How do we fix our defense?

[lewro]

Saying we can trade JV for a PF later is actually pretty difficult. What PF, who? What team? Does that team need a center? It's much easier said than done. I've looked. Every capable PF out there has a center on their roster already. All except for maybe Kevin Love.. and frankly I'd be shocked if the Cavs traded him.

2Pat may not be important to this team going forward, but should be more important than a backup center.

I have no problems trading JV, heck I came up with an idea in the JV thread (Capela/Ariza). But we need a plan. You go after Noel this year and we most likely lose our backup PG, and we have 5 centers that we have to probably get minutes too. That seems like a bad way to design a team. And what happens if JV can't get you a PF? Look what happened with Monroe in Detroit and now Milwaukee. Bad use of an asset.

you don't have to trade jv, you can keep him and noel if that's what works and *both guys are on board (this is a stretch). you can trade one or the the other which opens up the market. some of the teams might want either guy or prefer him to their current center or their center has a bad injury (we are talking next season, a lot can and will change). as it stands, people have discussed LMA (unlikely given the spurs resurgence but see where that goes - Pau is old, LMA is rumoured disgruntled) and I'd propose derrick favors might come on the market (yes, favors does not work straight up but consider a 3 team trade). Another option (albeit problematic and speculative), is that some here are discussing what i consider a longer window through internal development. i have concern here considering lowry but for arguments sake, you might be able to trade noel and pick(s) to the pelicans for their 1st pick. this would shift the window and POSSIBLY give us a huge talent upgrade. that shifts the core around demar, jv and our young guys. for example, i wanted to trade up to get murray this year. i think it would have made a lot more sense for the pelicans to get poeltl, dejounte murray and ross (ross was old ross at that time). That changes the outlook on lowry. we could possibly trade him to team like philly for the lakers pick and another part(s). all that is hindsight now and highly flawed, off the top of my head thinking. the point is there are options and possibilities are not linear or obvious.
i totally disagree that we have 5 centers. i have 0 faith in sully until i see him play. the rest of the guys are green rookies which is fine if you are brooklyn but not if you want to compete for a championship.
jv and noel are both better players than monroe imo. bucks took him bc they cant attract free agents and detroit clearly had to build around drummond. we are building around demar and kyle atm. different scenario but i see what you mean.
i've made some highly speculative arguments here that are entirely half baked so i expect some blow back but the point is to consider all options and not just what is straightforward like adding millsap or boogie or internal development on its own. I'm sure masai is considering all options, even if only as an exercise. i think it is fun and provocative so i am offering it here for consideration and hopefully addition but more likely ridicule and scorn. that's fine. a bad idea is a bad idea and deserves to be rejected but narrow thinking also creates narrow possibilities. i'm not at all saying planetmars or anyone here is narrow minded. although i have at times out of frustration

[lewro]

Wait and see! Wait and see!

we need a wait and see vs push the button poll!

[lewro]

The NBA is the wrong sport to hope for a championship though. Biggest disparity between teams that win and teams that don't in all the major sports leagues in North America. One guy can influence a game radically. And teams have two or three of them now.

Yes, I agree with you. In think in this instance we have to get Boogie. Maybe something else comes up but I don't think it's realistic atm to hope for AD and the cost would gut us.
The other option is to move on from Lowry, reset the window and try for a high pick. People don't seen in favour of this and I doubt Masai and certainly Casey are.
Do you know another way?

[white men can't jump]

I so dont want Boogie. Last game against him reinforced that even more. Horrible body language even when things are going well. Seems to have the maturity level of a 4 year old. The more i see him play the less i understand why people are so gaga over him.

Also, just to line up with the thread, we'd probably be even worse defensively with him out there.
Sent from my HTC One using Tapatalk

[GLF]

Main thing the Raps have to do to fix their defence is to wait. Their strength of schedule has been insane, and calculating an adjusted DRTG by taking into account opposition, home/away and B2B's, the Raps have an effective DRTG of 104.2. That would currently rank pretty close to average, and would be a point better than their current rating.

They could do other stuff, like running out the right starting PF, or scaling back some of our guards' usage and minutes to allow for more consistent effort on both ends. I'd like to see both happen. But we should also consider that they've just been playing a brutal schedule - frankly, the schedule impact is probably under-estimated by my model because it just treats back to backs and road games generically and doesn't consider the effects of a long trip across time zones. Look at their defence before the GSW/CLE nightmare back to back - it was sitting at 102.5, which would be borderline top 10. Let's just... relax for a bit and see what happens as the schedule gets lighter.

I was one to get all worried about our defense so far, but after really sitting down and thinking about how tough our schedule has been since playing Cleveland and Golden State on the back to back I have come back down to earth. That is definitely a huge reason for our bad defense as of late. We definitely aren't good enough to beat Cleveland, Golden State, Clippers and Spurs in my opinion but as someone else said like 25 other teams aren't as well. Maybe if we play a little smarter and not on a back to back we can beat Clippers and Spurs but I still think they are better than us overall. So I will definitely be using the wait and see approach. With Carroll and Cory looking like they're finally coming back to life a bit and us still waiting for Sullinger to come back patience is important. Because all of those guys when actually healthy and playing like themselves will help our team out a lot defensively and offensively.

[lewro]

Do you know what is happening more often than that right now? This:

Sorry I missed this. I was literally out to lunch at that time.
S.R., there is a huge difference in these photos. One is the best player in the world and our chief rival getting erased at the rim, the other is Marcus Thornton praying to Jesus. Bebe could be catching a rebound in that photo for all I can see.
Bebe is a finding himself but his 2 or 3 career best games are on par with Noels career avg games across 150 game sample. Big difference.

[Barolt]

Sorry I missed this. I was literally out to lunch at that time.
S.R., there is a huge difference in these photos. One is the best player in the world and our chief rival getting erased at the rim, the other is Marcus Thornton praying to Jesus. Bebe could be catching a rebound in that photo for all I can see.
Bebe is a finding himself but his 2 or 3 career best games are on par with Noels career avg games across 150 game sample. Big difference.

Last year, the Cavs and Sixers played each other 4 times. LeBron put up lines of:

31/4/13 on 12/22 from the field.
23/5/4 on 10/17 from the field.
22/9/11 on 9/19 from the field.
37/7/9 on 15/22 from the field.

Clearly, Nerlens is the LeBron whisperer, who slows down and worries LeBron so much through his defense. Because otherwise your picture would be just that, a picture, something that is completely anecdotal and not at all relevant.

[KeonClark]

Last year, the Cavs and Sixers played each other 4 times. LeBron put up lines of:

31/4/13 on 12/22 from the field.
23/5/4 on 10/17 from the field.
22/9/11 on 9/19 from the field.
37/7/9 on 15/22 from the field.

Clearly, Nerlens is the LeBron whisperer, who slows down and worries LeBron so much through his defense. Because otherwise your picture would be just that, a picture, something that is completely anecdotal and not at all relevant.

Lebron gonna lebron. Hasn't been an answer for 13 years. Only hope is to stop kevin "you get no" love, kyrie no d, Jr shirtless, and channing "do you want" frye"'s with that"

[Barolt]

Lebron gonna lebron. Hasn't been an answer for 13 years. Only hope is to stop kevin "you get no" love, kyrie no d, Jr shirtless, and channing "do you want" frye"'s with that"

I agree with that. Which is why I don't think Nerlens is a real solution. I think any solution that disregards the need for our guards to step up isn't going to fix a damn thing.

[Lupe]

Last year, the Cavs and Sixers played each other 4 times. LeBron put up lines of:

31/4/13 on 12/22 from the field.
23/5/4 on 10/17 from the field.
22/9/11 on 9/19 from the field.
37/7/9 on 15/22 from the field.

Clearly, Nerlens is the LeBron whisperer, who slows down and worries LeBron so much through his defense. Because otherwise your picture would be just that, a picture, something that is completely anecdotal and not at all relevant.

Really? We're going to point to LeBron torching the worst team in the NBA by a country mile as an indictment of Nerlens' defense?

We're talking about adding him to a team that's actually good not one starting Sauce Castillo and Ish Smith.

[Barolt]

Really? We're going to point to LeBron torching the worst team in the NBA by a country mile as an indictment of Nerlens' defense?

We're talking about adding him to a team that's actually good not one starting Sauce Castillo and Ish Smith.

Keep in mind, I was responding to someone using a picture of Noel blocking LeBron's shot and attempting to use that as evidence for why we need him.

Both the data I posted and the picture are equally useless.

[DanH]

Keep in mind, I was responding to someone using a picture of Noel blocking LeBron's shot and attempting to use that as evidence for why we need him.

Both the data I posted and the picture are equally useless.

I say the key is to get Mason Plumlee or Pau Gasol. They've blocked LeBron too.

[Axel]

I say the key is to get Mason Plumlee or Pau Gasol. They've blocked LeBron too.

Hell, Bargnani might have once even and he'd be much cheaper to acquire.

[SkywalkerAC]

Carroll is making strides.

[lewro]

Last year, the Cavs and Sixers played each other 4 times. LeBron put up lines of:

31/4/13 on 12/22 from the field.
23/5/4 on 10/17 from the field.
22/9/11 on 9/19 from the field.
37/7/9 on 15/22 from the field.

Clearly, Nerlens is the LeBron whisperer, who slows down and worries LeBron so much through his defense. Because otherwise your picture would be just that, a picture, something that is completely anecdotal and not at all relevant.

Lol, you spent time looking up those stats!? No, I don't think noel is gonna stop lebron. We've already had this conversation. Nor do I think bebe will, which was kinda the OP. Nor do I think cory will. I probably don't even think demar "trying harder" will contain jr Smith, which is your supposition.
Do I think noel will improve our defense? Yes, try looking up those stats. I mean it's lebron vs the sixers, c'mon. Demars not the only one that should "try harder".