Underrated Defensive Guards?

[Richfield]

Rondo: He can still be plucky in an isolation, but Rondo does way too much standing around not caring...

I think my point is I'd like to see him back in the playoffs where it matters. As with the Pelicans when they made that run with AD and Boogie, he brought it, and led with it. It's not left in Boston. He still has it, just getting old and needs a situation where he knows guys have his back. That's definitely wasn't LA last year.

Kyrie: He loves to dig in on an important play, but he's prone to laziness and getting back cut.

I think we agree on Kyrie. On motor, Laziness. It's those important plays where he's underrated. However I was unaware he asked to guard Giannis, that's just silly. He had an overinflated view of himself in Boston unfortunately.

I agree about Liggins, though teams recognize his defensive utility, but still decide they can't really play him much.

Almost worth a roster spot if you know you're going to play Curry in the playoffs, even for 5-10 minutes per game.

I feel like your scouting reports are a few years out of date, and they focus too much on these guys ability to stop an iso.

Stopping isos is part of what this thread is about. Team D is great, and important, but guys get switched into ISO situations constantly.

Not sure what JR is up to these days, but his defense was underrated in his prime. His last 2 years in Cleveland less so.

Well he didn't play last year at all, so.. yeah. I think we're talking about ability here. It's not so much about recent circumstances. If you're combing through defensive stats, you're going to disagree with the guys I mentioned, obviously. That's part of what they're underrated.

The guys you mentioned:

Josh Okogie, Josh Richardson, Delon Wright, Norm Powell, Derrick White, Gary Harris, Danny Green, Malcolm Brogdon, Cory Joseph, Ricky Rubio, Dejounte Murray

All seem pretty obvious. I don't think they're underrated, everybody knows these are great defenders.

[pootbrah]

Bruce Brown. He kinda doesn't belong here because he's only known for his defense, but he kind of does belong here because nobody knows who he is.

Bruce Bowen retired 10 years ago

[pootbrah]

Royce O’neale is pretty damn good. Especially at his price tag.

Isn't he more a combo forward or am I just assuming based off his size (lol googled him and I thought he was 6'9" not 6'6", I swear he looks big on court)? Anyway, always super impressed by this dude whenever I watch the Jazz and I watch the Jazz often because of Gobert, Jingles and Dante. He steps up in the playoffs too. Would happily swap him for any of our 3/4s on Blazers.

[cupcakesnake]

Rondo: He can still be plucky in an isolation, but Rondo does way too much standing around not caring...

I think my point is I'd like to see him back in the playoffs where it matters. As with the Pelicans when they made that run with AD and Boogie, he brought it, and led with it. It's not left in Boston. He still has it, just getting old and needs a situation where he knows guys have his back. That's definitely wasn't LA last year.

Kyrie: He loves to dig in on an important play, but he's prone to laziness and getting back cut.

I think we agree on Kyrie. On motor, Laziness. It's those important plays where he's underrated. However I was unaware he asked to guard Giannis, that's just silly. He had an overinflated view of himself in Boston unfortunately.

I agree about Liggins, though teams recognize his defensive utility, but still decide they can't really play him much.

Almost worth a roster spot if you know you're going to play Curry in the playoffs, even for 5-10 minutes per game.

I feel like your scouting reports are a few years out of date, and they focus too much on these guys ability to stop an iso.

Stopping isos is part of what this thread is about. Team D is great, and important, but guys get switched into ISO situations constantly.

Not sure what JR is up to these days, but his defense was underrated in his prime. His last 2 years in Cleveland less so.

Well he didn't play last year at all, so.. yeah. I think we're talking about ability here. It's not so much about recent circumstances. If you're combing through defensive stats, you're going to disagree with the guys I mentioned, obviously. That's part of what they're underrated.

The guys you mentioned:

Josh Okogie, Josh Richardson, Delon Wright, Norm Powell, Derrick White, Gary Harris, Danny Green, Malcolm Brogdon, Cory Joseph, Ricky Rubio, Dejounte Murray

All seem pretty obvious. I don't think they're underrated, everybody knows these are great defenders.

I agree with your elaborations. Not so much on Rondo, I think he's been dropping off as a defender since he hit 25 or 26 years old. Context obviously matters, and I'd love to see him prove me wrong because he's a hell of a competitor, he probably just wont get a chance as a 32 year old.

I point out iso defense because for perimeter/guard defenders, iso defense is the only thing anyone notices. But there have been a ton of guys who can dig in and get a stop, who are harmful to their teams defense. Defense is about focus and effort combined with your physical tools. Constantly rotating, court awareness, reacting quickly and execution of team schemes is way more important than iso defense imho. I know so many players at every level who don't have the physical tools to shut people down, but always help a defense because they move and pay attention. James Harden for a couple possessions can shut almost anyone down, but he barely plays defense for the whole game and either over helps or doesn't help at all and so he's a bad defender. Lebron got so much hype for shutting down D-Rose in crunch time against the Bulls, but that alone didn't make Lebron a useful defender, and now it's his awful team defense that is starting to make headlines. Kobe made all-defense teams year after year by playing a few possessions of shutdown perimeter defense, and only cool heads knew what a garbage defender he was (he made all-defense over Artest when they played together somehow...). It's because we're all watching the guy who's guarding the ball, so dudes defensive reputations live and die by those possessions.

The guys I mentioned are pretty obvious, but on a board/thread like this (or with most fans in general), almost every defender is underrated/not known about. Defense generally goes unnoticed, even with som basketball diehards. Every year when the all-defense voting comes out, you can look up and down the list of who got votes and quickly realize: wow NO ONE pays attention to defense at all. Maybe 5% of fans and 20% of paid journalists have any idea what's going on on that end.

[Dr_Heat]

Dion “ freaking “ Waiters

[Richfield]

I agree with your elaborations. Not so much on Rondo, I think he's been dropping off as a defender since he hit 25 or 26 years old. Context obviously matters, and I'd love to see him prove me wrong because he's a hell of a competitor, he probably just wont get a chance as a 32 year old.

I point out iso defense because for perimeter/guard defenders, iso defense is the only thing anyone notices. But there have been a ton of guys who can dig in and get a stop, who are harmful to their teams defense. Defense is about focus and effort combined with your physical tools. Constantly rotating, court awareness, reacting quickly and execution of team schemes is way more important than iso defense imho. I know so many players at every level who don't have the physical tools to shut people down, but always help a defense because they move and pay attention. James Harden for a couple possessions can shut almost anyone down, but he barely plays defense for the whole game and either over helps or doesn't help at all and so he's a bad defender. Lebron got so much hype for shutting down D-Rose in crunch time against the Bulls, but that alone didn't make Lebron a useful defender, and now it's his awful team defense that is starting to make headlines. Kobe made all-defense teams year after year by playing a few possessions of shutdown perimeter defense, and only cool heads knew what a garbage defender he was (he made all-defense over Artest when they played together somehow...). It's because we're all watching the guy who's guarding the ball, so dudes defensive reputations live and die by those possessions.

The guys I mentioned are pretty obvious, but on a board/thread like this (or with most fans in general), almost every defender is underrated/not known about. Defense generally goes unnoticed, even with som basketball diehards. Every year when the all-defense voting comes out, you can look up and down the list of who got votes and quickly realize: wow NO ONE pays attention to defense at all. Maybe 5% of fans and 20% of paid journalists have any idea what's going on on that end.

Wow I agree bigtime on LeBron, well said. Not getting back on D for the first half of the season, sometimes longer, there's no excuse for that, so it bugs me all that greatest in world talk, when Kawhi and others are out there doing it every night.. Defense is half the game. Not just a couple plays. You make good points about the entirety of the game, I totally agree.

I think we both love good defense and it's importance. And we may have read the question a little differently. I was talking about guys who people in forums say "can't" play defense, when in fact they can, and do at key times. But I agree that's not enough. I think you were mentioning guys who are clearly great defenders, but maybe they're underrated either in the value of defense in general, or maybe you feel some other part of their game is underrated, making them underrated "defensive guards". My interpretation was a little twisted up I have to admit, as I was thinking guards whose ability to play defense gets underrated, often because of bad habits or circumstances, and in JR's case, people just don't like the guy, so they'll define him in inaccurate ways.

[Daddy 801]

Royce O’neale is pretty damn good. Especially at his price tag.

Isn't he more a combo forward or am I just assuming based off his size (lol googled him and I thought he was 6'9" not 6'6", I swear he looks big on court)? Anyway, always super impressed by this dude whenever I watch the Jazz and I watch the Jazz often because of Gobert, Jingles and Dante. He steps up in the playoffs too. Would happily swap him for any of our 3/4s on Blazers.

He plays bigger than he is. I’ve seen him guard 1-4. Not saying he can guard the big 4’s on an elite level, but he is pretty damn strong. I think he is going to see a much larger role this next season with the Jazz. I think he ends up in the starting lineup. Conley, Donovan, Royce, Favs ( or free agent), Gobert with Ingles being the first man off the bench.

[AZNKidd]

Bruce Brown. He kinda doesn't belong here because he's only known for his defense, but he kind of does belong here because nobody knows who he is.

Bruce Bowen retired 10 years ago

Might as well throw in Ruben Patterson.

[pad300]

Bruce Brown. He kinda doesn't belong here because he's only known for his defense, but he kind of does belong here because nobody knows who he is.

Bruce Bowen retired 10 years ago

Might as well throw in Ruben Patterson.

More to the point though,

https://www.basketball-reference.com/players/b/brownbr01.html

He's so underrated that people can't be bothered to look things up before opening their mouths and looking stupid...

[pootbrah]

This was obviously sarcasm

Sent from my Pixel 2 XL using RealGM mobile app

[johanliebert]

darren collison.