Red Larrivee wrote:-= original quote snipped =-
Are we talking about the whole team here or Ben Wallace? Because either way everybody on this team does the exact same things that you just listed.
There hasn't been one good defender on this team all season. I know this board is in full go with the "Ben Wallace is the reason for all the problems" movement, but it's really unfair to pin the whole teams problems on him, when everyone is doing the exact same thing.
Ben Wallace is one of the worst at all these. Miller and Aldridge and others score easily because he refuses to chase them out to the perimeter. He won't even be within 10 feet of them as they drain shots. Most of his rebounds are gimmes, he doesn't box out and gets less tough, in traffic rebounds than Gray/Noah/Thomas. He doesn't challenge guards driving to the basket. Our scheme relies on funneling the penetrator towards the big men, and Wallace just steps aside.
Nocioni and Gordon aren't good defensively either, Deng and Hinrich have both taken a step back, but these guys also rely on the scheme (and thus the big behind them) to stop their men (they also contribute on the other end of the floor). They can't rely on Wallace and it's breaking the whole scheme. He also stopped us from fronting the post all the time. Instead of fronting the post and doubling from the weakside (which allowed time for everyone to rotate), we send it from a guard on the strongside, leaving a 3 pt shooter wide open without people rotating and an easy pass away to the point even the worst passing big men can get an assist out of it.
Wallace has 2 jobs: rebound and defend. He needs to do both very well to make up for how bad he is offensively. He doesn't do either well at all, and his offense is getting worse. On top of that, we have to include him in the offense to feed his ego. He'd give even less effort if we didn't let him shoot and set picks (half of his shots are so bad they should just count as turnovers) that hurt the team as a whole. And when one of our guards actually does drive and break down the D (a real rarity), they have Ben Wallace to pass to. He can't dunk, he airballs layups, and if he's fouled, we're lucky to get a point outta the pair of free throws.
Wallace isn't the only problem with this team. We wouldn't be a 50 win team if we dumped him, but we sure as hell wouldn't be 8 games under .500. Hinrich, Deng, and Gordon need to pull their heads outta their asses, Nocioni has to learn to pass and give less help D, Tyrus needs to be consistent, Duhon needs to go home, and the coaching staff needs to be replaced (the rotation and sets are the same as the Skiles era, and those were the main problems with Skiles). However, Wallace is the biggest problem. He kills us on offense, on defense, in the locker room, and is stopping us from developing our only hope for the future. The coaching staff needs to open their ****in eyes and realize that playing Wallace more isn't the solution; forcing him to ride the pine is step one. The entitlement minutes he gets are nauseating. The lack of effort he gives, his flat out suckiness, and matador defense are all inexcusable. Yet he gets a by and younger, better, more enthusiastic players are constantly being singled out every time they make a mistake. He's a disgrace to the jersey.
