You've been around long enough to know that even if the Blazers went 82-0, people would fnd something to complain about.
how truly horrible Kevin is defensively and how that contributes to his team's pathetic record are other things you don't bring up in your arguments. Big stat Bigs who can't defend like Love, Lee & Zach play on perennial losers for a reason. Does it matter how much money you put in your pocket if your pocket has a gaping hole in it? STOMP
Aldridge has more talent around him and its not even debateable. Love is just 22, he's not even in his prime yet.
David West is just as awful as Love on defense. Difference is he plays with an AS point guard. Its all about who you play with. Boozer isn't a good defender, he's played with All-star's so he's been on good teams. Al Jefferson is a horrible defender, he got traded to a team with good players around him and he's in the playoff hunt.
Yes and no. Boozer and West are worlds better on D then Love, to my eyes it's not even close. Jefferson is also one of the worst defending Bigs and yes Utah hides him as best they can as they do have many more viably NBA players then the Wolves. Notice with Al for Boozer as the biggest difference in their roster last year to this, that Utah's winning % is down 5%. I doubt if KL and Big Al were swapped whether there would be any real change in the two team's records. But of course no one is trumpeting AJ as an All Star talent. Love is truly pitiful defensively... I'd tie him with Zach for dead last among starting PFs in the league. When his man gets the ball in the post, sometimes you feel sorry for him because he seems/looks so helpless and resigned to his fate as his man takes whatever he wants. How one can deny his shortcomings have a whole lot to do with his team's record is beyond me. STOMP
Are you just using defensive rating? Because that's probably less accurate than this: http://www.82games.com/1011/1011MIN.HTM Not amazing but respectable. There are mediocre defenders that look good on good defensive teams, and vice-versa because of defensive rating. One would expect a truly bad or good defender to fail/succeed in both metrics, but Love doesn't.
you and I have had this conversation before but obviously you've forgotten. I don't put much stock in any of the advanced defensive stats and never reference them because I think they're a very poor reflection of whats what. Defensive switches happen on most every play, often several times. I'm a purely subjective guy and what I've observed is someone who can't defend for shit. If (for instance) the Wolves and Blazers are playing, Kevin primarily guards Joel or Camby because he flat can't guard LA. When Portland gets him switched onto LA they clear out and let Aldridge abuse him. The Blazers play a cat and mouse game trying to get that matchup which has largely contributed to LA's two highest scoring games ever. Watch a Wolves game and you'll see them trying to hide him on non-scorers all night and sending double teams to help him when he gets stuck on one. STOMP
Whats the difference between bad and pitiful? West and Boozer are letting guys score on them just as easily as Love is. If your not a good defender, you're not a good defender. To differentiate levels of bad doesn't make sense to me. Either way, they're bad right? Its just the way the league is these days, I can name 3 or 4 good defending Power Forwards, 2 (Garnett and Duncan) of them are aging and began their careers in a different era and the other one is a hybrid in Atlanta. Even guys like Griffin and Amare who are juggernauts on offense don't even try to play D. For as much effort as those guys put out on offense they can't even atleast try on defense? Just as an example, Amare allowed Love to register 31 pts and 31 rebounds against the Wolves. Amare didn't care as long as he got his. Its just the way the league is these days. I read a stat a couple weeks ago that Boob posted that clearly showed that Love has outplayed his counterparts almost overwhelming during the season. Problem is, he has no help. Obviously it would be awesome if he had good teammates around him. You put him on Denver or Oklahoma City and they are easily title contenders and he's the 2nd option on either team.
pretty simple concept, one guy is worse. Some guys have the ability to D up but don't consistently put out the effort. When the game is on the line they exert themselves more. Love is unable to put up much resistance against other scoring PFs at any point of the game and is just awful when he gets switched onto agile SFs or even bigger longer 5s. I didn't watch that particular game, but you do realize that Amare is the Knicks 5 right? If he's primarily guarding Love, that brings their main shotblocker out of the paint. Sort of funny that as just some random example, you're siting Love's best game of the year from 2 1/2 months ago against Mike D'Antoni's run and gun Knicks. If you surrounded Patty Mills with enough talent he could be a starting guard on a contender. Overall Love is a good complimentary player with some excellent skills, but his achilles heal is a glaring weakness. As I've said many times, I'd love to have him as part of the Blazers Bigs rotation. LA Kevin and a defensive 5 like Camby would be great. Notice how I'm able to acknowledge both the positives and negative sides of an issue... I happen to value Defense from frontcourt players and feel that it's a very important component to winning hoops. Outside of Paul Westhead, I've heard just about every coach at every level echo this. But obviously you disagree... of course this disagreement we have didn't start with Love. STOMP
I'm sure Gerald Wallace having a poor defensive rating this year is just coincidence, and not an indication that counterpart PER is more important? We can have the conversation plenty of times then, because everyone on that starting squad is allowing 17+ PER, except Kevin Love and Brewer. The large sample size sorts through your noisy estimations. Darko guards PFs throughout the year, and a "poor" defender like Love guards centers or SFs? Does he primarily defend guards too? Some players have that capacity to change their entire team defensively, most aren't and that's normal. All the role players allow between 17-19 PER. Everything would indicate that your analysis is overblown and unfounded by anything. Chris Bosh was a "bad" defender too in Toronto. Now on individual post-ups he doesn't look nearly as worse, nor would Chris Paul look like a great defender in toronto. Defensive rating can be dubious unless it is supported by various metrics.
Eddie House hits a huge 3 for Miami after sitting on the bench for most of the 4th quarter. I wonder if he would have blamed his coach had he missed it, like the Blazers' "veteran" guard did after he blew a wide open shot a few weeks ago at the end of the game.
I watched the game, I think it was after Love's 15th rebound or so when they put Stoudemire on him and nothing changed. Stoudemire does play a lot of C, but he also spends a good chunk of time at PF. Either way, nothing worked. Its also funny that you cite the fact that teams rotate Love to play other teams C's that don't have as much scoring prowess. A guy like Aldridge of course is going to abuse him, Aldridge is so much longer. Its not a good matchup. Put a good C next to him like Camby and Nene and his weakness won't be as glaring. Defense is also an part of the game that is learned with age. People sometime forget that Love is just 22. A year older than Blake Griffin, who everybody seems to give a break to his bad defense because he dunks cool.
LOL! Blake is now a trending topic. Even Chris Rock has a word: http://twitter.com/NotChrisRock/status/31849658527518720
Blanky didn't play all that bad. No worse than Fisher or Shannon Brown, at least. Artest was simply terrible, though. 1-10 on offense, and could do nothing to slow down Paul Pierce on defense. I also discovered that the Lakers are still my least favorite team today, since I found myself rooting for Miami against OKC and the Celtics against the Lakers. Those are my 4 most hated teams, and there they all were playing each other today.
KD was going after Bosh after the game. http://hangtime.blogs.nba.com/2011/01/30/durant-bosh-is-fake-tough-guy/
Sigh... if only Greg Oden had decided he wanted one more year at tOSU and hadn't entered the 2007 draft. As much as I want to dislike the guy, Durant is such a fierce competitor, and he is so singularly-focused on basketball, that I just can't do it.
