Minnesota Sports Forum

When it comes to defense. Your either considered an elite defender or a bad defender. There's never a middle ground. It also seems if you get branded as a defensive player in college, you'll automatically be consider a good defender in the NBA. Case in point with Dieng. He was a defensive guy coming out of college, and people thought our D was so much better with him instead of Pek. None of our numbers changed without him, and he didn't avg a block a game, despite being considered a shot blocker.

Same thing goes if you get the bad defender label, there's nothing you can do to be looked at as different. I thought Love made pretty big strides in his D this year, but he'll always be known as a bad defender

Fact is defense is much more to do with schemes then actual individual D. With pick and rolls, screens, switches players having certain roles ect, a player hardly plays one on one iso ball. Warriors were a great defensive team with the likes of Lee and Curry. Big Al was considered a horrible defender, yet the Bobcats had one of the best defenses in the league.

Wiggins is being hailed as a elite defender coming into the NBA without having played a single minute. He'll get known as a defensive player for his entire career no matter what he does

He has length and athleticism on top of actually being a good defender in college. The only tool he doesn't have at this point is strength. Guys who actually try on defense in college usually don't give up on that end in the pros and he has almost every tool to be successful on that end coming into the league.

Defense is a much more difficult element to assess then offense, and I agree that some players live off of reputations for many years. I also agree that schemes have a lot to do with defensive success. But equally important are physical gifts and desire, and this is where Love falls short. Like Pek, he is able to use his size to keep his man away from the basket, but his aversion to fouling holds him back sometimes. And his overall lack of athleticism is also a factor in his sub-par defense. But the biggest problem with his defense is his indifference toward it. Great defenders care about defense, and Kevin has shown over and over again that, other than elite defensive rebounding, he just doesn't care about defense...both when he is choosing not to even go back on defense so that he can whine about a call, and when he actually is back on defense. Kevin will always be about stats, and defense doesn't lend itself as easily to statistical evaluation. You really have to rely more on the eye test here, and frankly, Kevin doesn't pass the test.

Point being like Cavs fans saying Love doesn't play any D. When in fact they probably have never watched a Kevin Love game. They are just going off of perception. It's lazy analysis

alexftbl8181 wrote:Point being like Cavs fans saying Love doesn't play any D. When in fact they probably have never watched a Kevin Love game. They are just going off of perception. It's lazy analysis

True. Although I would say they are correct in this instance, but not because they have done their own work.

Brewer is another guy that had a great defensive reputation in college that carried over to the NBA, but really isn't that great of a defender. He hunts for steals and can play some nice ball-denial defense, but once his matchup gets the ball, he's usually overmatched.

As for Dieng, Alex is right about the numbers. His presence didn't materially improve our overall defense. However, you could clearly see his defensive potential. He's not just long. He is nimble and is able to hedge on PnRs and then get back to his man. He has quick hands. He seems to understand when to challenge a shot and when not to. His biggest issue was when he was caught deep in the paint against an opposing big. His lack of respect from refs and relative slight frame made it difficult for him to get stops.

Q12543 wrote:Brewer is another guy that had a great defensive reputation in college that carried over to the NBA, but really isn't that great of a defender. He hunts for steals and can play some nice ball-denial defense, but once his matchup gets the ball, he's usually overmatched.

I think its just that he cant guard the great 3s. If Brewer could dribble and shoot he would be a 2 all the way. But he can't and played the 3 in our lineup which created matchup problems for him when playing man D. He is great guarding 2s and has tons of problems with the lankier athletic 3s.

thedoper wrote:

Q12543 wrote:Brewer is another guy that had a great defensive reputation in college that carried over to the NBA, but really isn't that great of a defender. He hunts for steals and can play some nice ball-denial defense, but once his matchup gets the ball, he's usually overmatched.

I think its just that he cant guard the great 3s. If Brewer could dribble and shoot he would be a 2 all the way. But he can't and played the 3 in our lineup which created matchup problems for him when playing man D. He is great guarding 2s and has tons of problems with the lankier athletic 3s.

Yeah no one can guard Melo, Lebron and the other top 3's without help. Brewer does just fine when he's not up against an all star.