el_Diablo wrote:JonFromVA wrote:As for Lauri's defense, I find it hard to accept a player is anything special on D when his team stinks on D. If you've got some lineups you feel represent Lauri's ability more accurately, feel free to present your counter evidence.
I don't really know what we are discussing here any more, nobody is saying Lauri is special on D, but he is better than what his reputation used to be and to some still is, and better than what you seem to be insinuating with your remarks about playing with Kessler and Utah still having a bad team defensive rating.
If you want to look at numbers, after the all star break Utah is 16th in the defensive ranking stat. While nothing to write home about in itself, they are doing it while being 4th in the pace stat. It's a small sample size, but defense is a team effort and personnel matters. One player can't really do much if everyone around him sucks. Well unless you are a generational defender anchoring the defense (which mobley seems to be becoming).
I wasn't trying to "insinuate" anything, I was just stating ground truth. Allen/Mobley can protect Mitchell/Garland defensively. If we're going to remove Mobley and insert Markkanen and someone else (OG, Siakim, etc) we have to understand what's going to happen to the team on both ends of the floor.
And then beyond what's happening on the floor, we have a bunch of other concerns regarding chemistry, personality, salary, and trying to keep a group of players together for more than a couple of years.
I get the temptation people feel to "fix the Cavs" by imposing on them a more modern lineup, but this is just year one for this core making the playoffs, and in spite of trading for Mitchell, they do not accept the idea that they must win now. Beyond that, their klunky lineups have become their identity. Benching and waiving Kevin Love was basically saying they didn't want to compromise their defense anymore, not even for gravity/shooting.
