yea cause this coaching staff aint setting plays for him....Like they aint got no game plan
How it's used in the phrase I responded to though, is as if a players defensive ability isn't easily assessable. If quantify was meant, it should have been used. No one here is trying to quantify defense. They are simply assessing that one person has terrible defense and another less terrible. This is what Pop does. It's what all coaches do. That assessment is how they measure defense, and it's pretty objective. By the time someone gets to the NBA, their defensive ability is measured.
my issue with tre's defense certainly isn't his smarts. he's one of the few guys i trust to generally be positioned well, rotate properly, etc. and his technique on individual defensive assignments is fine, and he can be pest that causes guys to pick up their dribble. the problem is that he's just... small. he's short. no special wingspan to make up for it. and its not just his height. he's weak and gets pushed around. he lacks any kind of vertical explosiveness. the end result is that he often is just overwhelmed on individual assignments when people just go right at him and he's basically helpless to do anything about it even if he's doing many of the right things
Last edited by spurraider21; 12-11-2023 at 01:37 PM.
Modern defense is not supposed to involve a lot of one-on-one stops. Players are supposed to help each other, and the ways to do that are pretty well established (like "getting in the gaps"). Point guards have always been able to play on elite defenses, and they historically haven't been bigger than Jones is. I don't buy the idea that it's what's holding the defense back, and the improvement in the defenses' performance when Jones is on the court backs that up. The Spurs defense is 8.1 points better when Jones is on the court. To put that in perspective, the Spurs are only 6.7 points better when Victor is on the court. They're 2.3 points worse when Sochan is on the court. So no, it doesn't track that Jones playing his hurting the defense's integrity just because he's not going to stop a mismatch one-on-one all the time.
I'm not a Jones stan. I wanted the Spurs to trade up to draft their PG. But I think a lot of people are relying on a superficial standard "Can I point of him getting beat ever" or in the case of JD literally not knowing what NBA defense even looks like on a surface level. There's nothing stopping the other guys on the roster playing like Jones. If they did, and you wanted to make a change to take out a weak link, I wouldn't be bothered. But right now, even if Jones is the link made from the weakest material, he's the strongest link because none of the other ones are even welded shut. Taking him out to improve the D would be like taking Vassell out to improve the offense. Can Devin change some things to fit better in the offense? Yes. Does starting ing Branham in his place improve that at all? No.
i agree with just about all of this tbh. i mentioned that he can get overwhelmed 1v1 at times, but as i've been criticizing the spurs D all year, ive basically exclusively commented on team defense tactics. where doubles are coming from, failing to help the helper, rotating late, wrong guys rotating, unnecessary help, etc. those are all areas where Tre is more trustworthy that any other perimeter player on the team. with that said, his short stature also hurts his ability to effective when closing out
and just as an aside on branham, theres no reason he should be starting. imo he's not playing at an NBA level right now and should be fighting for rotation minutes, not fighting for starts. fortunatley for him, there isnt a tremendous amount of compe ion right now at his position.
No. Defense isn't like height. What does it mean to be a good defender? For the most part, you're going to come up with a suite of factors, some quan ative, some qualitative. Other people will come up with a different suite. That's true for All-Defense voters putting Kobe up there because of steals numbers and of statisticians creating RAPTOR, RPM, TPA, DBPM and all of the other stats. Even if the factors in the suite you select can be measured objectively "DFG, on/off, deflections" how much emphasis you place on each factor is up in the air. And more importantly, it's possible to get that weighing wrong. , I'd say it's easy to get it wrong (and thus, "hard" to get it right). So yeah, taking trivial examples like a HoF defender compared to a guy who struggles doesn't actually prove anything. Just like the question in 2023 is "Who's better defensively, Tre or Sochan?" the question back in 2013 was "Who is the second-best Lebron defender, Diaw or Green?" Pop had to make the decision in the Finals that year. He went with Diaw, and it didn't really work out. Danny ended up grading out as a stiff challenge to James when he got tertiary duty. Diaw held up with help until James had his awakening, after which Boris never successfully guarded Lebron again.
Even that statement about Green grading out better is subjective. I am referencing the PPP allowed stats I charted during that series. Green was pretty successful stopping Lebron from scoring on him in that series. But is that good defense? It might seem obvious that it's a yes, but was stopping James from scoring efficiently even the goal? Maybe the goal was to tire him out, or get under his skin, or prevent him from passing or whatever. Coaches employed all of those tactics to stop James back then. The next year, Lance Stephenson did all that weird like blowing into James' ear. In that same vein, Sochan seems to want to annoy opposing scorers, constantly toeing the line of what is an acceptable basketball play. A lot of good defenders over the years have done that. Kawhi and Green never did anything like that.
This post could go on and on about with examples for how "good defense" has meant a number of factors, some of which are contradictory, and how some coaches misunderstood the effect some of those factors had. Most aspects to offense are quantified, even if they aren't all box score stats. Defense is nowhere near as easy to figure out. Just because someone makes an evaluation, it doesn't mean that they have successfully captured the nature of the situation. At best, it would be a similar line of reasoning to saying that teachers are able to measure intelligence through their curricula. Even ignoring like how standardized tests suck or whether the current state of the education system is viable, you're going to struggle to come up with criteria that will fully and consistently capture the breadth of intellectual expression and ap ude.
I don't think a team with five Joneses would be a good defense. Two might be too many. Size is important. Like on that rotation that he can Collins misread, if Jones had Sochan's size, it would've been a no-brainer for Zach to go out of the shooter and Tre to take the center. In my opinion, Collins should've had a much higher threshold for when he pulled the trigger on joining the rotation wheel. He needed to understand the mismatch he was creating by making the rotation. I fully think Tre assumed Collins would stay home, since Zach joining the wheel was basically a guaranteed bucket no matter what Tre did. The question is how Pop is telling them to play that situation. It's possible that he has been coaching Collins to join the wheel because Sochan has been the starting PG for so long. That's why I can't fully assume it was Zach's fault. Collins for all his faults has a negative (which is good) defensive on/off as well despite his seeming inability to stop anyone from scoring on him. He doesn't seem to be protecting the rim, but he's probably not stupid when it comes to making his rotations. They should have communicated that better, since I could see reasoning for both decisions.
First,of course stopping the other team from scoring is good defense and of course that was the plan, else why have your best defender on him?
Second, the fact you yourself said people were "good defenders" shows it's not as subjective as you claim. You cannot have it both ways.
I agree. 2nite against HOU he was getting tons of deflections, seemed to be bothering guys at every position. I noticed when he roamed or helped he was super fleet of foot recovering to his man. I think His recovery to good position defense after badgering a big has improved.
Obviously the way to beat tre jones 1v1 on defense is to post him up.
Last edited by taps; 12-12-2023 at 12:06 AM.
... did not not read any of that? In case you're wondering, no, stopping a player from scoring is not always the plan. I'd argue it usually wasn't in the iso days. "Making them work for their points" was the goal. Bowen didn't guard Nash to stop him from scoring (thankfully too, because Nash didnt' see a drop in scoring efficiency in Bowen's minutes). It was to prevent him from passing the ball. Before you try to go like "First,
Do you not know what objective means? It doesn't mean that an individual believing it. It means being true outside of interpretation. That I can talk about good defenders and bad defenders means I have opinions and can talk about the opinions of others. While most folks think Kawhi was a good defender, a number of Spurs fans thought Danny Green was a bad defender. I was on the side that LDN was very good defensively and had multiple series where he was pretty close to Leonard on that end. But objectively speaking, was he? ... Well it turns out the answer to that is difficult and contentious. You know, because defense is something that's difficult to measure objectively.Second, the fact you yourself said people were "good defenders" shows it's not as subjective as you claim. You cannot have it both ways.
If you think you objectively know the answer to that question, it would be a sign you might think too many of your opinions are facts. In reality, people on both sides will try to bring evidence to bear, but there won't be agreement on the strength of that evidence. It's not like, "Was Kobe a good scorer?" where you can talk about his PPG, EFG, TS, PPP, whatever. Those stats are transparent and focused. In contrast, RPM, BPM, RAPTOR (RIP) and the others are opaque and esoteric. It's not clear what each stat means on its own, let alone how to measure that against the other stats and evidence. The math guys keep trying to come up with new stats to measure defense, and none really stick. Even if one did get enough prestige ala the OG RAPM, folks like Sean would completely dismiss it while confidently lauding Keldon's defense.
You're playing a semantics game. If you know who the good defenders are well enough to use them as an example, it's not subjective, and yes I read your response. There were too many opportunities where you went both ways on a point so I chose to only address the most glaring ones. Basically a good defender stops the opponent from doing what the opponent wants to do, and in the NBA (and in most sports) that's scoring even if a pass comes first.... did not not read any of that? In case you're wondering, no, stopping a player from scoring is not always the plan. I'd argue it usually wasn't in the iso days. "Making them work for their points" was the goal. Bowen didn't guard Nash to stop him from scoring (thankfully too, because Nash didnt' see a drop in scoring efficiency in Bowen's minutes). It was to prevent him from passing the ball. Before you try to go like "
You're playing a semantics game again. If we can agree that Kawhi and Draymond are good defenders without comparing notes, then for conversational purposes, the term "good defender" already has a measuring stick.Do you not know what objective means? It doesn't mean that an individual believing it. It means being true outside of interpretation. That I can talk about good defenders and bad defenders means I have opinions and can talk about the opinions of others. While most folks think Kawhi was a good defender, a number of Spurs fans thought Danny Green was a bad defender. I was on the side that LDN was very good defensively and had multiple series where he was pretty close to Leonard on that end. But objectively speaking, was he? ... Well it turns out the answer to that is difficult and contentious. You know, because defense is something that's difficult to measure objectively.
This is going into sophist nonsense. Clearly you know what comprises a good defender.If you think you objectively know the answer to that question, it would be a sign you might think too many of your opinions are facts. In reality, people on both sides will try to bring evidence to bear, but there won't be agreement on the strength of that evidence. It's not like, "Was Kobe a good scorer?" where you can talk about his PPG, EFG, TS, PPP, whatever. Those stats are transparent and focused. In contrast, RPM, BPM, RAPTOR (RIP) and the others are opaque and esoteric. It's not clear what each stat means on its own, let alone how to measure that against the other stats and evidence. The math guys keep trying to come up with new stats to measure defense, and none really stick. Even if one did get enough prestige ala the OG RAPM, folks like Sean would completely dismiss it while confidently lauding Keldon's defense.
Bro, you're here trying to make a special definition for "measure" and you're accusing me of playing the semantic game? That's ridiculous. I'm not going to keep having this conversation when you don't even bother to look up what "subjective" means. If could list good restaurants, cools bands and a ton of other subjective things too. I would 100 percent have Danny Green as one of the best defenders of his era. That's irrefutably a subjective claim. I have plenty of empirical evidence for it, but others (like seemingly you) wouldn't accept that evidence over subjective, qualitative evaluations like, "Does he prevent his man from doing what he wants to do?"
That's your definition, and it's basically useless. Like it's fine as a definition with no extensions, but it doesn't address the actual question, which is "How do you measure it?" Do you interview the player to see if his defender correctly guessed his mind? What if a player wants to pass and is forced instead of score an efficient 50 points in a blowout win. Is that good defense? More importantly, your definition is only talking about one-on-one defenders, as rim-protectors aren't measured by how well they're guarding a single guy. Wemby isn't judged by how much the opposing C scores, but how much efficiency he can knock of the opposing offense. And no, that's not just a position thing, because Splitter was an excellent man-defender and PnR helper but wasn't a great rim-protector, whereas Old Tim wasn't great if he had to leave the paint but was still probably the best phone-booth defender in the NBA right up until his good knee went out. I would say all three of those bigs were some degree of good defender, but how I would go about figuring that out would be difficult, especially if I were trying to evaluate them without already knowing them.Basically a good defender stops the opponent from doing what the opponent wants to do, and in the NBA (and in most sports) that's scoring even if a pass comes first.
Again, that's not a semantics game. You can't say, "We know how a good defender is because we have Kawhi and Draymond." A big part why is because they aren't the same kind of defender at all, and there are players who are similar to either of them who aren't good defenders. Players can be good defenders while not being anything like those guys, both in terms of nature and degree. Tre isn't like either of them. Nevertheless, he's a good defender. He's not a HoFer like those guys, but because we don't have to use a dumb (in this case meaning simple and agnostic to the situation, not unintelligent) method of examination, we can form opinions with strong support. Those opinions are still subjective of course, and there's a ton of room for disagreement in some cases. More importantly, saying "like Kawhi or Draymond" doesn't answer the effing question, because we still don't have any guidance to determining how to make that determination.You're playing a semantics game again. If we can agree that Kawhi and Draymond are good defenders without comparing notes, then for conversational purposes, the term "good defender" already has a measuring stick.
Rather than pulling out the best of FuzzieLumpkins, why not actually try to apply your objective reasoning? If the test you've developed is sufficient, you should be able to use it to objectively differentiate any players in the league. You inserted yourself into a conversation about whether Jones is a good defender. As far as I know, you've yet to give your answer to that question. Is Jones a good defender? If your answer is "no" then we can pack this whole thing up right here. The argument for Jones has way too much evidence for your claim to be an objectively true statement. You might believe it to be true but again, that's just not being able to tell opinion from fact. There's no "You know Jones is a bad defender, and you're just being a sophist" or whatever. I legit think Jones has been a good defender, and I have been discussing supporting evidence for that assertion for like a year now.This is going into sophist nonsense. Clearly you know what comprises a good defender.
If you answer, "Yes". then the question becomes what elements are you using to liken him to Kawhi or Draymond. I know I don't think of him in the context of those two or any of the iconic defenders. I can't even really think of a comparison to Jones, not because he's unique (he isn't), but because I see no value in that thought process. It really helps some people, and I'm cool with that. I understand that it's hard to objectively measure defense, so using short-hand to try to grapple with the evaluation can be helpful, even if woefully insufficient.
Clearly you cannot say a player is a good defender because you clearly don't have objective proof.
Ah but then you cannot say a player isn't a good defender because you lack the same objective proof.
So clearly there is no such thing as a good defender. Or is there?
He already made history on his first game there.
Everybody and their mother knows Wemby will end up being a center in the NBA, I thought Pop would keep Wemby at PF for the entire rookie season, but it only took 20 games to end that experiment. Just give it a rest, from here on out Wemby will be a center, I don't understand how you still don't realize this fact, tbh.
Came in here to give you some credit, but you're such a little ing about. It. I changed my mind.
If it's any consolation, that's just my internet persona. On real life I try to be humble.Came in here to give you some credit, but you're such a little ing about. It. I changed my mind.
If it's any consolation, that's just my internet persona. On real life I try to be humble.
I did like that he seemed to be more involved. I thought he might get chewed up, but he does better against big guys than small guys. He really struggled against fronting, but he held his own with AD. And fuuuuuck he's so good in the clutch. I want more touches, more shots and see how the chips fall.
Of course Wemby will be more effective closer to the basket to utilize his size. Only problem he'll be in more games with foul trouble defending closer to the basket.
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