The Narrative that Trent is a Good Defender is False

Gary's problem, as far as I can see, is that he's young and he plays outside of his strengths sometimes.

He does it on offense and he does it on defense.

The guy is deadly as hell when he's in a catch and shoot situation, but when he tries to create off the dribble he often finds himself in trouble. Similarly, he takes a lot of gambles on defense that end up costing him with fouls or allowing his man to go around him. I think this is just inexperience and he will improve with time.

 

I think Trent is inconsistent. He's capable of playing good defense, he's capable of turning in a great night's work against a top-caliber wing or guard, but he doesn't do that night in and night out. People often tend to find the great performances more memorable and they stick in the mind. I buy that Trent isn't a very good defender overall, but I think he can be. Of course, making your best into your average is the goal for every player and most can't--so we'll have to see where Trent ends up.

 

Bad technique is common on this team, and its entirely fixable. But Stotts is the coach, so...

 

as a stathead, I'mm make a couple of observations:

* one is that winshare numbers, other than winshares/48 is a cumulative number. The more total minutes played, the higher the winshare will be

* for a bench player, especially one averaging 25 minutes or less, DBPM and OBPM need the context of rotations. Otherwise there's too much noise. For instance, if Trent spends a lot of minute with Kanter at C instead of Nurkic, or Melo at PF instead of RoCo, he's going to have a lower DBPM

one defensive gauge I think is mostly valid (with some caveats) is comparing a player's individual defensive rating to that of the team. Last year, Portland had a D Rating of 114.8 while Trent was at 117. This year, the team had a D Rating of 114.4 (hard to believe this team is only 0.4 points better on defense than last year's disaster) while Trent is at a team worst 121. Now, while this can have a similar rotational skew as DBPM, those numbers are kind of hard to ignore and just credit to circumstance. And Last year, Trent was in the bottom half of the league among SG's in DRPM

I don't think Trent is a good defender. He's not as bad as his numbers tend to indicate either, but he's certainly got an undeserved reputation as a good defender. Maybe people are confusing intensity and effort with results.

 

The only reason we beat Lakers last month was because he shot the lights out. But yeah, CJ is a much better defender than Trent.

 

All I care about is his effort. He's smart enough to learn how to become a better defender.

He can shoot and plays hard on both offense and defense.

 

Funny that last year went Trent was having an impact on some big games, most in here were acknowledging his defensive talents. Sure is a different tune now.

 

I’m kinda glad to see this thread, if for no other reason than I thought I was the only one who didn’t think Trent was all that great on defense. The kid is young, has genuine skills and a terrific work ethic, but right now all I see is a frenetic gunner who rarely sees an open teammate he can’t ignore. Seems to me his focus might be more on the next contract than anything. And it’s likely someone is going to overpay him. I can’t get too excited anyway because we seem to develop a shit ton of second rounders only to price ourselves out just of retaining them. Personally, I’d trade Trent sooner, rather than later, so we don’t see him walk for an offer we can’t match.

 

I remember that, but what I recall was that people seemed to be reacting on a curve; one based upon what they were used to seeing on defense from Portland guards. Trent looked engaged and he was intense and working hard. He'd have a decent defensive game and that was noticed. Much less noticed were the lapses he had on defense in other games

in other words, the defensive standards for a Portland guard over the previous 5 seasons had been set by Dame, CJ, Crabbe, Connaughton, Stauskas...bad defenders like that. Napier and Curry were a little better but their size limited their defensive versatility. The taller Trent coming along after 5 years of those other Blazer guards looked a lot better than he really was. When the gauge was what Blazer fans were used to, yeah, he looked good. But when the gauge is the rest of the NBA, he appears to be average, at best, and even that requires some homer imagination

 

I kind of see Will Barton in Trent. Not that they're clones of each other, but going by Barton when he was young, both seemed like they had potential as microwave scorers (rather than first option types) and the potential for defense that wasn't yet realized. Since going to Denver, Barton has been considered a solid defender and he's been a useful scorer for them. That's kind of what I think Trent can be.

 

Crabbe 2.0

 

that may be a good comp because for a while there, Crabbe sure did get a lot of undeserved credit for being a good defender.

and before Crabbe, and Trent, another wing who got way overrated as a defender was Martell Webster

 

He's got a ways to go but he's one guard on the team that guards muti positions. Yeah, his 5 steals and two blocks against the Grizz in the bubble got everyones hype up.

 

So essentially what you are saying is those who suggested starting Trent over CJ based on his defense was not the brightest idea.

 

Klay Thompson has been a touchstone of controversy in NBA defensive statistics, due to his strong defensive reputation in the eyes of many in and around the league despite uninspiring steal rates. The majority of defensive metrics, including Individual Defensive Rating and Defensive BPM, portray Thompson as a subpar defender. ESPN’s version of Real Plus/Minus estimates that Thompson cost his team 1.82 points per 100 possessions last season. Historically, the same model has rated him at +0.13 points in 2018, -0.45 points in 2017, -0.61 points in 2016, -0.72 points in 2015, and -0.17 points in 2014.


Chris Victorio | Special to S.F. Examiner
The Matchup-Based Defense model also does not identify Klay as a player who forces a lot of turnovers – 22 of the 25 high-load shooting guards forced more turnoers per 100 possessions than Klay’s 1.91. His Shooting Defense, on the other hand, was elite. Last season, Klay Thompson saved the Warriors 11.7 points per 100 possessions by forcing misses – the third highest mark among high-load shooting guards.

While models that rely on box score defensive statistics (steal, blocks, fouls, rebounds) report that Thompson’s data is unremarkable, Matchup-Based Defense inspects the performance of the players he guards. When we follow this methodology, we find a substantial and recognizable impact caused by Klay’s defense that comports with his film but does not appear in other defensive metrics. In fact, if you sort the table above by total Points Saved, you will find that Klay Thompson saved more points over the course of the season than any other shooting guard last year.

 

What I have noticed over the years is that there are people who have a good reputation as a defender and there are people who have a bad reputation.

The people who have a good reputation get away with a TON of fouls because the refs think of them as good defenders. Chris Paul is a perfect example of this. So is Pat Bev. They foul the shit out of Dame every time he has the ball and none of it gets called. They slap and body and they're able to get away with it because they have a good reputation.

Rookies get shitted on by the refs. It's funny because I thought Wenyen did a good job defending Davis last year in the playoffs, but the refs called literally any contact. How the hell are you supposed to defend if you can't have any contact at all? It's impossible.

 

I didn't notice too many people saying that, but I might not have paid enough attention

I did notice some people saying Portland could trade CJ and allow Trent to step into the starting role. IIRC, some were comparing it to the Monta Ellis/Klay situation in Golden State. I thought that comparison was way premature. I think CJ should be traded but that's because of the awkward Dame/CJ fit, not because of Trent

 

I think we can trade CJ because Trent/Simons/Hood can fill in well enough that we could use CJ to acquire a similar talent at a much more needed position, like power forward.

I think Trent has shown that he could get us 16-20 ppg a night on decent three point shooting, and he's a decent enough defender that it's an upgrade over CJ in that category. If we were able to get someone like Ben Simmons and if RoCo could actually start hitting shots, we could roll out a starting unit of

Dame
Trent
RoCo
Simmons
Nurk (when he comes back)

And then use Simmons as the backup point guard.

 

well sure, if Portland could get Simmons for CJ and spare change they'd be insane to turn that down. And of course, Olshey would refuse for just about certain

but yeah, Simmons at PF could mesh really well with Dame. But I'm not sure about RoCo as the SF. Blazers would need spacing with Simmons on the floor and RoCo has never been a good enough shooter from three to force defenses to cover his shooting threat. I think Portland would need a SF like Joe Ingles or Cam Johnson or Jerami Grant, etc. (although RoCo's defense is nice)