jcsunsfan wrote:AtheJ415 wrote:lilfishi22 wrote:About a month into the season Ayton's rim protection was the worst at .70DFG%. It's come down to about 65% which isn't good but it's improving. At this point, I'll take any improvement
I think the bigger key is that it is steadily improving without any regression. That means there is real hope his D won't be a negative fairly quickly.
As the whole team improves defensively, this will get better.
We have some good defensvie pieces on the roster. The problem really is that Ayton likely won't be an elite rim protector (not saying he can't be but it's not likely), Warren is 25 and hasn't proven to be a good defender and of course Booker who probably won't ever be a positive defender. When you have those 3 guys out there, it's tough to have a good defense. I'm not sure if Bridges, JJ and Melton is enough.
I think filling that PF position is going to be an interesting task. That position likely has the 2nd biggest potential to change the defense of a team (behind the 5) so IF we end up with Zion for example and we play him with Ayton, we might actually look decent defensively because Zion is a guy that can cover a lot of mistakes.