a8bil wrote:Dunn is already a great defender. Only needs to develop his offensive game a bit more to surpass Kemba. In the real world, 2-way players are more valuable than good offensive players.
It depends. How good of a defender that two-way player is? Is he an elite defender that can stop the best of the best or is he simply someone that can do a good job at defending his position? The first is definitely very valuable but it's also not very common.
It also depends on how good the offensive player in question is. If the offensive player is absolutely elite at it then the two-way player would have to be an absolutely elite defender to compare.
I think that the best way to illustrate this is Paul George vs James Harden. Paul George is an amazing two-way player. He is an absolutely elite defender that can stop the best of the best. He is actually one of the few players in the league that has consistently limited James Harden. On top of that, he's also a 20+ PPG scorer.
James Harden is a 25+ PPG scorer. This season, he is a 30+ PPG scorer. He is also an amazing playmaker. He was the assist leader last season when he averaged 11.2 APG. He is at 9 APG this season.
Earlier in his career, James Harden was loafing it up defensively. He didn't give a lot of effort and he allowed far too many easy baskets. He also wasn't as good of a playmaker as he is right now. He was still better than George but the margin wasn't huge. People back then could claim that Paul George was better than James Harden. It wasn't a very popular opinion but there was some merit to it especially when they went head-to-head. But now? This argument cannot really be made anymore. And it cannot be made because Harden has become an elite playmaker and he's no longer a defensive liability. He's just average defensively now.
The argument as a whole also depends on the position. It's different if you are a Center. Centers are expected to be good defensively because if they aren't then teams can take advantage of that. You cannot really hide a Center's bad defense unless you have a PF that can do what a Center would normally do (protect the rim). It's much easier to hide a wing defensively than it is to hide a Center.