for Chandler, ingrained with him his principles that have stuck with him beyond Dallas.
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