If you look back on past NBA champions every SINGLE one of them started at least one if not two ALL NBA wing defenders. The gold standard is the Bulls with Jordan and Pippen, arguably two of the greatest wing defenders of all time. The Shaq-Kobe Lakers had Kobe/Rick Fox Pistons had Tayshaun Prince Spurs had Bruce Bowen and now Kawhi Leonard The Mavs have Shawn Marion The Heat have Lebron/Battier/Wade/James Posey The Celtics had Tony Allen/James Posey The Lakers had Artest/Trevor Ariza/Kobe There is no exception, every single team had at least one starting or significant rotation Wing(usually more than one) who played defense at an ALL NBA level. If Parsons gets paid what he's worth on the FA market when it comes time to re-up his deal, we are essentially going to be committed to the Parsons-Harden wing combo in our championship window. Morey has always said that he looks to the past champions as a guide to building the team, well, methinks that a Parsons Harden wing combo is not a championship combo. As an aside, I think the Bev/Lin debate is not really an issue, looking at past champions, there have been multiple champions who've had PGs who were average defensively, Tony Parker, Jason Kidd, Derek Fisher, Jason Williams, etc... In fact, I'd argue that PG defense is not that important compared to Wing defense. Most Elite wing defenders can switch onto a PG in a playoff matchup, see Lebron on Rose/Parker, Shawn Marion, Pippen on Magic, etc.... But an elite PG defender cannot switch onto a Wing player.
Parsons needs to get back to the defensive intensity level of his rookie year if we want to have any chance. 3 years ago he was showing flashes of being the next Battier. Since then, he's given that up. He needs to regress back to that. Hell he's regressing with his free throws! Also, this isn't just about the wings. It's the entire backcourt. 1 of those 3 positions needs to be filled with a lock down perimeter defender. Saddest thing is that Harden and Parsons both have the ability to that. They just choose not to and apparently the organization (other than Dwight) is not holding them accountable.
As Parsons offense has picked up each year since his rookie season, his D has dropped off significantly during the same time. I'd rather have Parsons play good D and average O than the other way around.
it's up to if harden wants to become an elite defender or if he's just content with being the player he is right now for the rest of his prime. some players aren't wired like a lebron or kobe. does harden want to be remembered as a all-star player or something more than that? i hope it's the latter.
hes playing 40minutes, you cant keep up defensive intensity while playing so long (same goes to Harden), i would like his minutes cut less so we can see more defense.
I think the offense strategy of the team is doing them a disservice. Lin or Beverly should initiate the offense at all times and set them up to score. On defense harden needs to start funneling his man towards the bigs and needs to learn to shuffle his feet. Parsons quickness isn't that good but his anticipation works in his favor. Both need work to be honest
I've never seen anyone develop into a great defender in the NBA, usually you either come in as a great defender or NOT, Harden and Parsons pretty much are never going to be great defenders, so a decision has to be made whether to commit to them as a core.
Totally agree. When there is a superior wing player on the opposing team, it is not going to be Bev defending him, nor Lin usually.
Good point, neither was KG, or Kobe, I have to make an exception for guys who jump from High School straight to NBA. It takes them about 1 season to mature, but Lebron's 2nd season he was a great defender.
Bull. Forget "keeping up" defensive intensity. They are openly choosing to forego any defensive intensity at all from the get go. The bottom line is that we are not experiencing a problem where our wings CAN'T do things. We're experiencing a problem where they WON'T do things.
I don't think so...it is by far our biggest current weakness. The easiest solution is to trade for a big time defensive minded SF and move Parsons over to play stretch 4. This way we solve 2 problems at once. We get a stretch 4 and another rotating wing. Unfortunately, it's very difficult to find these wing defenders...much harder than people think. If you subtract all stars(or all star price tag players), untouchables, old guys, and guys who can't shoot at all, you're left with prospects like bringing back Trevor Ariza and trading for draymond green. This may be shocking but the wing players the rockets signed before the season actually had decent defensive regularized adjusted plus minus numbers. Casspi was -0.7, Brewer was -0.3, and Garcia was 0. So, teams did not score more when they were on the court than when they were off last season. The problem isn't that they're all bad defensively, just that none our wings are actually good defensively. This means that when an opposing wing goes on a hot streak we just have to take it and hope we can outscore them. Forget looking for a star PF, the Heat are back to back champs without a center. We need a good wing defender before we can dream about the finals.
McHale can't cut their minutes because they are getting nothing from our bench. The minute you sit Harden and Parsons down for extended minutes, the other team will go on a big run and he has to put the starters back in. It doesn't help that no one has a clue on how to play defense.
Lebron has had the benefit of playing with defensive minded coaches his entire NBA career. Mike Brown, Paul Silas, and Spoelstra are all defensive coaches and have defensive systems.
I totally agree here and we've seen the 1 to 2/3 screen used against us all year. Off the top of my head, James Anderson and Rudy Gay were the most effective. They get Beverly/Lin/Harden to switch man on the perimeter and just shoot over their heads. Harden really hurts us on this issue, because not only does he slack off on defense, but a 2 guard needs to help defend opposing 1s and 3s when they get free on screens. That just leaves Parsons as the sole wing help defender. Parsons, who already has the most logged distance on the court, the most amount of minutes played per game and got hurt at least twice this year. I'm not sure how we're going to solve our permieter defense issues without having both the 2 and 3 be at least average defenders. Therefore, I think Harden needs to be moved to the PG position. We then get another perimeter defender to pair up with Parsons at the 2/3.
Defense! Defense! Everyone knows that: no defense,no champion! The champion team doesn't need every players to be defensive specialist, but it needs a defensive system which collects 5 man to complete defense together The team needs a defensive coach first, then discuss players combo
Cut their minutes when Casspi and Garcia are playing like crap? Let's lose by 20 instead of 10! Any other bright ideas you want to copy and paste?
No teammate's help, The best defender will get into trouble to defend a good scorer Any good defensive team has a defensive system,in this system, anyone can get teammate's help, and anyone will give teammate a help
No. They aren't. I imagine Parsons being a backup SF for a legitimate championship contender. And we also lack a good defensive SG as a backup for James.
