We desperately need perimeter defending. As plenty of analysts have been pointing out, as long as our perimeter defense stays the same, we will struggle to be a contender. Pace adjusted stats suggest that we are about in the middle of the pack or slightly below defensively. We rank 16th in Defensive Efficiency and 22nd in Opponent 3 Point %, just to give you an idea. Having a below average defense is historically just not good enough to win a championship. Howard is a plus inside, but Asik is a similar player at just a slightly lower level defensively so I don't see it improving our defense significantly. One way is to just focus on practicing defense and hope that players like Harden and Lin improve, but an arguably more effective way would be to go out and get a perimeter defender. An elite one, at this point, is only available through trade. This is just what I came up with, but I want to know what you think is a solution to improve the perimeter defending. What about Avery Bradley? What if we could work trades that net us a PF and Bradley? Here's some stuff on his value defensively if you care. http://www.boston.com/sports/touching_all_the_bases/2013/03/avery_bradley.html <iframe width="560" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/D2ZO3-Iq-t4" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> TRADES: Boston In: Omer Asik (& possibly a pick?) Houston In: Avery Bradley, Brandon Bass Why Boston Does it: They want and need Asik. He solves the center position for them, which is a huge piece to the rebuilding process. Not sure how much value Bass/Bradley have, so it might take a pick to push this trade over the edge. Hopefully not. Milwaukee In: Jeremy Lin, Rights to Kostas Papanikolaou, HOU 2015 1st Rounder Houston In: Ersan Ilyasova Why Milwaukee does it: Jennings is not very good, and it looks like the Bucks are searching for a way to not overpay him so they need a PG. Jeremy Lin not only brings in revenue, but he's very solid and could do very well being the primary ball handler. A pick is a pick. They want Kostas: <blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p>Report: Bucks Interested in European Prospect Kostas Papanikolaou <a href="http://t.co/SlZTBD9prF">http://t.co/SlZTBD9prF</a></p>— Behind the Buck Pass (@BehindTheBucks) <a href="https://twitter.com/BehindTheBucks/statuses/355997210682470401">July 13, 2013</a></blockquote> <script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script> <blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p>The <a href="https://twitter.com/PelicansNBA">@PelicansNBA</a> and the <a href="https://twitter.com/Bucks">@Bucks</a> want Kostas Papanikolaou of <a href="https://twitter.com/olympiacosbc">@olympiacosbc</a> and they have until Monday to sign him <a href="http://t.co/y2V9lOVic5">http://t.co/y2V9lOVic5</a></p>— Eurohoops.net (@Eurohoopsnet) <a href="https://twitter.com/Eurohoopsnet/statuses/355706490885115906">July 12, 2013</a></blockquote> <script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script> Why Houston does it: Already talked about Bradley at the top, but this is how we get our hands on an elite perimeter defender. He's poor offensively, but he can improve and even if he doesn't improve that much, the defense is enough to justify him as a starter. NExt to Harden he would fit well. He can let Harden facilitate while he takes some pressure off of Harden on the defensive side of the ball. Bass has a lot of playoff experience and can add depth the the PF rotation and maybe let us deal one of D-mo/T-Jones to get a backup SG for Harden or something else (assuming we sign Camby to backup Howard). We get Ilyasova who is probably the best fit possible next to Dwight as a stretch 4. Great 3 point shooter, solid rebounder, decent size (6'10"), and solid defender. Thoughts?
I remember Morey stating last year that our defense is top notch when it is set. He also mentions this for all the other teams too and that is the reason why we played a high octane offense. We needed to attack before the defense is set. Our defense broke down when we turned the ball over as defense is not set. If you check the stats, we ranked low on both.
Yeah maybe, but it's also about solving the perimeter defending problem. It's more in-depth than just a short trade proposal so I went ahead and made it into a thread.
Just in general. Matt Moore from CBS. Guys on ESPN (Not that I value ESPN's opinion too highly). The dudes from The Basketball Jones Podcast. Just to name a few, but it's pretty obvious.
With Asik on the floor, we were something like 9th best defense in the league, and with him off the floor we were something like 28th best defense in the league. So, just by having a good defensive backup center in the game for all 48 minutes should get us in the top 10 in defense in the league without adding any other players already.
Not trying to derail this thread, but a simple solution would be playing Beverley more. I'm honestly not overly concerned about the Rockets defense. Their schemes and game plans were very solid last year. Increasing Beverley's minutes some, adding Dwight and thus now having Asik, not Greg Smith coming off the bench should be more than enough to be a top-10 defensive team, which really is all you need to be.
He's a dedicated rocket, what do you expect? This should be in the trade idea thread, but you pretty much already posted it there, except instead of Asik for Avery, it was Asik+ for Jrue.
I agree, unless we can upgrade at the 4 significantly, having a starting caliber center that can defend coming off the bench is huge. Not a lot of teams out their that can trot out a tough front court for an entire game. The center position is a major weakness for many teams, so having that advantage is huge.
kmart gives more effort on the d than harden, lin gets lost over helping, same with bev. It's one thing that must improve in order to get to the next level. you just can't have other teams thinking they're the rockets and tying records for 3 pointers against us. nice cleverly disguised trade a certain player thread. =/
Bradley-Parsons-Howard would have the potential to be a pretty potent defensive group, even though Harden still wouldn't be a very strong defender and I have no clue how good Ilyasova is at defense (haven't watched very many Bucks games recently...). If Garcia is able to maintain some of the defense that he showed in the playoffs last year, and with Beverly, there would be several solid defenders on our team. That said, I really we will be surprised how much better our defense will be just by having a solid 48 minutes of Howard or Asik to shut down the lane and grab tons of rebounds. These are two of the very best rim defenders and rebounders in the entire NBA, and we have both of them on our team. Think about the Miami-Indiana series. One of the big reasons that Miami struggled was because of how much that David West and Roy Hibbert outrebounded them, but neither one of those guys is as good of a rebounder as Howard or Asik! While I really love watching Avery Bradley play and I think this is an interesting trade, I think I that might not be getting enough back for giving up that huge edge that we have right now. At least to not give it a shot until the trade deadline, and if it doesn't work deal Asik then.
