Kawhi Perspective

The article made some valid points, but he oversold it somewhat.

A great front-court defender (think Dikembe Mutombo, Hakeem Olajuwon, Kevin Garnett, Bill Russell) can absolutely dominate the game on that end of the floor. His argument that you can simply neutralize an individual defender doesn't apply as much to a defensive big. It also doesn't work if a defender is defending the team's best scoring option.

There are methods for assessing a player's impact on both ends of the floor. Its true that for defense players impact tends to be squeezed towards a net 0 compared to on offense, but the difference isn't as dramatic as this author is suggesting. It's easy to overlook positive things a player does or doesn't do on defense, because not every great defensive play is a blocked shot or steal or an obvious effort play.

 

I do agree Kawhi doesn't deserve MVP. I think the media is just using him as another decoy to ignore Harden. You can't magically pop into an MVP race in the last 3 months of the season and win it over 2 guys who've been playing out of this world for the ENTIRE season. However, those defensive numbers don't tell the whole story...
https://www.cbssports.com/nba/news/...t-defense-hes-actually-hurting-the-spurs/amp/

 

Well his team became men in the ACC tournament, What they did there was impressive.

 

Honestly I don't really get the logic of that article. Basically what happens is the opponent ignores Kawhi and the guy he's guarding, right? So the rest of the players go 4-on-4 right? But the 4 guys playing on the court are missing their best offensive option, so why will their offense be better than normal? And once Kawhi sits, shouldn't the Spurs defensive numbers remain the same because in either scenario he is not playing? I think some other player might be causing that defensive drop, perhaps the starters are just horrible defenders outside of Kawhi and when Kawhi sits down the bench is the one playing who as a whole might be better defenders than the starters.

 

4-on-4 will generally have more offense than 5-on-5 because there's more open space on the court and there's less help defense available. The fewer players on the court, the more offense. Taken to the extreme, one-on-one will have a lot more offensive success, while 10-on-10 would be an offensive disaster.

In theory, you could do this with any player, but the biggest advantage comes when the defensive guy being taken out of the game is far superior to the offensive guy that's being removed, and that's almost always true with Kawhi. The Spurs' defense is predicated on incorporating Leonard all over the place in help-defense/etc. If teams implement this strategy, it screws up their team defense. When they have any other 5 guys playing against 5 opponents in a more traditional way, they can do all their normal rotations so their defense is probably better.

That said, if Kawhi is guarding Lebron or Curry/Durant or Harden, it's more of a problem for those other teams because their offenses don't function well without those guys.

 

Exactly, they're isolating Kawhi's man completely out of the offense. And he says the strategy works best when you have two good offensive players on the court such as Derozan and Lowry or Lillard and McCollom. So basically you're forcing players like Gasol and Parker who are known as below average defenders to actually play D. And no when Kawhi sits, their defensive numbers improve because you can now utilize all 5 players and clog the passing lanes and switch etc.

 

How is it Kawhi's fault then, shouldn't be Parker or LMA fault for not being good defenders?! All it does is show how overrated man-to-man D is (like what the other article said). You can still clog the paint or switch with just 4 guys if you are only up against 4 guys as well. I guess the defense of the starters without Kawhi is so bad they get outclassed by the bench. I dont think Kawhi deserves the mvp over Harden, WB or even Lebron but saying Kawhi makes the Spurs D worse is just wrong on so many levels.

 

That's exactly my point and what the article says; It is not Kawhi's fault for the Spurs defensive woes. Also wouldn't go as far as calling on ball defense overrated. If anything it shows how it's important to have multiple good defenders on your team. Like Major said, when you start playing 4 on 4 it's a whole different ball game and a team can't implement its entire defensive strategy. In a sense it becomes ISO one on one and you're saying stop me without Kawhi. This would be preventable with better defensive players.

 

I remember reading the Kawhi article this winter and thinking "Oh man, if he takes Harden out of the game, we're in trouble." But as Lou gets more comfortable with play making duties, i think we could have a lot of success playing 4 X 4 against the Spurs.

 

That still doesn't make much sense. Why can't the Spurs clog the lane when Kawhi is on the floor, if that's a superior way to play defense?

 

Because 5 defenders is better than 4

 

The biggest factor with Kawhi's on/off is probably he's off when the other team's bench is playing and better offensive players aren't, and the Spurs bench is likely just better than the other teams bench, especially defensively, where they're always fundamentally sound. Which is why basically all the Spurs starters are worse than the bench from a DRtg perspective.

That said, there is something of value to note in how big the discrepancy is and in the theory the author(s)' posit. Great individual defense like Kawhi's is most valuable in instances like where he blocked Harden... and individual play. Otherwise its definitely about team defense. Even easier than having your best offensive player go to the corner, just set a solid pick with your big man, and force a switch.

Moreover, whether or not the article undervalues Kawhi's defense, the general point is correct. Clearly a great offensive player is better than a great defensive player.

Also of note, the same isn't true of Draymond Green. He has the best DRtg of the Warriors regular players and starters, and the team's DRtg is MEANINGFULLY higher when he is off the court.

My view of watching them both play is that Draymond is the more valuable defender. He can more effectively guard 5 positions.

 

This thread is full of quality, well-reasoned, balanced viewpoints.

WhereTF did Clutchfans go?

 

I think Harden is MVP. But, the only reason Kawhi doesn't get acknowledgement for MVP is because he doesn't run his mouth.

 

My question was: Why can't they have 5 defenders instead of 4 when Leonard is on the floor?

Let me make it clearer. If clogging was really a superior way to play defense why would the Spurs let Leonard get pulled away? Why did they not tell him to stay back? Assuming Popovich is really a good coach, wouldn't he recognize this?

 

Why do we keep quoting an article the wasn't even 25% into the season. Even if their stats still hold today, the article is doing nothing but trying to use a horrible stat in a clever way...rather than starting with the premise of +/- stats for defense are very flawed and here's an example of Pops and his DPOY to illustrate how horrible the stat is.

This DRPM stat is like trolling NBA fans. It says Avery Bradley (a 1st team all-defense player) is like 70th best guard and Leonard is hurting the Spurs defense ... but it gets things right enough to pull off the troll jobs on us that allow such horrible logic as that CBSsports article to be written and debated....