Dannyboy36 wrote:DarkAzcura wrote:Green89 wrote:
Unfortunately, evidence of Celtics fans overrating his defense can be seen in the fact has not made an all defensive team yet. I too like his defensive tenacity and when he gets the rest of the team to buy into his grit. You can't put a measurement on that. However, his offensive shortcomings make it too easy to exploit by other teams. They doubled IT last year and they'll double Kyrie each time they share the floor.
The other thing I don't like is because Brad loves his defensive effort, he gives him the green light too often and needs to reel him in at times. Brad gives everyone the green light and maybe his being too soft with that is part of the problem. I don't care that we lost Hayward's double digit attempts per game, Smart has no business taking 16 shots in any Celtics game. He's not talented enough offensively to do that.
Defensive teams mean absolutely nothing. Avery Bradley made a couple of them despite Smart being a much better defender in my opinion. Kobe used to make them in his sleep and he barely tried on defense for the second half of his career. It's all reputation and sometimes feels more like a reward for who the best two way players are rather than defender.
I really have no reason to be biased towards Bradley or Smart either since they were both Celtics when Bradley got on that team. To me Bradley was actually the one who made a few pesky defensive plays every now and then and got completely overrated for it. I trusted Smart possession to possession way more defensively. It also has something to do with me valuing team defenders (Smart) much more than one on one defenders (Bradley).
Smart better defender than Bradley? Yikes. Gotta strongly disagree there. But I’d say more than half of Boston sports fans I’ve talked to agree with you.
Smart makes plays I’ve barely ever seen, but then can’t stay with quick point guards. Bradley to me is as good as it gets at that, pretty much. I think 1 game where Paul Milsap forgot he could just turn and shoot over Smart every time gets stuck in many peoples heads and then it became “ “Marcus Smart can guard 1-4. “ But I’d disagree. I’m in the minority though so ...
Stopping quick guards may be one of the more meh things in the NBA right now. Even the best defenders of the modern point guard get lit up and that includes Bradley. I’ll take the guy who plays team defense at what seems like an elite level and has successfully switched onto players ranging from 1-4. Bradley’s primary value as a defender is against quick guards as you stated, but I find very little value in that.
Also, I have a feeling Smart will be staying with quicker guards much better this season anyway because of the weight loss.