dhsilv2 wrote:Back to Webber's defense, I know he got some criticisms over time, but as I pointed out in the prior thread, it seemed when he missed significant games or left teams, the team's defensive rating consistently went down. While on the kings they were among the best defenses in the league despite imo a poor defender at point guard and Peja imo at least wasn't that good. Now they had some good defensive pieces so it wasn't all time.
Divac was a widely underrated defensive center, imo, and was present in Sacramento all thru their elite seasons.
Doug Christie was probably one of the best perimeter defenders of his generation, present in Sacramento '01 thru part of '05 season. Bobby Jackson was a good perimeter defender, too (present in Sacramento '01-'05).
Scot Pollard was largely a defensive role player (present in Sacramento '99-'03).
Keon Clark was another defensive role player (on the Kings during '03).
Not suggesting Webber might not have been a contributor to their good defenses, but obviously there were quite a few pieces contributing to why they were good on defense; and Webber likely wasn't the most important piece. Also worth noting that arguably the defensive factor he can influence the most from the PF position is DREB%; and that was something the Kings were generally NOT good at: 22nd/29 in '01, 11th/29 in '02, 21st/29 in '03.
Regarding team DRtg's consistently getting worse when he left or missed games.......that's not exactly true:
'99 Bullets rDRTG gets worse by +2.0 upon Webber's departure, and he is indeed the only major roster change. So that's certainly a point in his favor.
The '99 Kings rDRTG gets better by -1.0 upon his arrival. However, he wasn't the only roster change; in fact, there was a lot of shake-up: they got rid of Mitch Richmond, Billy Owens, Olden Polynice, Anthony Johnson, and aging Otis Thorpe. And in addition to Webber, they also added Peja, Divac, Jason Williams, and aging Vernon Maxwell, also new coach Rick Adelman. So really, there's probably too much noise to award much credit to individuals there; certainly can't be taken as a point against his defensive presence, though.
In '00 he missed 7 games. Tiny sample size, but fwiw they were a 103.5 DRtg without him, 102.0 DRtg with him (-1.5 improvement associated with him). Their ORtg was marginally better (+0.9) with him, too.
In '01 he missed 12 games, and their defense was quite a bit better with him: 99.1 DRtg with him, 102.8 (+3.7) DRtg without him. Worth noting that their ORtg was
worse (-2.8) with him than without him, though.
In '02 we have a pretty good sample size, with Webber missing 28 games. Their DRtg was worse by +1.2
with Webber. Their ORtg was +3.6 with him, though. Not sure if these two seasons ('01 and '02)----where a substantial improvement on offense seems to come with a substantial decline on defense, and vice versa----reflects that he must preferentially focus his energies on one side of the ball at the expense of the other side???
In '03 he missed 15 games. Their DRtg was better by -2.4
without him. The ORtg was better with him, but only by +0.7.
More wrt his defense by way of scouting report......
I was watching a bit of this game:
.....I'll grade some defensive possessions on a scale of "poor", "fair/adequate", "good", or "excellent" (may occasionally reserve a grade of "atrocious" for especially bad plays), ignoring most plays he's not much involved with (assume "adequate" defense on those):
0:36 - Not sure how to grade his pnp defense here. His "help" on Nash is pretty weak/meaningless; however, one does obviously have to respect Dirk on the perimeter, and he keeps him shaded.
Grade: I suppose "Fair/Adequate" is appropriate here.
1:55 - Shades Nash to the sideline off the high screen; wouldn't have been able to recover to Dirk in time, but luckily Christie's got his back, rotating over. Webber doesn't recover Christie's man (Finley) on the weak side, rather just wanders to the paint/middle as the shot goes up. Does get the defensive rebound, though was frankly lucky it didn't bounce toward the weakside (where Finley was all alone).
Grade: "Fair/Adequate" overall (could argue it's somewhere between "Poor" and "Fair").
2:25 - After the offensive rebound and kick-out to Dirk (Webber's man), he's utterly lazy moving his feet (makes a very lame/lackadaisical gamble for a steal) allowing Dirk to literally blow right by him; Divac is forced to help, leaving LaFrenz wide open for a dunk on the nice dish from Nowitzki.
Grade: very obviously "Poor".
***NOTE: note the commentators talking about how the Kings don't want Webber on Nowitzki, and stating how they're going to miss Peja [injured]
on defense (they even joke about how often you'll hear that statement), because Peja does a better job guarding Dirk.
2:58 - Very next possession, Webber again somewhat lazy moving his feet and gets beat off the dribble in isolation by Nowitzki (he could have contested more physically on the shot, too). Nice help D at the rim by Divac saves him from getting scored on, and Divac secures the board.
Grade: Poor.
3:15 - Next possession, off the Dallas steal, he's a bit lazy hustling back in the transition D, allowing a brief "3-on-2" break (luckily Dirk misses the wide open 13' jumper).
Grade: Poor.
(4:25 - Webber's not really involved on this possession and doesn't do anything wrong, but I wanted to just point out how well Divac hedges off the pnr ball-handler, despite not having good lateral quickness)
5:34 - Cagey help defense on Dirk's baseline shot (might have even got a piece of it).
Grade: Good (though it's worth noting that at this stage of the game the Kings are "hiding" Webber defensively on Greg Buckner, and having Hedo Turkoglu guard Dirk--->it's consistent over the next few possessions, not just a switch or something).
6:40 - Nothing bad comes of it (luckily), but Webber utterly loses track of Finley in the corner and just sort of wanders into the paint area (I'm not sure if some of his bigger rebounding rates didn't come in this manner: at the expense of defense). If Van Exel had better vision, he could have found Finley for a wide open corner trey.
Grade: Poor.
7:20 - Again, note Webber is being "hidden" on Greg Buckner (Hedo guarding Dirk). Ball goes to Dirk on the baseline/elbow, and Webber completely loses track of Buckner, who cuts back-door, gets the easy bucket on the assist from Dirk. What is Webber doing here? He doesn't actually double-team Dirk, and he gets completely burned by Greg Buckner of all people. Literally the only thing possibly accomplished by what he was doing was discouraging Dirk from driving to the middle. He otherwise basically left his team defending 4 against 5.
Grade: obviously Poor (possibly even deserving of the aforementioned "Atrocious" grade).
11:55 - Note once again Webber is being hidden defensively, this time guarding Eduardo Najera. He doesn't do anything overtly poor here, but I did want to point out kinda weak box-outs. It's possibly illuminating (in light of all the criticisms that he "doesn't like to bang down low") that even someone of Najera's size appears able to push him around a little bit down low.
Grade: Fair/Adequate (to maybe slightly Poor).
14:08 - Webber is now being hidden on Adrian Griffin (at this point the Kings are quite blatantly hiding him on whomever happens to be the weakest offensive threat that the Mavs have on the court). He plays this possession adequately, though: doesn't contest Nash, but at least shades the play well enough to force a 20-foot pull-up, and then gets a nice box-out on Griffin.
Grade: Fair/Adequate (maybe even edging slightly toward "Good").
*****NOTE: Again perhaps telling of this criticism of not liking to bang down low--->we see on the following offensive possession Webber essentially fails to get an adequate post-up on Michael Finley (an obvious mis-match), who is also able on the box-out to push him out to ~15' from the hoop.
14:50 - Doug Christie comes over and picks off the attempted pass to a cutting LaFrenz, but Webber did see the play coming and had already rotated to help should the pass have been completed.
Grade: Good.
15:10 - Does a decent job cutting off the penetration by Adrian Griffin (though again:
it's Adrian Griffin). Later in the play, though Griffin makes the shot, Webber did an OK job closing out on the shooter.
Grade: Fair/Adequate.
15:45 - Webber, doesn't move his feet whatsoever, and again gets smoked by Dirk on the drive. And from a mental error standpoint [aside from the lazy effort on moving his feet], he also appears to overplay the middle (and allowing the baseline), which is a mental error because Turkoglu is standing
right there in the way of any drive toward the middle.
Grade: Poor (obviously).
16:40 - Kinda lazy coming back on defense, for a second effectively allows a 5-on-4 in the halfcourt; at any rate allows LaFrenz to slip underneath into rebounding position (it's actually Dirk who gets the offensive rebound, though). He finds himself on Dirk after the OReb, and then on the subsequent shot allows Dirk to get inside position for the rebound (didn't matter, as the shot was made anyway, but still).
Grade: Poor.
19:00 - NOTE: Again note Divac's ability to hedge the pnr ball-handler, despite his poor lateral quickness. Guy was a really savvy player (on both ends). Webber's not much involved in this play, though he has rotated over to the rolling Shawn Bradley until Divac can recover (after hedging Nash), and he's still there to play the passing lane and/or contest the shot had the ball been kicked to LaFrenz in the corner.
Grade: Fair-to-Good.
20:10 - It's his man who gets the open 15-footer here, but I don't consider this a bad possession. He'd sort of semi-rotated momentarily to help on a cutting Greg Buckner near the baseline, and then got an OK box-out on Shawn Bradley (whom Divac had left, also to help on the Buckner); Divac was in the better position to rotate out and contest LaFrenz.
Grade: Fair/Adequate.
21:35 - Webber double-teams on Greg Buckner......which might seem like a bit of a wtf move, but probably is reasonable in this instance, since Buckner had the ball in the post against the much smaller Mike Bibby. Webber's double-team is sort of weaksauce, however, and as often appears the case [in this game, at least] his movement toward recovering his man [or someone's man] is sort of slow/lackadaisical. He actually recovers Shawn Bradley (Divac's man) because Bradley was closer, leaving Divac to recover LaFrenz (and without much communication, as far as I can tell, though obv I could be wrong; can't hear everything they say or don't say on the court); Divac is smart enough to quickly recognize and respond, though. Generally speaking, fwiw, Divac is MUCH more active defensively than Webber.
Grade: Fair/Adequate.
22:50 - You can see Webber once again completely loses track of his man (LaFrenz) who slips back-door on him. Nothing comes of it (other than LaFrenz would have had inside position had the shot been missed), but obviously this is a bad play.
Grade: Poor.
24:15 - Reasonable hustle back on defense, and contests the buzzer-beater play.
Grade: Good (or at least Fair-to-Good).
And that just covers part of a single half of basketball (this is not the FULL game), but already no fewer than 8 "Poor" defensive possessions for Webber (including one that might even be the dreaded "Atrocious"); only 3-4 "Good" plays to counter-balance that, with the rest being merely "adequate".
Now I'm not trying to draw far-reaching conclusions about Webber's defense [that it's bad] throughout his prime, based on what happened in a single half of a single game. However, this is perhaps illustrative of a criticism penbeast0 had made: that his defense was, at best, inconsistent.
He's certainly capable of good defense, and occasionally shows it. But as is seen in this game, there are more than a handful of defensive possessions where he clearly just does not give a crap; he's just biding his time until they're back on offense.
I'll save further discussion about Webber for future threads.
"The fact that a proposition is absurd has never hindered those who wish to believe it." -Edward Rutherfurd
"Those who can make you believe absurdities, can make you commit atrocities." - Voltaire
