Kolkmania wrote:Duke4life831 wrote:Kolkmania wrote:
I do think that Bagley's feet are better than he showed this year, but his technique isn't good at this point. You can see in the clip above when he's defending 7 footer McGee that he opens up way too quick, providing driving lanes. NBA coaching will learn him a ton though.
Think that defense can be separated in two categories, one-on-one defense and team defense. He has the potential to be really good in the former category, but I've seen so many mental lapses this season that I'm really worried about the latter.
I definitely think he can improve technique wise defensively. And again I find it very hard to judge a players awareness while playing man defense for K. Again to me the majority of the time it looks like 5 chickens running around with their heads cut off. He definitely had lapses for sure, but I didnt think he was a bad defender for a freshman. If I were to rank Duke's best defenders in man it wouldve been
1. Duval
2. Bagley
3. Grayon
4. Trent
5. Carter
I thought he moved his feet very well, and was solid on his rotations (again had his lapses and missed rotations). A lot of the time it was Bagley trying to cover his man then running over to help Carter who missed a rotation. This is one of the things I dont get, Carter was by far the worse defender in man, but I think people see a high DBPM and blocks and think that he was a stud defender. It was Carter who got benched multiple times throughout the year for his defense, not Bagley.
And I want to always clarify this when I defend Bagley's defense. I am in no way saying I think hes going to be an elite defender. I dont think hes ever going to be considered a DPOY or considered for an all defense team. But I think in today's game of versatility and switching, I think he will be a good defender. He wont hurt you defensively, you wont have to sub him out late in game on offensive and defensive subs. He's going to be a solid defender that can guard out on the perimeter really well for his size.
I agree with you for the most part, in the right scheme I do think he could be a valuable defender. Can you tell some games this year where Bagley's switchability was on full display?
The Pitt game is one that I recall. Here is a solid breakdown of his game.
A few things with it though in this video. You really see the flaws of K's defensive system in this.
4:05. This entire possession is whats wrong with K's system. First thing is you see Duval try to guard his man off the ball 30+ feet from the basket. At 4:13 Wendell Carter is guarding Brown (#21) like he is Steph Curry, but Brown made 3 3s all year, he is no threat at all as a shooter. Then you see them run a PnR, Carter is supposed to hedge then run back. Marvin and Grayson were expecting to guard the pick man long enough for Wendell to hedge then get back. But Wendell hesitates then decides to switch, this then puts Grayson and Bagley in a weird situation but Grayson did the smart thing and continued to guard the roll man.
This is kind of whats wrong with K's system in a nutshell. You have your guards, chasing guys 30+ feet from the basket, you have bigs guarding non shooters 25 feet away, guys that arent supposed to switch on PnR but to hedge then run back. All this together causes havoc for the defense and all it takes is one mistake like Carter here to switch instead of hedge and the defense fell apart.
5:30. This wasnt Bagley getting lost on defense. Not saying he doesnt get lost but this wasnt one of those times. This was actually all on Trent, this happened a lot. The entire team would play zone then Trent would kind of forget and play this half man half zone. This usually ended up with Bagley having to run across the court to try and cover both corners. Trent is supposed to run into the far corner after the missed shot at 5:35 and Bagley is supposed to be guarding the close corner. But you see Trent kind of just go blank and stand there and not know what to do. You see Grayson yelling at someone to get in the corner. Bagley runs over there and Trent then starts playing man. He then leaves the corner on his side and starts playing man on the ball and leaves the corner on his side wide open. Bagley then tries to tell Carter to sag down to cover Trent's 2nd mistake, Carter doesnt move and Bagley has to run all the way back over. You can even hear the announcer questioning if they went to man on the trip before, they didnt. It was only Trent who went man. Trent did this a lot where he would just forget theyre playing zone and it collapsed the zone and made guys like Grayson and Bagley run around trying to cover for him.
