Ducklett wrote:Yall already turning on Bamba? And Isaac too as of a few games ago. I can't keep up with this forum anymore.
First of all, like I've said numerous times, I acknowledge that his defense looks very much like a rookie. He'll have plays where he'll block a shot and we go "MO BAMBA" but more often than not, hes making rookie mistakes. That being said, I think our standards for interior defense have become unrealistic over the years. We've complained about Vuc so much and how little resistance he offered (he's been better this year, so don't come at me, Vuc people) and we got desperate for good interior defense. Ibaka and Biyombo came along and we really hyped ourselves up on it, making ourselves believe that it was going to be impossible to score on them. Finally, great interior defense! But then that team was very disjointed and it didn't work. Biyombo couldn't cover the entire opposing team on pick and rolls with DJ, and his smaller height does let him down sometimes. Ibaka was never really engaged. We traded Ibaka, but as time went on with Biyombo, people started calling him a terrible defender. Which wasn't really accurate, but at that point, it was "block and change every shot and never get scored on" or bust. And I think we're kinda still in that mode with how we evaluate a big man who's supposed to be a good rim protector. "What, he got scored on? Trash."