trex_8063 wrote:OK, have it chaps.
I somewhat expect Wilt to run away with this one, but who knows? Maybe Magic, Shaq, or Hakeem will suddenly emerge as serious competition. Personally, I'm flip-flopping between Wilt and Shaq for this spot (though can see a nice case for Magic as well).
As a general question to all: how do you feel about Magic's defense?
His defense varied greatly. In the 1980 finals it was atrocious as he regularly lost his man, couldn't close out quickly enough, and was beat off the dribble. All this made it quite surprising to watch the 1983 finals and see Magic had become a positive defender. At this stage in his career, Magic had good hands and decent feet, so he got more deflections and drew more charges than your typical player. I've just started adding the possessions from the 1983 finals to "database", so while it's not the full game, you can watch his defense from the first half of G4 of the 1983 Finals. The good and the bad:
As you can see, he has a lot of good help rotations, but also several mistakes. His worst plays were letting Dr. J get an easy lob and and not getting back in transition after arguing with the ref. Magic also was beat off the dribble by Dr. J, though a lot of players would have been blown by, and he had a miscommunication with Landsberger while defending the PnR. It looked like Magic thought they would switch but Landsberger didn't. Otherwise, Magic's help forced Moses into a couple misses and stopped some drives and cuts to the basket. He did a fair job at contesting too.
He defended similarly in the 1988 playoffs, though he was slower, partially because he had a bad groin injury. So, he was still a capable help defender later in his career, but you didn't want him guarding a quick, smaller player.
In many games, Magic's defense can be hard to evaluate, since the Lakers overhelped and Magic was often the designated trapper. This led to a lot of situations where Magic had to closeout hard on spot up shooters or switch onto smaller players. In both situations the offense could usually take advantage of Magic's lateral speed. In the '83 and '88 finals the Lakers seemed more restrained with their help defense and Magic looks better as a result.
