dygaction wrote:Doctor MJ wrote:dygaction wrote:
Except KG was not as good as Duncan and defense just does not carry the same weight as offense in current nba. Rudy Gobert, this season's DPoY and 4x total, can become unplayable depending on matchups.
Edwards is certainly just not scoring more, he is scroing 29.8ppg on 51/40/83 shooting or .633TS% over 19 career playoff games, with 24.8PER and 8.5BPM. In addition, his defense 1.5s/1.3b as a guard is elite.
Re: KG not as good as Duncan. In your opinion, not everyone's. I would consider KG to be the more capable defender as well as more capable shooter and passer. Duncan by contrast was better at volume post scoring.
Re: Gobert. Slower, dumber, and mentally weaker than KG while also being far worse on offense.
But you're certainly right that we'd expect that it's possible for top offense to top top defense in today's game and maybe that will end up with Ant getting the nod over KG as the better all around player for today's game. In which case he'd also be better than Duncan and Kobe in my assessment.
... Sounds like Duncan has been reduced to a one-trick volume-post-scoring pony. Like you have been fancinated with Luka's +/- are bad, have you wondered why TWolves defense were never really good over the 12 years KG was there, not a single season top 5? A great offensive player can almost garantee you a top 5 offense as shown by Luka, Harden, Nash, Jokic...
Also is it garanteed that KG would transfer to today and be a better defender than a proven morden ball 4x DPoY, who is taller, stronger, has longer wingspan, and led the top 5 best defense multiple times including this years' #1?
Re: Duncan one-trick volume post-scoring pony. Not at all. Defense was what made Duncan great and the Spurs were at their best not trying to win based on volume post-scoring. It just so happens that volume post-scoring was what Duncan did better than KG, and his team won titles with that strategy, so people came to believe Duncan was a qualitatively higher tier player than Garnett.
Re: have you wondered why... Yes, there's nothing you bring up that hasn't been talked about many times before. Doesn't mean the opinions of those doing the talking were right, but the thing to understand from the start is that you're not actually thinking of something off the top of your head that the never occurred to a community full of people that's been around for many, many years.
Re: easier to make great offense around a great offensive player than a great defense around a great defensive player. In the modern game that's absolutely the case. Wasn't true back in the '60s which was why the league belonged to Bill Russell back then, but by the time Duncan & KG roll around, individual offense has more capacity for impact than individual defense.
Re: Is it guaranteed that KG would be better on defense than Gobert? In my opinion, yes. I mean I consider Draymond Green to be the top defender of the current era despite being much less physically talented as a defender compared to Gobert. Imagine if Green actually has world class physical talent and you get KG.
To your other points:
- Taller, stronger, longer. Important thing to understand here is that stronger and slower generally goes together. Stronger is an advantage in defending post-scorers, but it's a disadvantage on help defense, and help defense is what makes big men the anchor of team defense.
This is why I've long said that while the ideal physical frame for a big on offense may well be Shaq, the ideal for defense is Russell. Stout vs svelte. And while one might thing that being svelte is a problem because you can be exploited by brute force bigs volume scoring, NBA history is pretty clear that this isn't what's going to get you the highest performing offense. Shaq's Lakers are something of an exception to this relative to their rivals, but even they weren't really up their with the top offensive dynasties of all-time.
- Led top defenses. So did KG in Boston. Neither can do it with poor defensive teammates in poor defensive schemes because literally no one can, but we saw KG emerge as the clear cut most effective defender in the world in Boston despite him being past his physical peak. It was stunning.