Honestly, I'm probably one of the few with the unpopular opinion that Mike D'Antoni's signing will not be as tragic as we think it is. This year, we saw a historically great defensive team in San Antonio not even make it past the second round. And this is a team with the tools, discipline, and focus to play good if not the best defense. I think the way the league is now, with the removal of the hand check rule, is geared around offensive firepower, hence Curry's success. While I don't think D'Antoni will make us elite, I think I prefer to have the potential for elite offense and respectable defense (mostly from hustle, which hopefully he can get from our Rockets), rather than a good defensive team with an isolation based, predictable offense like we ran in 2015-2016.
The only reason OKC got past San Antonio and pushed Golden State to 7 games was because they stepped up their defense in a very big way. True, the NBA today is focused much more on offense than on defense. That doesn't change the fact that you need to have at least a good (even if not historically great) defense if you want to be competitive. The Rockets' defense last season was a joke. They hired a coach who has had, at every team he has ever coached, teams that defenses that were a joke. I'm going to pull for the Rockets. Always, no matter what. But it is really, really hard to be optimistic for this hire.
The only reason that it won't be 'tragic', is because nothing could be more tragic in the realm of sports, than the last Rockets season.
While I'm not 100% sold on MDA hiring yet, I agree with OP's assessment on this issue. In the past 5 years or so, we've seen revolutionary changes in terms of how the game is played offensively, but the same thing hasn't occurred on the other side of the floor. Not many people mention this fact, but all four teams that made it to the conference finals this year were top 5 offensive teams, and none of them were top 5 in defensive efficiency. Maybe with the popularization of analytics and players consciously avoiding bad shots to take advantage of the most efficient offensive option at every moment, the offense might have improved too much for the defense to handle. The league average TS% in 2000-2001 season was 51.8%. This year it was 54.1%, the highest ever. Players like Allen Iverson with his low efficiency, would simply not survive in today's league. One thing I noticed is, when SAS goes up against teams like GSW or OKC and if their shots aren't falling, they can look really, I mean really bad. It's as if their elite defense is just not enough to contain the sheer offensive firepower of those teams. Same thing with Indiana and Atlanta, the more I watch their games, I get the feeling that it's way easier for great offensive teams to simply overpower great defensive teams, than vice versa. Obviously as a team, you need to be able to compete on both ends in order to have a realistic shot at the title, but the way things are moving suggests to me that it's becoming increasingly more important to have an elite offense paired with capable defense, than the other way around.
The Suns defense wasn't a joke. In fact it was a top 10 defense. I'm not necessarily making the claim that our defense will be awesome but I'm fairly confident we'll have a better defense than last year. I tend to agree with D'Antoni in that when the players feel like they have a role on offense then it makes it easier for them to turn it up a notch on defense. Last year players like Howard and perhaps others felt like they had no role on offense so they got lazy on D. With all that said I wasn't supportive of this hiring and still thing JVG is a better option to but make the claim that we will suck just isn't true. Much of it depends on the personnel we acquire this off season. If you put shooters around Harden, and a few more perimeter players that can make plays off the dribble, I actually think we'll be just fine.
Agreed. I've always felt like you've got to have efficient 5 man offense where even the 5th man can get you double digits efficiently if left with a single defender consistently. And if you have 5 guys that know how to run the offense ultra efficiently then you can mold the defense. As for how I feel about MDA I'm going to wait and see. I really like Bzdelic. But I'm going to wait and see if MDA really allows him to build the defensive scheme with the most critical joint between the offense and defense being how we maintain offensive floor balance in half court so we minimize man disadvantage in transition defense. If MDA actually bends at that joint to accommodate our transition defense not being outmanned thereby creating too much transition defense play then I might come around on MDA. MDA is going to have to be different than he has been at his other stops to win me over. I will be watching for that critical adjustment to his coaching.
Let's be real. This is completely and utterly a 100% play to keep Harden happy Here's a coach that won't jump on him for slacking on D, and probably will find better ways to put him in a position to get easier shots. That will be good for Harden, but set the franchise back 15 years
OKC, GSW, SAS, Cleveland all very good to great defensively. Cannot come in without top 5/10 defense and expect to win. Very few exceptions baring.
Technically, 2 of the 4 teams you mentioned came in without a top 5/10 defense in the regular season and made it to the conference finals. OKC, GSW, SAS and CLE were all Top 15 in defensive efficiency. Those same teams were all Top 5 in offensive efficiency this past season. You have to admit that the trend has changed. Top offenses are now more responsible for winning in the playoffs than are top defenses. I haven't seen anyone here argue that defense doesn't matter at all...only that it doesn't matter as much as it did in the past.
All the trend means is that defenses have not come up with an effective solution to small ball. When they do (and they eventually will) then you'll see these rankings flip in favour of the top defensive teams going to the conference finals and championship finals. Then we'll be waiting for the next offensive innovation.
