AEnigma wrote:penbeast0 wrote:AEnigma wrote:VOTE: Dwyane Wade
NOMINATE: Patrick Ewing
AltNom: Scottie Pippen
People have touched on how Barkley “should not” be too far separated from Karl Malone. People have touched on how Jokic “should not” be too far separation from Giannis. I have been somewhat silent on this because I think it is a dead horse topic, but for me, the “should not” separation most in play is Ewing and Robinson. I see Ewing as functionally quite similar to Robinson for career postseason value. Robinson had the higher regular season peak, was more “portable”, and played on a team that relied on him more, all of which have made him beloved in these circles, but in significant games against good opponents, I never felt Robinson did much to distinguish himself from Ewing in anything other than as a passer / team playmaker (which is important but at Robinson’s level was overstated by circumstance)....
I'd say the biggest differentiation between Robinson and Ewing isn't offensive at all, but defensive. Robinson, along with Hakeem (and Russell from the clips I've seen) was not only one of the great shotblockers, but very good at disrupting passes into the post. Ewing had quick hands and feet for a big but not quite as quick or as much anticipation.
Agree Robinson was a superior athlete… and maybe in the sense of “anticipation” had superior reflexes, but I could in a different direction say I preferred Ewing’s anticipation in the sense of knowing where he should be.
I recall someone criticising Dwight Howard’s defensive intelligence last thread (or recently). I disagree with that pretty strongly, but Howard did a lot of the same things in that he was reactionary and relied on his physical advantages in ways that maybe were not optimal but were physically impressive. I see Robinson in much the same way, with Ewing being more of a Duncan figure. More limited, but also more controlled and careful. Again, I have never been overly impressed by Robinson’s playoff results when he did not have Duncan. That is not necessarily just because of Duncan; Robinson himself changed his approach as he aged in ways not wholly tied to also playing alongside another top tier defender. Ewing arrived at that point a lot earlier. Less flashy, but supremely effective. I would not confuse having all the tools for being a more effective defender with actually being more effective over a series.
Where this becomes messier is with hypotheticals and the effect of coaching. Ewing was most effective as a defender under Pat Riley, even though his athletic peak was earlier and I think he would have been outstanding had he connected with Riley then. Robinson had his best defensive results under Larry Brown and Greg Popovich, but at his “peak” under a less defensive-minded coach, not so much.
I understand why Robinson is given the benefit of the doubt as someone who was more physically impressive and who we saw achieve high defensive success at different points in his career. But he did not have a defensive mind like Russell. He also did not have a mind like Draymond or Garnett. Nor would I say he had one like Hakeem, or Duncan (admittedly Duncan is deeply tied to Popovich). There are several others I likely trust over him too, although they are not yet relevant. He was an outstanding athlete, but there too, I would not say he utilised his athleticism as well as Russell or Hakeem, or in a more positional sense, Garnett. He had the tools to be a much better defender than Duncan (and to some extent we saw glipses of that when he became more of a specialist), but in the postseason I do not think he reached that level with any real consistency.
Ewing is a step down from all those names, but not by enough to be out of the discussion. He had some uninspiring results before Pat Riley, so maybe we can attribute the bulk of the change to Riley… but all the same, that change happened, and it constitutes the majority of Ewing’s career. Again, Robinson had more tools, but if he did not consistently make the best use of them, why would I excuse that or make him out to be something he generally was not. I cannot do the exercise I did with Hakeem and Robinson where I point out how much better Hakeem fared against common opponents (most notably the Jazz, but to a degree also the Suns and Blazers), both because of sample size (one series against Hakeem is the only commonality, with Drexler automatically providing a significant distinction) and because Ewing more demonstrably had better defensive support. I am accordingly not going to commit to Ewing having an absolute advantage; however, I am more adamant that the two are a lot closer than people tend to assume based on their visceral reactions to Robinson’s physicality. Ewing was smart and controlled. He played well against a lot of excellent offences, including strong pnr offences (albeit perhaps not quite to the extent of the Jazz). If we are going to praise Robinson’s highlights, we should also be able to acknowledge their limitations. We do it with Duncan and Howard; we should be able to do it for Ewing and Robinson as well.
I really like this short breakdown of Robinson vs Ewing on defense and I agree with basically everything. I don't think Ewing gets enough credit for how smart and error-free defender he was during his prime. I also love Duncan comparison for him, as I see a lot of similarities between these two players on defense both in terms of style and physical profile (as well as coaching factor).
I may try to do some film breakdown for Ewing later, though I don't have a lot of time recently (working on editing games for other centers videos right now).
