The 2014-2015 NBA Season Thread. Lock It Up Please: The Golden State Warriors Are The Champions

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yungchris504 said:
How would a guard stop Anthony Davis from scoring? And besides the point basketball isn't a 1 on 1 game. Curry benefited greatly with that great team he has.

Keep in mind Ryan missed 21, Eric 21, Jrue 42 & AD 14 games. And they managed to make it in.

Other than Tyreke Evans name a player who wasn't injure on this team off the top of your head...I'll wait.
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how would a guard stop AD? guards are faster, and he has to put the ball down. you dont check from under the rim. like i said, in a 1 on 1, AD loses. AND THATS OK! Everyone above AD is also much more experienced in every way. And yall acting like being #7 in the league is a slight to him. Hes ahead of EVERYONE except 6 people and yall are offended lol
 
I think Davis' defense is a tad overrated/overhyped this early into his career thanks to the blocks and path of destruction he left at UK.

But he's awesome.
 
yungchris504 said:
Other than Tyreke Evans name a player who wasn't injure on this team off the top of your head...I'll wait.
 
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So Reke is the one that carried them to the Playoffs then? 
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TEKtheMAESTRO said:
how would a guard stop AD? guards are faster, and he has to put the ball down. you dont check from under the rim. like i said, in a 1 on 1, AD loses. AND THATS OK! Everyone above AD is also much more experienced in every way. And yall acting like being #7 in the league is a slight to him. Hes ahead of EVERYONE except 6 people and yall are offended lol
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You're not factoring in defense at all. He's the number 4 scorer in the league and he's light years ahead of everyone on your list defensively except for a motivated Lebron.
 
AD was a guard for 75% of his life, he has handles and quickness, you don't know what you're talking about.
 
TEKtheMAESTRO said:
how would a guard stop AD? guards are faster, and he has to put the ball down. you dont check from under the rim. like i said, in a 1 on 1, AD loses. AND THATS OK! Everyone above AD is also much more experienced in every way. And yall acting like being #7 in the league is a slight to him. Hes ahead of EVERYONE except 6 people and yall are offended lol
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Bruh, by that logic every guard should just guard him 1 on 1. The problem is for whatever reason you are underrating him extremely. And I like how you failed to address the rest of my question.
 
Adrian WojnarowskiVerified account
‏@WojYahooNBA Ownership gave GM Dell Demps and Monty Williams preseason mandate to make playoffs to keep jobs, w/ no allowance for injuries. They made it.
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:wow:

Imagine how much pressure do Demps and Williams have to face for the whole season.
 
PMatic said:
I think Davis' defense is a tad overrated/overhyped this early into his career thanks to the blocks and path of destruction he left at UK.

But he's awesome.
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exactly. Watch his 1v1 defense against offensively skilled bigs.  He gets toasted, if he even guards them (usually Asik does).  He needs to add some weight.  but he's 22, he's got plenty of time.  

people just look at his blocks and say ELITE DEFENSE!
 
Nelson999 said:
 
Just because he has amazing shot blocking numbers doesn't mean he's great defensively.  a lot of those blocks are coming from the weakside.

1v1 defense, he's food for a lot of bigs right now
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AD is food against any of the 6 i listed. watch the video i post. its from LAST WEEK. they all ate on him. KLAY ate! A REVERSE RIGHT AT THE RIM IN FRONT OF AD ON AD'S SIDE. 
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Nelson999 said:
So Reke is the one that carried them to the Playoffs then? :nerd:  
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He was a big part of it. He played like 79 games. But the addition of Cole, Asik, Pondexter, etc. Is what helped. But compared to what GS roster is I would expect them to do more with the talent they have.
 
Via Reddit (4 months ago, but it applies) on AD being overrated defensively....or is he?

Long read, so I'll put it in a spoiler

Well this is not what I wanted to wake up to. Check back in about 2 hours when I've had my coffee and I'm through morning traffic.

Mkay I found a computer. If anyone has any specific questions feel free to shoot away as a type.

First I wanna give a huge shout out to ya peeps in the comments looking beyond the surface and asking the right questions. Its easy to get caught in narratives (good and bad) and draw conclusions based on limited anecdotal evidence or miss-attribute success and failure simply because it fits our notion of what we expect to see.

Its odd how its sort of become the norm to expect me to make a long winded post trying to address every point. It puts me on weird platform where my word is somehow better than everyone else, and I don't think that's true. Sure I watch the Pels a heck of a lot more than most people, but I have the same tools available to me as everyone else. I think most of the people in the comments have said a lot of what I want to say, but I suppose no AD post would be complete without me ranting with cherry picked stats and graphics. So here we go.

The defense is a problem and it's not like the Pelicans don't have defensive players. They have one of the best PG defenders in the league in Jrue Holiday and a rim protector/defensive anchor in Omer Asik. Now my biggest problem with AD as a player and how people are looking at him is his inability to be a truly impactful defensive player. He gets the blocks and he gets the steals but the Pelicans manage to be one of the worst defenses in the league giving up a bottom 5 OFG% and are within the bottom 10 in O3FG%.

So here's problem that drives our fans crazy to no end. We have 3 supposed top tier defenders in the starting lineup and can't put together an above average defense? Why? Who is responsible for this? Well lets take a look at how our defense is when AD-Asik-Jrue are on the floor. With that three man lineup, the Pelicans give up only a 98.8 DRTG. So the Pels have an elite defense with those guys on the floor.

So wait a minute, is it Gordon and Tyreke?

No, when our starting lineup was on the floor together they only gave up a 98.3 DTRG - another elite mark. Even when we replaced Gordon with Rivers when he got hurt, our defense was 99.2. I can belabor the point further, but as it stands our starters hold their own with anyone in the league. So why is our defense so bad? The moment AD or Asik sit, it all goes to ****. When AD sits, our defense is 6.8 points/100 worse. When Asik sits, our defense is 5.8 p/100p worse.

A comparable example is Bogut. We know he is the powerhouse behind the Warrior's defense, they get 6.3 points/100 worse when he sits. Or when Ibaka sits, OKC is 4.7 pp100 worse.

But to sort of drive the point home that defense is more than indviduals, when Marc Gasol sits, the Grizzlies are actually 7.1 points/100 better. Now that's not because Marc is somehow holding back the Grizz, its a testament to how strong the Grizz defense is on all fronts. Its not individuals or the sum of your parts that make you a good defensive team. There is always a story behind the numbers.

So when you say AD has an inability to be impact on defense, I think that is categorically untrue. But there is more to it than plus minus, as anyone who knows me knows that I hate plus minus stats.

I'm not impressed at all by his P&R defense, especially on the roll player (which he's typically guarding considering he's a big). He gets killed by faster players, even with his long wingspan and athleticism he still manages to get lost on rolls to the basket. A lot of holes in AD's defensive game have to do with defensive BBall IQ, which I'm sure he will develop as he becomes a more poised player but I'm talking about right now and he's pretty far behind a lot of the veteran defensive anchors.

/u/l_davies93 addressed this below, and honestly I couldn't have said it better. Davis primarily hedges on the screen and roll. And in my opinion he's of the best in the help and recover. Countless times have I seen him push the ball handler out to almost half court and then rotate back to his man. The problem with agressive defensive schemes like this is that everyone's rotations have to be on point. If one guy messes up (as happens way more often than I like with us) the scheme is liable to fail hard. You either give up a drive to the rim, or the roll man is left wide open.

Do I think he can improve his awareness? Absolutely. He knows how good he is playing those passing lanes and often times you'll see him go for a play that anybody else wouldn't even think about gambling and he'll come up short and get burned. But then he makes that play two possessions later and you're like "how??". He's definitely figuring out his limits and what he can get away with. But to base an opinion of his defensive IQ or instincts off of gambles is tantamount to basing it off the two blocks he got in 2 seconds. Doesn't tell you much at the end of the day.

It's much much easier to take note of ridiculous plays and stupid gambles because you can see the results of it almost immediately. It's much harder see little things like lateral movement, sealing off drives, making sure your guy didn't get the ball, etc because nothing happened. Its hard to see nothing if you aren't specifically looking for it.

Continuing on his defense, he's given up 51.1% on 6.5 contests per game (per NBA.com) at the rim. That is a pretty bad percentage for someone that is considered to be one of the best shot blockers in the league and this has a lot to do with his post defense rather than his help defense. He obviously struggles vs. bigger/stronger players due to his lack of strength even though he bulked up in the offseason (Blake Griffin killed him several nights ago) but I've especially seen him get burned by players that have good post games such as LaMarcus Aldridge

I think there is a lot of anecdotal evidence here and not much substance. Blake Griffin is a tremendous player and he did what tremendous players do - he had a great game. He went 6/10 against shots Davis defended. But is one game enough to conclude anything? Last year through 4 games, Davis held Griffin to 8/22 or 38.05% shooting. You mention that you've seen LaMarcus Aldridge take advantage, and I ask you when? This year in one game LMA was 3/10 against shots AD defended. Last year he held Aldridge to 15/39 or 38.4%.

Now does he have difficulty guarding guys like Boogie and Dwight? Absolutely. But who doesn't firstly, and secondly, is it fair to ask him to defend those guys? I don't think so. There is a reason we paid a 1st round pick for Asik.

Which brings me to the final part of this - rim protection. I would like to establish that it's not his job to protect the rim. He's rarely the guy in the paint waiting to protect the rim - that is Asik's job. I wrote about it in detail here. Marc Gasol does almost the exact same thing, just on a smaller scale. There is a reason Gasol gave up 53% at the rim last year - it wasn't his job to sit back in the paint ala Hibbert.

Many games have passed since I wrote that, so lets check out how AD is doing as a free safety. This is his defensive shotchart outside the paint.. Hollow points are missed shots. He has held opponents to 39/130 shots or 30%. He's also contested 67 more shots than the next closest Pelican (301 vs 234).

Check out how this compares to other elite guys.
Player FGM FGA FG%
M. Gasol 24 82 29.27%
Davis 39 130 30.0%
Bogut 26 81 32.1%
Ibaka 44 130 33.85%
Gibson 30 75 40%
Noah 50 123 40.65%

As you can see, only Marc Gasol bests him by a fraction of a percentage on a much lower volume. If you look at the heatmaps of what types of shots they contest, you see that Davis contests a ridiculous amount of threes. Only Ibaka matches Davis's total volume, and he's played 1 more game than Davis has.

Every defender makes his mistakes and misses rotations. Here is an excellent piece on how Tony Allen plays a chaotic style of defense, but it often puts him out of position.. Anthony Davis can definitely improve in a ton of areas. But as with Davis, you can pick apart flaws in anyone's game. It doesn't take away that from the fact that they may already be playing at a extremely high level. When considering AD's role on the team and how effective he has been, I personally believe he is an elite defender in todays game. If he was put on Thibs team, I have no doubt he'd be front runner for DPOY.
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Link
 
air4life said:
You're not factoring in defense at all. He's the number 4 scorer in the league and he's light years ahead of everyone on your list defensively except for a motivated Lebron.
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if we're going by stats exclusively to say why hes better...using these very stats, AD has 3 better scorers than him and is top 5 defensively. But going by stats, SURELY 2 categories don't define who is better. So if u go by stats, whos better? AD or the others? Who contributes more to their team?

If you go by 1 on 1, as you should when comparing players, who wins? this is very simple.
 
Nelson999 said:
 
exactly. Watch his 1v1 defense against offensively skilled bigs.  He gets toasted, if he even guards them (usually Asik does).  He needs to add some weight.  but he's 22, he's got plenty of time.  

people just look at his blocks and say ELITE DEFENSE!
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You're wrong. It's ok. Cause Boogie had a few good games he's food. *****
 
yungchris504 said:
Yet they won the game...so whats your point?
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if youre going to go by team wins to explain why hes better than steph...who wins that category? STAHPPPPPPPPPPP my point is, yall say AD is either the best or top 3 in the league. Im showing proof from just last week to back up my point that people above him will eat him alive. itd be TOO easy to find clips of him versus the teams yall talk about and watch highlights of him getting torched. do we really have to do that tho?

like, do i really have to go lookup pelicans vs rockets/warriors/cavs/clips/etc etc highlights and expose AD right now? do i really have to?
 
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