yeah, Doc got blasted on this board and it was unfair. He was right about Dwight and he was right about Yao. He wasn't hearing Rondo at the deadline and that turned out to be right. He's been right about the attempted draft trade scenarios, but they haven't panned out (not in his control) and people freak out and jump down his throat. Still a lot of love here for you Doc. Don't listen to the haters!
In last few years, I literally saw every single post related to Doc's messages. He's more legit than anyone else.
I've been hard on keeping Parsons no matter what in the past, but if you have the opportunity to add Love, I'd give up Parsons in a heartbeat
Can someone post a video of Love's "embarrassing" defense please. People are saying he's EVERY BIT as bad as Harden. That's not how I remember him play. But I could be wrong because I haven't watched him nearly as much as I have Harden.
Not close. Love is one of the worst starting PFs at defense, but still better than most backups (who are better than Jones). Harden is worst than most backup SGs at defense.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V4NwjMP7ydU http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aYJZDAXZSuA http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lqmt6f2PYzQ I dont know whose worse but he's pretty bad. Also keep in mind that Love doesn't have millions of "Rubio only Fans" of "Pekovic Only Fans" that campaign on behalf of his demise and are the Spielberg's of creating massive amounts and editing Youtube videos. The main problem I have with Kevin Love's defense quite honestly is what he does to get in position early (before the shot goes up sometimes) to get the rebound. It just shows that he's more concerned with rebounds than he is in actually keeping his man from getting a shot off. As a fan of the corner offense, I've been a fan of watching the Wolves play when healthy the past few years that Adelman took over.... trust me.... its bad. However.... Kevin Love is a great player, and James Harden also is a great player. But the fact is, they are both DH's on defense, and they both are volume scorers that need their touches. But, I would contest that Harden is able to do that and play make for others. Love is much more scorer than play maker. I'm not sure the Rockets NEED that much more isolation in their offense as good as Love is at it. Its a dream to think about having that much talent on the floor together at one time, and if you can get Love you should probably still do the deal, but honestly.... as far as FIT goes.... having him and Harden on the court together.... not as great a fit as you'd think. Especially defensively. But if this question is just about who is worse at defense.... I dont know but they are both "DH's" for sure which isn't going to be good for your TEAM defense with them both on the floor together. Dwight and Bev can't guard everyone.
You could argue that Defensive Rebounding is sort of Defense as it prevents the opponent from Second chance opportunities.
If the Rockets bring Love into the team they better hire one very dominate defensive COACH he almost needs to be a tyrant. No matter the player poor defense will catch hell.
The problem with Love's defense is that the perimeter defense is so weak that you can't really have a weak interior defender as well. A lineup that has Love, Parsons and Harden in it will make life very difficult for Dwight. Dwight can't cover the crashing guards and wings that are blowing by their man AND cover his man AND cover the 4 that Love leaves to go get a rebound.
Whats better- -Giving up a high percentage one possession or two highly contested possessions for the other team? In a vacuum, I think a stat geek would tell you that give me the lower possession count any day. However you have to consider the fact that the Rockets have Dwight Howard on the court whose going to gobble up pretty much everything that comes off the rim that he isn't trying to block. I honestly don't know what the Rockets would do from a rebounding perspective with Dwight and Love on the court together. Its a fascinating basketball geek question. The Rockets are a running team, and the reason why their offense took off when Jones went into the lineup was because of how well he ran the floor after the shot went up from the opposing team. Having two elite re-bounders helps when Dwight goes for the shot block to get the "crack-back" rebounds (which Jones was horrible at but improved as season went on), but will either Love or Dwight SACRIFICE their rebounding stats to play within the Rockets offense as help re-bounders on un-contested defensive rebounds to run the floor???? That's a big question IMO. Love is on pace to be potentially break rebounding records in his career. That stat is important to him as it should be. Dwight... we all know he's been consistently a top 3 re-bounder in the league his entire career, and as your defensive anchor you really don't want him leaking out on the break to speed up the pace. Integrating a superstar into your system is tough guys. Kevin Love would be less of a plug & play superstar than one might think.
Dwight goes for quite a lot of blocks leading to the Rockets being a sub par defensive rebounding team in both regular season and playoffs.
Kevin Loves's defensive RAPM over the last 4 years, he is clearly not the terrible defensive player people make him out to be. That being said, you would like you're PF to be a defensive weapon, and he isn't that, but he is an offensive monster so it more than makes up for it. 13-14 + 1.32 12-13 + 2.10 (injury shortened) 11-12 + 1.50 10-11 + 0.90
Thanks. What does that have to do with the player's performance? From those few clips, I agree that he is more concern with rebounding than challenging the shot. To me, Jones is not any better than Love on defense. Jones can block shots and he's quicker. But his positioning is bad and his strength is weak and he doesn't block out on rebounds. Love is slow footed and can't jump much, but much smarter staying in position. I'd say having a guy who knows how to defensive rebound can actually free up Howard to challenge shots. Ironically, Harden seems to have the same tendency of being more motivated to go for the rebound than to challenge shots. The difference is, Harden is a perimeter player. His main role is not rebounding.
This is true enough. But to me the biggest thing is Dwight has to rotate off his man so much to help on D when his teammates are in "matador-D" mode. Which is 92.17% of the time.
I was saying what his role was with the Wolves. Once he is here he has to adapt playing alongside Dwight for sure. Dwight stays No.1 rebounder. He has to find his role here. He can turn into a useful help defender.
nice post you are correct, parsons wouldn’t work at the 3 if melo or love came here and played the 4, we will need a defensive specialist, rebounder, that can’t shoot the 3 at a decent rate just to keep his man on him. Defense first will be needed at the 3 not offense. I’m not talking about potential, I mean a tough player who takes pride in playing D and is known for it. If you get that at the 3, loves defense wouldn’t be much of an issue, with his elite defensive rebounding second chance opportunities would go down in a major way. brewer, ariza, t.allen type players would be a perfect fit.
Here's an article with videos. http://bleacherreport.com/articles/1996656-is-kevin-love-holding-back-the-timberwolves-defense The main issue addressed in the article is that Love is hesitant to leave his man/rebounding position to challenge shooters and when he does he doesn't even raise his hands the majority of the time (2.4 times more likely to not raise his hands if you believe the article). The article claims that not raising his hands leads to 40 additional points per 100 possessions. That' a pretty staggering number but I'm not sure that I believe that it's that severe. He also has the worst defensive FG% (57%) at the rim of any player in the NBA that defends an average of 6 or more shots at the rim per game.
