Interesting. Not sure I could watch this years playoffs and make that kind of comment about Dwight, nevermind what he's done in the past including leading his team to the finals. As far as Harden, well yeah his defense is terrible but seriously, pot say hello to kettle, Love is equally laughable at that end. Harden turned this team into an instant playoff team the second he got here. The West is a beast but Love has yet to even post a winning season, I'm not sure how much slack we should give him there. I believe Cyberx is the real deal but I hope he got some bad information here, otherwise Love comes off a little dim. I like the guys talent and would trade for him in a second but I also agree with others who think maybe just some extra toughness in our role players is more of what we need. Milsap and Lowry, is that even possible? That actually might be a better fit.
I find it funny that the same people that really want Love are complaining about Harden. For the record, I would be very excited to get Love, but his defense is every bit as bad as Harden's and he is a post defender.
According to DRPM rankings Lebron James is the 224th best defender in the league. Yes..224...no typo! DRPM says that Lebron has a negative defensive rating. -0.28 for Lebron's defense? Any system that determines Lebron is a defensive liability has no credibility. Gortat is #12 and Nick Collinson is #25 in the entire league while Anthony Davis is #41, Paul George is #48 and Kawhi Leonard is #68? Steve Novak is tied for defensive ranking with Lebron James? Pablo Prigioni and David Lee are better defensively than Mike Conley, Kyle Lowry, Courtney Lee and Nick Batum? I'm still baffled by any system that could rank Lebron as the 44th best defensive SF. It might be time to start using a different defensive stat.
Can someone tell me what the buzz is about please? I don't have time to go through the post. Just finished little league B ball and my sons team is going to the city championship!!!!!!! Thanks for any response
Nothing new. Wait... Kevin Love is a loser that Rockets fans didn't want anyways!!! Kevin Love may or may not have said a few "unpleasant" things about Dwight and James. Spoiler But really, nothing new.
I've looked over the history of RAPM quite a bit. And from what I can tell, it really has a weird offense-defense split. The stat in its totality is IMO quite good. Yes, there are role players high in the rankings, but these are role players that always get the team to play well when they're in, which is what the stat is meant to track. But the offense-defense split is weird. Big men almost always without fail are overrated on defense and underrated on defense. In a way it speaks to the importance of big men on defense. But it makes cross-position analysis a bit pointless.
Not meaningless, but you should grade on a curve. A center with a +2.0 DRAPM, for example, is not quite as valuable than a SF or SG with the same DRAPM because it's just harder to find the latter in the player market than it is to find the former. The reverse is true for ORAPM. Think of it as basketball affirmative action. It is also a little bit like how it works with baseball positions. A catcher, SS or 2B with a certain OPS is probably more valuable than a 1B or RF with the same numbers. You are compared to the rest of the guys at your position in the league. Also, there will always be guys for which the stat overrates or underrates him, especially when we are talking about guys who didn't play a whole lot and tended to play in specific type of circumstances all the time. Sampling error is always going to be an issue no matter how much one does to "adjust." RAPM, like all stats, is not the final word on a player's effectiveness. But it is one piece of info that should be considered in combination with others. One can question concluding that a player is a horrible defender based solely on RAPM. But in Harden's case RAPM is consistent with most all other available info-- game tape, opinion of coaches and observers, other stats. So I don't know what questioning RAPM does in terms of defending Harden's virtues as a defender. As for Love: there are actually other info showing that he isn't embarrassingly bad like Harden. You can shoot over him or drive by him but at least he is in position when you watch film. He also is a high motor guy overall-- have to be to get all the rebounds with his relatively limited length and verticals. Love isn't a great defender per RAPM if you consider the "curve" discussed above. But he isn't a guy that coaches, teammate and commentators will constantly roll their eyes at his effort level, either.
Talking about losers, the organization has surrounded itself with "losers". Dwight - Lost in the Finals Harden - Lost in the Finals Lin - Playoff Lin-competence Chandler - Lost in Shooting stars competition McHale: Never won anything big as GM or Coach Potentially: Kevin Love - seemingly never making the playoffs in the West Former candidates: Adelman - Lost in the Finals JVG - Lost Only guy: Terrence Jones - NCAA champion with Anthony Davis as the guy
This. I also want Kevin Love, but he is not someone who should speaking about how defense should be played. Dude is a sieve on D.
There's a defensive adjustment based on your height (which makes Lebron's even weirder since he's on the tall side of SFs)
The mentality is a bit, ermm, a confirmation of what Rubio said? that he has no leadership qualities at all. Melo for example i imagine is someone who would probably say something like "we both need to give effort on defense", whilst Love is well "he's lazy on defense at times, so he doesn't want to win." (which for a guy who has cited for not playing defense by opposing players as well as considered to give up on plays rather than rotate seems a bit ignorant?) I understand players will protect their brand in public discourse, but if he genuinely doesn't recognise his own flaws (he's literally defined Harden with the same traits that he's labelled with and then said it's not a winner's mentality to ironically a player who has never missed the playoffs), then there really is no wonder he's never made the playoffs
Well put it. Love with Dwight would be great together, but Milsap might be the best choice because he is a terrific two-way defender. In addition, we do not need to break the bank to get him. Milsap plus a wing defender would make this a much more balanced team.
I would take the regular season numbers for Miami and its players with a grain of salt as I would for other defending champs, especially 2 time defending champs. Those kind of teams most likely are not playing to their full abilities during the regular season in order to conserve energy for the playoffs. Shaq used to be that way with the Lakers. Lebron's raw defensive plus minus isn't great this year, not quite what it was previously. Likely doesn't mean that he can't play D, but that he didn't go full out. http://www.82games.com/1314/13MIA10.HTM#onoff I am OK with Lebron's version of "not trying the hardest" because of his special circumstances-- played a ton of basketball the last 3 years, having proven it already for a long time. He can, and have already, turned it on when needed.
Parsons, Asik and Lin for Love and a bad contract? Parsons is really good at everything but I think his trade value is too high to pass up. Love would fix all the rockets woes.
Shaq was fat, there's a bit of a difference, he came into training camp in an almost obese state, lol Their conference makes life easier, but it wasn't like we actually lost anything from the regular season, we got the ideal playoff setup, only we shot like **** while they rained 3's from everywhere, it happens, it happened to Durant, and even to Dirk (and his killer 8% from 3), we're talking 50/40/90 guys here, and then the following series Lillard got the "can't hit open 3's" yips himself.
