Sam, Rockets had one of the best defenses all year long with no elite shot blocker. Literally nothing changes on this front outside of swapping Jalen Green for Durant as a defender, Durant is a much better defender than Jalen, even at 36 he was. But all year long we had Sengun, Jabari, Jock, and Adams as centers and still were a dominant defensive team based on switching, disruption, and perimeter defense. Durant's perimeter defense is still great, it looks worse because he played on a poor defensive team, which always makes good defenders look worse. Good defenders thrive though on teams with good defensive principles. The fact is, when Durant was guarding guys they still had issues scoring against him. The length of the team will make it harder for teams to score in the paint. We're talking about Ime here. Defensively the team is going to be good. Also, not sure there was a point last season that the team was WORSE with Jabari on the floor defensively. He's the best rotator we have on defense.
Uh, are you aware they included Dillon Brooks in the deal? Even if you hated Dillon, as most did. - the fact that he can guard 1-5 was one of the cornerstones of the Rockets defense - replacing him with guys who cannot is a downgrade if you hope to play the same way. That's just a fact. And that fact is part of how the Rockets were able to survive with a **** rim protetctor like Sengun. Otherwise, we all know you & @AuburnRocket are the last two people on the "Jabari Smith will Make All-Star someday if we simply BELIEVE hard enough !" train, so I'll take your 'best rotator we have" (how is this even judged, angular momentum?) under advisement.
Defense is not an issue, offense was. We need balance, in 2018 when the team won 65 games it was because they were so good offensively that teams could not keep up, same for this team if Cam and Reed make a step. We needed to play more offensively oriented guy, defense never wins anything....balance does, you have to score the ball. DD
As @DaDakota just said, we did not need more defense lol. We didn't lose to the Warriors because of a lack of defense, those were low scoring games where both teams struggled to score, we lost because we couldn't score. We did lose Brooks, but we had a surplus of defenders. It's fully expected the Rockets will probably pick up a veteran wing player too. We'll see. And you are the opposite, you hate on the player every chance you get and my guy, you were PRO getting Durant all until we actually got him lol and now that we do, you're negative about the team. You were negative about the team going into last season, how did that work out? Say what you want about Jabari, I'll sit and wait for proof, the team was not worse with him on the floor defensively. Good defense is quite simple, is the player contesting a shot? Then good defense was being played. Did the player get an uncontested shot or layup, then bad defense was played. Yes, of course, elite wings and guards will drive past Durant and Jabari, but my guess is the shot will still end up being contested. Rockets defense, the core of it, is rotating and switching and making sure teams do not get open threes and layups and finishing the possession with a rebound. Which they were elite at last year. Rim protection is not just blocking shots, it's paint protection.
Losing Dillon is not a downgrade. That is not a fact, that is an opinion. Losing Dillon sucks but the Rockets have Tari, Jabari, and Amen ...oh and KD is better than JG in every way.
Sorry, this is the third volley and I still don't understand your argument. Yes, this would all be better with an elite rim protector. But we are better off than we were two days ago, the quality a team's rim protection and block rate of its center aren't always strongly correlated, and you selectively omitted data that runs counter to the inference you're trying to create.
I think the Rockets should get Durant, but they should ship out overvalued players like Smith Junior who are crappier versions of what Durant offers. Also , has nothing to with Durant, but we saw Sengun's ceiling in the playoffs and it wasn't good enough.
No one out of the drafted seven are a finished product. This includes Jalen. The idea that anyone's ceilings are clear is a wild thought. Sengun and Amen have the most visible upside and both could end up being superstars. Jabari, Reed, Tari and Cam still have a lot of upside. Durant will help all six of these guys reach new heights because that's just who he is and what he brings a franchise. He hasn't played with guys with upside like this since Westbrook and Harden were drafted early in his career. Cam Thomas, Nic Claxton and Bruce Brown all owe a lot of there current trajectories to KD's time in Brooklyn. This is in my opinion the most important part of the trade and why I would have loved to find a way to keep Jalen. This year is going to give the organization a lot of clarity in the pecking order of the four guys who aren't Sengun and Amen.
I am a big Dillon fan, but this is vastly overstating a few things. I don't have access to the paywalled data on blow by stats, but I'm VERY confident that Dillon did not score well there when guarding down. He excels guarding bigger, slower guards, normal wings, and more nimble bigs (Wemby). He's not like Draymond w/ bigs, and he's not like Amen with smalls. And by most advanced metrics, he rebounded a bit from the year before, but wasn't at the elite defensive levels he was at during his Memphis years. OFC all of this was offset by the fact that his shooting improved dramatically. And that leads me to my final point - I think it's just weird to be concerned primarily with the effect on defense when his minutes are being taken by longer, quicker players with (1) pretty sterling defensive metrics themselves and that (2) have similar abilities to guard up and down. The concern should be about replacing his shooting.
Sure The Rockets last starting lineup when we saw them featured 4 guys who are pretty comfortable switching onto smaller faster players and...Sengun who was OK at this but not great. And of course who has to be coverd up on defense at the rim with high-level help like Thompson because he's not big or athetic enough. The proposed starting lineup of Smith-Durant-Sengun now has 2 guys who can guard guards (FVV and Thompson) and 3 guys who are either average to below average at best. (Durant isn't going to jump out to the level and contest like he used to at age 37). That seems like trouble. And you have Sengun in the middle who aint' gonna erase too many mistakes. Maybe Thompson goes superman and compensates, but I wouldnt' be surprised if the Rockets realize that Smith and Durant can't really play together because they're both basically stretch 4's who aren't good guarding down. Yeah but Dillon COULD DO IT and more importantly would expend the effort doing it. And on offense he would more or less it in his spots and space the floor and conserve energy that way. You can't put Durant into that role, that's not why you got Durant. Smith isnt' good enough for that role either.
I think we know exactly what Sengun's ceiling is. Draymond showed you. Unless he develops a 3 point shot he's not going to develop more on offense. And he's been going backwards in that area. Same with Jabari. Don't feel like revisiting it, he's a solid starter at best at PF. Not this switchable player people thought he was. Tari, I think he's close to a finished product. High end role player. Agree on Reed & Amen. Cam, could be an all star, could also be out of the league in a year.
I think Bari being a crappier version of Durant is a really bad read. They are not even the same kind of player? I'd say Bari is a poorer version of JJJ, since the latter is an elite defender but also a big that can shoot. Durant is a SF that is somehow near 7 feet. That's what has made him special. Bari isn't a SF really. He's a switchable stretch big. So I'm not sure why we compare the two. The idea that he could be Durant was always fanciful and depended on if he could improve his handle, but its unlikely because...again, it's very rare that you have a 6'11 guy in Durant that can cross over even guards. This is historically an exception. A crappier version of Durant is Brandon Ingram, that's hobo Durant. As for Sengun, again, it's odd you think players max out at 22 years old. It's fine for you to think that, but its just historically wrong. That Sengun had issues with Draymond, probably a top ten defensive player of all time, at 22, should not be a surprise for anyone. Sengun simply has no counter for guys stronger than him, he just has to develop one or get stronger. I agree, the idea of a player at 22 reaching his ceiling at 22 is wild, especially for a guy who just made an all-star game at 22.
What is the difference between an "SF that is somehow near 7 feet" and a "switchable stretch big" Seems like absolutley the same thing - but anyway you can't switch Smith onto perimeter players and hope to do well - he's simply not quick enough. BTW there are plenty of players who never improved past role player status at age 22. In fact, the majority of players in the history of the NBA fit this description.
It is hard to keep track of all of this. One minute we are talking about rim protection, the next minute about guarding down. FWIW I don't agree at all with your argument about rim protection - we've almost certainly gotten better on that front - but I hear you on not guarding down as well as we did last year. However I think all of that is going to net out to roughly the same elite defense we had last year, if not better because of natural growth from key players learning defense scheme.
Jabari can't play the three offensively because he can't dribble, that's the difference. See, actually, I'm very objective about Jabari, you on the other hand think he's a scrub. I have no idea what this man did to you. Again, your point about him not being switchable isn't backed up by anything but you saying so. Again, I challenged you to prove that the team was worst defensively with Jabari on the floor. Sure, now tell me how many of those players were all-stars at 21? Let's look at the list... Wemby Lebron Dwight Paolo Rose Durant Trae Young Blake Griffin Kyrie Tatum Anthony Edwards So, can you tell me which of these players proceeded to max out at 21? Seems like most of the players that were all-stars at 21 continued to be all-stars and sometimes even elevated to become MVP tier players. Not that Sengun will become that, but it seems making the all-star game at 21 is a great sign of a guy that will continue to be a dominant player in the NBA.
Sure, they all relate to each other. Like you said, if you run a switch heavy scheme nobody's going to rack up the blocks as much. If you can't switch as much, when you add a creakign 37 year old and a plodder like Jabari Smith Junior, or if you can but they give up more penetration - it would be nicer to have a C that can actually block shots but instead ... we've got Sengun. IMO pairing Smith Junior & Durant with Sengun in the frontcourt seems problematic defnseively, but we shall see.
Man, Jabari Smith junior ain't making the all star team at age 22 or 23 or 33 or ever. It ain't going to happen! He's not good enough at basketball. Please stop mentioning all star & HOF players in the same breath as the guy who lost his starting job and was going backwards, last time we saw him. That just makes people want to hate on him more. Thiis is supported by a lot of evidence. Go look at who the Rockets put at the point of attack on defense this season, there's at least 4 names taht get called prior to Smith. It's Brooks. It's Thompson. It's FVV. It's Eason. Don't you think there's a reason why the coaching staff instead buries him on the corner 3 guy? When Jabari ended up guarding a smaller guy on space (actually, htis happened a lot in the first OKC game where they got blown out early - I remember thos one in particular) he woudl try but guess what - he's not fast enough to do it.
But with KD, Jabari can do what he does best hit from corners and FT line extended, KD's gravity will unlock space for Jabari. He is never going to be "The guy" but he can be a role player who consistently helps. DD
But your initial point here was somehow about it being a problem for rim protection which makes no sense when you compare it to [checks notes] two days ago.
You trolling me at this point now Sam? I quoted you talking about Sengun, not Jabari. Who you said reached his ceiling at 22. I was wrong, honest mistake, Sengun made the all-star at 22 and not 21. So I asked AI this time, as to not waste time personally...can you tell me, which of these players, who made the all-star game at 22 reached their ceiling at 22? Okay, looking at this list there are three candidates. Ben Simmons - Doesn't care about basketball Zion - Also doesn't care about basketball John Wall - Injuries mostly So, by what metric are we assuming that Sengun reached his ceiling? It seems more oft than not, making the all-star at 22 is an indicator of future sustained success, does it not? The only ones who did not have it seem to be the Simmons and Zion types that don't care too much about being professionals.
