oldncreaky wrote:cupcakesnake wrote:SweaterBae wrote:PG is the last position a player can make an impact on defense because they are the least versatile in who and what they can defend.
This feels like a comment transported in time from 2007.
Point guards are still typically the smallest player on the court, and size is very important defensively(!), but saying they're the least versatile... when tons of the league's most elite defenders are point guards with massive versatility... is confusing to me. This thread is littered with the opposite view, and you're just giving us this one sentence without any real justification.
This thread highlights the versatile contributions to defense that a point guard can make. Jason Kidd is the archetype, and we now have a league with guys like Caruso, Suggs, and Derrick White (and many others). I think it's time to revisit your thinking on this one.
Agree
A PG can also have a large impact on team D by being the default/typical player guarding the opposing team's ball-handler. A team's success on O tends to go down as the shot-clock winds down. Even if a PG just stalls the advance of the ball by 2 or 3 seconds each possession, over the course of a game that will have a material impact on the opposing team's efficiency.
I also think that the importance of "Defence up the middle" is a classic thing in all sports. In Football, it's the DTs and MLBSs; in Baseball, it's the Catcher, SS, and CF; in Hockey, it's the Goalie (duh!) and the C. In basketball, this translates to the C providing rim/paint protection, and the PG defending at POA
And I still think that, in any discussion of all-time great PG defenders, Moncrief has to be included
Yeah it all starts with point of attack defense for most point guards. Off the top of my head, I can't think of any good defensive point guards who weren't very strong on the ball. I do think you have to do a lot more than POA to be a
great defensive point guard though. It's like the difference between Davion Mitchell and Marcus Smart. Trying to think if there's a point guard version of Robert Covington (all-time elite off-ball defense but pedestrian on the ball.) That's kind of the thing. A 6'7" guy can be meh at the point of attack and still have massive value on defense, but a smaller player probably needs the point of attack because otherwise they become someone you have to hide in the playoffs. I think of Steph Curry's best defensive years. He has long been a very clever paint helper. It's not like he's awful on the ball, but his size meant you needed to protect him from a lot of matchups. I wonder if there's a more exaggerated version of Steph that is even better off the ball and not a good POA defender.
Trying to find guards right now with good deflections and/or rim protection stats, who aren't great primary POA defenders. Ty Jerome is a deflection wizard, but a total 0 in the paint. Ironically, Westbrook might be an example of this on Denver this year. Anyways... I'm not sure this exists.
Moncrief was definitely a g.
