mudsak wrote:cupcakesnake wrote:mudsak wrote:There are barely enough players in the NBA who actually play defense enough to make up an ALL Defensive team lol.
We all know that the NBA current rules and strategies tilt towards offense, but that just means defense is more difficult. It doesn't mean NBA players are less skilled at defense. If anything, it means good defenders in the modern NBA have the most difficult job of anyone in NBA history. You can't be a good defender anymore without being able to defend all over the floor, switch positions, go through multiple rotations, and navigate the most complicated screening systems we've ever seen.
I really don't know how you can show up in this thread where we talk about how good NBA defenders are, and come away with this take.
Some of the best defenders ever play in this current era of basketball. They just have the hardest job.
I don't know man... I think the culture of the players is pretty well aligned with the direction of the league rules tbh. Defense is the dirty work party of the game, and doesn't get the instant praise/reward that the offense does in most cases. Few players embrace that with the same effort/focus they embrace the offensive game. In that sense I think it's less black/white than how you're pitching it. I do agree the league has completely ham-stringed the defenses ability to impact the game in a balanced manner, so your point has some validity to it. I do believe the culture is much lazier in its approach to defense overall as compared to past generations. Most teams don't have more than one or two players who really put out major effort on defense imo. There are a couple of teams who seam to put more focus on that from a team identity standpoint...and it shows in the standings.
When you look at modern NBA schemes and the effort level demanded to execute these schemes, there's just no way one can say that NBA players aren't putting out major effort on defense. It's one thing to feel this way, but there's nothing to back it up. Player tracking data shows that NBA players have never moved so much on offense or defense. Really lazy defenders rarely even have a spot in the NBA anymore, where in better defensive eras, there were far more Antoine Walker types (offense only guys who gave little NBA effort). Even the bad defenders today, are pretty high effort. I'm thinking of guys like Doug McDermott, Bojan Bogdanovic, Bones Hyland, Jaylen Nowell etc. When you watch these guys, the hustle is there, but they're inattentive and/or slow etc.
Even the worst defensive teams have more than "one or two players who really put out major effort on defense". The Rockets have Garuba, Eason, Jabari, Tate, and Martin (plus Eric Gordon is still solid for his age). The Spurs have Jakob Poetl, Jeremy Sochan, Josh RIchardon, Devin Vassell, Zach Collins. That's a lot of solid to stand out defenders for the worst defense in the NBA.
I get how you feel, but I just don't think this view point holds up to scrutiny or is really *ahem* defendable.
. the fact that he's not averaging 30 minutes a game is what's keeping him back from being the runaway favorite. But his impact in those minutes cannot be argued; best in the league.
