Yup all those games and minutes are catching up to him, we ought to thank him for quitting on the Rockets. DD
because you’d rather be a mediocre team without draft picks than a rebuilding team without picks? get out of your feelings
No , KD didn't come back like it didn't happen - He's not remotely the athlete he was prior to that injury. He's just that good of a player that people don't notice the loss of a step ..... and the inability to move his feet on defense. I think that's where he's been impacted the most by that injury is defensively. If I was coaching / playing against that team , I'd try to put force KD to be the primary on ball defender every time down the court. He'd either end up in foul trouble or I'd get easy buckets.
except he’s still a positive defender so that would be a weird strategy, especially when BK plays several worse defenders than he is and he can still get u 30 a game on insane efficiency with his stats being pretty much the same as when he was in GS, so yeah, he basically came back like it never happened
Of course .... me too. But this was about the best outcome you could hope for when you were forced to trade him ..... You weren't getting a star in return that kept you nearly as competitive , you'd probably have been a fringe playoff team at best , better to simply stockpile assets and hope like hell you draft an impact player and then are able to attract another one .... and you have the assets to make it happen. That's a far better outcome than being mired in an 8 seed / 14th pick had you gotten a Ben Simmons or whoever ... a rat running in his wheel to nowhere. In the NBA a hard reset is much better than a half assed one.
The stats don't always tell the tale .... and in this case they sure don't - He spends most of his time guarding 3-4-5 ..... You make him guard 1-2 and he struggles , particularly laterally.
that’s just your opinion in no world is a coach determining that their strategy would be to attack KD’s defense every possession when he’s also on the floor with the likes of Kyrie and Blake Griffin or even Joe Harris, it doesn’t make sense
Definitely agreed but wouldn’t it make sense to make KD play In space. See if the lateral quickness is there, potentially tire him out, put him in foul trouble, and test the Achilles truly? I haven’t watched enough of BKN to know if that’s desirable or not. I also don’t know if MKE has a penetrator good enough to force the switch. Giannis while amazing can be guarded with a drop pretty effectively.
u don’t want to have KD out there just resting on defense, but there’s no way u can see Kyrie, Blake, and Joe Harris out there on the floor and make it your primary goal to attack KD’s defense because that’s supposed to lead to automatic buckets for your offense…that guy was making it sound like KD is Melo defensively Middleton isn’t quick and just wants to shoot jump shots, so I don’t think KD has any problem guarding him…he has a significant height and length advantage over Jrue…Giannis he can just play way off of him and he will either brick the jumper or drive and run into him for the made or missed dunk/layup, travel, charge, or foul where he’ll likely miss 1 or both free throws Tatum did give KD the business at times in that Boston series, but he was absolutely KILLING Kyrie and Blake Griffin when they switched on him…he and Kyrie are the ones I’d be trying to attack way before KD