moocow007 wrote:nykballa2k4 wrote:knicksh20b wrote:
He plays center and can't play help defense...that's a liability.
moocow007 wrote:
He is a liability on defense. He has slow feet and poor reaction time which doesn't help him on the defensive end. Go ask Piston fans about his defense. The reason why the Pistons are not willing to go anywhere near big bucks for him is because of his defense.
All of this is true of him playing power forward. As for the help defense comment, that is hyperbole again. He is not a defensive force, but he is not a liability. It is not like he Avi Lee's it or is like Amare and just doesnt pay attention. He can stand straight at 7 feet, just dont expect him to jump and have long arms...
Monroe is defensively like Andrea Bargnani. He's fine enough man to man but he has no feel for help defense (which in and of itself is surprising since he played at Georgetown, traditionally home of some of the best defensive centers in modern NBA history). Bargnani would be considered by most to be a defensive liability. Monroe being better than Bargnani offensively wouldn't change what he is defensively.
As far as Monroe as a PF? The problem with that is that he has slow feet. He'd have a harder time guarding PF"s than he would C's. The more he has to roam defensively, the uglier things get. Basically, again, like Bargnani (and Bargnani has quicker feet than Monroe). You would need an extremely mobile help defender at PF to pair with him (while plugging him at C defensively) to offset his defensive inadequacies. It's what the Pistons have been trying to do with Drummond (who basically plays the PF role when he's on the floor with Monroe at the same time).
In addition, we have nobody even remotely close to Andre Drummond, and it looks like the Pistons might even have Monroe start the game on the bench. I'm not surprised Monroe and Drummond haven't exactly taken the world by storm. The game offensively is about spreading the floor and doing damage, and the game defensively is not about individual 1 on 1 defense, but team defense that relies on your bigs being mobile and able to guard the paint without incurring 3 second violations, while stopping threes. Greg Monroe is a liability in both aspects. I don't want Monroe shooting jumpers for my team. It reminds me of those past Knick teams where Jerome Williams would get open mid-range jumpers. I don't want Greg Monroe to be the primary paint defender for our team, either. It'll just mean open lay-ups all day.
So what does that mean? It means if we want Greg Monroe to operate the paint area for us, without clogging the whole thing for Carmelo Anthony, we need to get a shooter at PF to spread the floor. And if we want Greg Monroe to play 1 on 1 defense and not have us scream at him every time Brandon Jennings drives to the paint (I'm just putting my nightmare scenario out there), then we need a good help defender to erase those mistakes. There aren't that many players in the league that can fulfill both roles, and I've said this many times without getting good responses. Ibaka. Horford (coming off an injury). Anthony Davis (who does damage in the paint too). We could always sign a shooter (a Thad Young type) that will kill our defense at PF. We can also sign a center, but we're not going to sign anyone better than Drummond at this point. In fact, I imagine Monroe would have a hard time co-existing with Dwight Howard.
If we really wanted a big in the vein of Monroe, we should probably go for Marc. He has a mid range shot and he plays good defense. Anything else beyond that is gravy. In this case, it's a lot of gravy.
