I swear this was posted before but it didn't come up on my searches....so,...
I've been on the edge about benching Pau, but this video has pushed me over. Not anything against Pau, except I wish provided more on D, but bringing Dedmon into the SL would do alot to solving this issue.
Ofc regarding the le, I think everyone would agree Kawhi isn't hurting the Spurs by being so great on D. Essentially taking a player completely out of the offensive scheme (usually their best) is pretty remarkable.
Damn, this thing about narratives being more important than truth has even infected BBall Breakdown.
What narrative would that be?
This isn't new information. When you shut down a star player, the rest of the team has to do their part to contain the others. If they cannot do that with you on the floor, how can they do it with you on the bench? You're the best defensive player in the league. Maybe the guy you're guarding is the reason the opponent's offense stagnates when he's ball hogging, and you defending him creates more ball movement and better results for team.
Speaks to ball movement and against star focused offense.
This has got to coach Nick too. Wouldn't have thought so.
That Kawhi is somehow hurting the Spurs D, i.e. they would be better off without him on that end. The numbers are not in Kawhi's favor right now but we have enough data from past seasons to know that he is still by far the best defensive option at his position.
Did you watch the video?
Whoever Kawhi guards shoots a higher FG% than their average %. The criticism comes with the territory.
Kawhi's best defensive attributes are how disruptive he is off ball, so taking him out of play and parking him in a corner is smart and reminiscent of Pop using Bonner/Diaw to take Ibaka out of the paint in 2014.
We could spend some time arguing about that, but why bother? The claim is that Kawhi is "hurting the Spurs defense". So the real question is - are those people shooting a higher FG% with Kawhi guarding them than they would with some other Spur guarding them? Maybe we should have Anderson, or Bertans, or Manu guarding the best scorer on opposing teams? I'm sure that would help our overall defensive numbers.
BTW - even the author of that article didn't try to suggest that Kawhi is a sub-standard defender. He's saying that Kawhi's reputation for good defense has caused other teams to use a strategy that takes him out of the mix. What you're suggesting - that Kawhi is not defending those guys as well as the other players they face - that's just an invalid conclusion.
Well is not like he is Harden or some other clown.
What a misleading le. What it should be called is "Parker's too small and too old, Pau's too slow and too old and LMA's not pulling his weight." 3/5ths of the starting 5 are just bad defensively, so bad that the opposing team can afford to camp their star player on the weak side like he is Kyle Anderson or something.
All those steals and fast break dunks really hurt the team
Truth bombs
Good point.
And by this, you are including Coach Nick in the typically amoral media?
In general tbh. Coach Nick is just piggybacking off what mainstream media has been saying the past few weeks which makes Kawhi seem like he's overrated on defense. If I start seeing videos from him proclaiming Raymond as DPOY then he can be lumped in with them.
Eh this would give me the opposite impression. If teams are game-planning to counteract his defensive presence then that speaks volumes on how good he is, but the team defensive numbers also displays how weak his teammates have been defensively. Pop and Kawhi need to find a way to get Kawhi more involved defensively, whether that is playing more zone defense, adjusting the SL/rotations/minutes or tweaks to the defensive scheme. I'm sure Pop will figure something out.
this video has only four days
His d is down a little but Duncan is not behind him
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