Gomes3PC wrote:ryaningf wrote:greenroom31 wrote:
That supposes that the difference in mass between most players will be less significant (as a %) than the difference in acceleration between most players. Seems plausible but not necessarily true. In any event, it certainly contradicts your point above that "weight is just not an important consideration". Weight matters, it might matter somewhat less than acceleration, but it definitely matters if you want to discuss force.
Unless you're anorexic or overweight, weight is almost never a concern. Basketball is a game of speed.
You need to step off the physics for a second. What I'm saying is that on the basketball court playing basketball things like angles, footwork, quickness, anticipation, intelligence are more decisive in deciding things like rebounds, box outs, post defense (areas where strength comes into play) than pure strength. If you can master those concepts, you can be effective and play with force even if you're skinny or lack muscular definition. If you've studied martial arts, you'll know that the key to that art is not brute strength but refining your ability to redirect energy to create force that's greater than something you could create in isolation (you redirect your opponent's force back at them). That's what the best players do too...
A focus on muscles, strength, and physique is generally misguided in the realm of scouting (this is one of my major gripes with Danny). Jaylen Brown's body is much more refined and muscular than Ingram's but both guys are pretty clueless when it comes to using what they have in an intelligent manner in order to generate any significant force so in fact they're both equally "weak" even though one guys looks buff and the other guy look skinny.
Speed matters but strength is absolutely essential in halfcourt, playoff basketball. There's a reason a guy like Marcus Smart has gotten critical minutes despite a clear lack of explosion. He's built like a tank and that allows him to win rebounding battles and fight through screens/post-up's/etc.
Marcus is incredibly strong (if I remember correctly he benched 185 33 times at the combine...that's insane) but pure strength is like less than 10% of what makes him a great defender. Anticipation, tenacity, mindset, toughness, great hands and feet are much more important traits. I guess what I'm saying is that Marcus would be a great defender even if like Durant he couldn't bench press 185 even one time. Strength is a tool in the toolbox but you can succeed without having a bunch of it too.
The lack of explosion is a problem on the offensive end but not defensively IMO. Boxing guys out and standing them up when they try to back you down can be a matter of pure strength, but only if you play it like that (and for big muscle bound guys, that's exactly how they play it). But smart defenders like Marcus use leverage to get lower (low man wins), and also tend to hit first and not allow their opponent to get a good position in the first place. So they take the battle from the plane of pure strength to something that allows more gamesmanship.
We all remember when Marcus played a great 4th quarter against Millsap in last years playoff when no other player on our team could guard Millsap. But what Marcus did was more psychological than anything else. Millsap saw that they put a guard on him and thought like all bigs that I'll just take him in the post and get an easy look. But that was exactly what Smart wanted, and by bodying him before he got the ball, and then getting lower when he started to back him down, he forced him into bad off-balance shots (this happens all the time when guys try to post IT too). A smarter player than Millsap would have seen the same scenario and simply isolated against him on the perimeter. Marcus' height disadvantage was actually more detrimental on the perimeter than the interior (it's counterintuitive, I know) because on the perimeter you can easily free your shooting hand for an uncontested shot with a few dribbles moves and countermoves but if you back a smart defender like Marcus down he's going to sap your power, limit your force (because there's no acceleration in close quarters) and be right against your body for every shot you take.
The leaks are real...the news is fake.
I'm just here for the memes.