Is defense an overrated argument?

[quote]If we say the difference between Anthony's offensive game is matched by the difference with Pippen's defensive prowess, and they play the same position, then offense wins right?[/quote]
What are you even arguing? I already said both ends of the floor matter a great deal in the previous post. If anything Bill Russell in the 60's showed the defense has a higher ceiling than the offense.


[quote]So who's prime do you take, Scottie Pippen or Carmelo Anthony?[/quote]

Pippen is also a better playmaker and finisher at the basket. In looking at his 1996-97 shot chart he has no shooting weaknesses (below league average) inside of the 3 point arc.

[URL="http://stats.nba.com/playerShotchart.html?PlayerID=937&Season=1996-97&zone-mode=zone"]http://stats.nba.com/playerShotchart.html?PlayerID=937&Season=1996-97&zone-mode=zone[/URL]

I don't know how Melo ended up in this thread. Then again I can recall posters here in the past who said they would take Melo over Barkley as well. Perhaps some posters here agree.

[QUOTE=PHILA]What are you even arguing? I already said both ends of the floor matter a great deal in the previous post. If anything Bill Russell in the 60's showed the defense has a higher ceiling than the offense.[/QUOTE]

I wasn't arguing with you, it was with other posters who are stating that offense is a lot more important, with the possible exception of the center position.

[QUOTE=PHILA]I don't know how Melo ended up in this thread. Then again I can recall posters here in the past who said they would take Melo over Barkley as well. Perhaps some posters here agree.[/quote]

Melo came to mind as a guy I could compare with a great defensive player at his position who was good but not great at offense.

[quote=Marchesk]I wasn't arguing with you, it was with other posters who are stating that offense is a lot more important, with the possible exception of the center position.[/quote]

In this era, it's pick and roll defense with the way the rules have changed. The point guards now rule the game offensively, but they can't impact the game on defense to that extent now with the rule changes. Even Pippen said he wouldn't be the same defensive player under these rules, though that was 2006.


[URL="http://web.archive.org/web/20060206113928/http://www.nba.com/blog/blog30.html"]http://web.archive.org/web/20060206113928/http://www.nba.com/blog/blog30.html[/URL]



[I]"The way I played Magic Johnson in the '91 Finals, I would have fouled out the first time down court."


"If I'm guarding Kobe Bryant in today's game, I couldn't be the defender I was known as."[/I]

[QUOTE=tpols]Plenty of games out there where one star player has put the team on his back while his teammates struggled offensively.


Has there ever been a single defensive player to carry an elite defense while all of his teammates played subpar D?? It's not really possible. Teams will always go for the weak point or soft spot. If only one guy is making a great effort it will be negated by attacking his teammates.[/QUOTE]
But teams cant just leave players in an effort to stop one guy. They get doubled or tripled, but the opposition cant totally negate the other four to stop one guy

[QUOTE=Marchesk]I don't get it. You'd think he achieved enough in his career to prove his worth as an all-time great to himself. The only blemish is not having more rings. But it seems Wilt was more obsessed with future players having comparable individual stats, or being called better. Why would he need to feel that way?

Why do some of these old-timers get bitter like that? You accomplish what you can in your era, and go down in the history books. Then you retire and let the future generations do their thing. Seems really silly.[/QUOTE]

Wilt also had to endure the "ESPN Generation" basically ignoring his statistical accomplishments. This was well past his death, but a couple of years ago Kevin Durant went on a 25+ point consecutive game streak. As the streak continued, ESPN began tracking it, and comparing it with MJ's "record" of something like 40 straight. Of course, they didn't mention that Chamberlain had a streak of 126 straight.

Chamberlain's domination of the NBA Record Book is considered a joke by many. And usually their only argument is "pace." BUT, they never explain why it was ONLY Wilt who was just putting the records so far out of reach. I won't take the time to post them now (but I have before), but if you compare 30-30, 40-30, 50-30, 60-20, 60-30, 50-40, 60-40, and even 70-40 games in NBA history...it is truly laughable. Wilt is LIGHT YEARS ahead of the rest of the entire NBA, and it's history...COMBINED. In some of those cases, he is the ONLY one.

And then there are the "Wilt-bashers" who have called him a "selfish" "stats-padding" "choker", and yet they can't provide any real evidence to support it. For instance, how often have you read that Wilt was "stats-padding" in his 50 point season? Yet, the fact was, it was NOT Chamberlain's idea to shoot 40 times per game. It was his COACH's. And why? Because his COACH took one look at the pathetic cast of clowns that surrounded Wilt, and decided the only hope that that team had, was for Wilt to shoot and score. Just the season before, and in the first round of the playoffs, the Warriors were swept by the Syracuse Nats. While Wilt averaged 37 ppg in that series, his two HOF teammates, Arizin and Gola, shot .328 and .206 from the field respectively. McGuire knew that the rest of the '62 roster was a last-place collection of talent, and put everything on Wilt's shoulders. BTW, in that '62 season, Chamberlain shot .506 from the floor, while his teammates collectively shot .402. And it would get worse in the post-season. Chamberlain shot .467, and his teammates collectively shot .354. And yet, somehow Wilt got that inept roster past the first round of the playoffs, and to a game seven, two-point loss, against the HOF-laden Celtics.

I can fully understand why Wilt was somewhat bitter later in his life (although he was nowhere near as bitter as Russell was/is, and even Kareem has been.)

Most fans dont care about defense, they care about offense, and primarily about scoring.

Those fans dont understand:

1. Defense is half of the game.

2. Teams with dominant defense wins championships, while purely offensive teams almost never. Even Showtime Lakers were very good defensively.

3. There are BY FAR more elite scorers than elite defenders, therefore elite anchors are way more valuable.

4. Offensive players always have off nights, while defense can always be there. Thats why defensive teams usually prevail in 7 game series if both teams are equal talent wise, just with different offense/defense focus.

[B]Bottom line[/B], defense is not "sexy enough" for most of the fans, therefore they dont value it. Even though as NBA history shows, the saying [I]defense wins championships[/I] is based on hard facts.

It's probably not the main argument when comparing individual superstars, because what ultimately matters is the defensive performance of the team as a whole and your superstar does not need to be the best defender on your team or even a great defender if he makes up for it with his offense.

(The exception would be if he's a center and does not have a rim protector alongside him. It's almost impossible for a defensively inept center to be valuable to his team, because almost nothing can make up for giving up easy shots near the basket.)

Defense wins championship. Just ask the Nash's Phoenix Suns. They were a great offensive team, but a terrible defensive team.

In comparing individual players two play players >>> One dimensional scorers. That's why I pick Pippen over the Hill and the Carmelo Anthony's.

[QUOTE=LAZERUSS]
I can fully understand why Wilt was somewhat bitter later in his life (although he was nowhere near as bitter as Russell was/is, and even Kareem has been.)[/QUOTE]

I don't care why any of the old timers are bitter. It doesn't come off well. And the way Wilt has always seemed to me is as someone with this massive ego defect whereby he needs this super validation. He needed to be larger than life. Or that's the way it seemed to me.

Really, if you're a GOAT candidate - someone who holds that many records - why do you act threatened if someone breaks one of your records or some later generation fails to mention you? Don't you think Wilt did enough to prove to himself that he was great? He shouldn't have needed any more validation.

I cannot believe ISH. Defense is what wins Championships. Period.

[QUOTE=Young X]Can one player have the defensive equivalent of a 35 pt season? Can one player stop teams from scoring 35 points per game for a whole season by himself?[/QUOTE]

I'm referencing this one post, but really, I'm trying to respond to all of your "can X defender ever have an impact as great as Y offensive performance" posts.

Elmore Smith -- 17 blocks. That's 34 points right there. How many other quality shots did the O not take because of how in-the-zone Smith was? I think we can assume at least a couple. Now we're up to 38-42 points that Smith directly saved. Rebounding is considered part of defense. How many defensive rebounds did Smith have, when he was the only member of the Jazz near the hoop, thus saving a likely offensive put-back? We'll say 1-3. So now we're up around 40-48 pts that Smith directly saved. Now let's discuss potential M2M D. How many times did Smith D up his man so well that he was forced to pass out of quality low post position? Probably a couple... The numbers keep adding up.

By the way... I am 95% sure you (Young X) don't even know who Elmore Smith is. Which means he's not an all-time great. So use the above "formula" with all-time great defenders... Pippen, Jordan, Payton, Artest, Russell, Chamberlain, Hakeem, Kareem, Wallace, Rodman, Debusschere (sp?), Moncrief, et al.

Defensive impact is not as tangible as scoring, hence the under-rating of it. However, defense is nearly as important as offense, and in some positions/instances it is more so.

To make my post even longer... Let's say an all-time great scorer, with very little help, goes up against a team with an all-time great defender at the same position. I'm particularly thinking about a theoretical matchup of '06 Kobe vs '06 Artest. I realize there were probably real matchups, but I"m too lazy to look them up. Anyway, I would assume that Kobe may still "get his", but at what efficiency cost?

Furthermore, if a team, like the '06 Lakers, rely so heavily on one person to score and create, what happens to that team's offense when their one player (Kobe) plays against a defender that can somewhat limit his impact WITHOUT double teams? Suddenly those kick-out shooters are not open. Men don't flash open under the basket. Offensive rebounds become more scarce because no defensive player needs to leave their man.

You may call that "team defense". I call it the team being able to play defense because of superb man defense.

Pippen vs. Anthony is pretty easy to me.

Pippen has an argument as the best perimeter defender ever. He was also very good on offense with his combination of play-making and scoring ability.

Melo is a great scorer only on offense - his play-making is lacking. His defense is decent when he tries, and bad when he doesn't. He's not consistently decent, and not consistently bad. In between.

Basically,

Using the 65/35 theory:

Pippen = 35/35 on defense, 55/65 on offense = 90/100

Melo = 20/35 on defense, 60/65 on offense = 80/100

[QUOTE=Marchesk]I don't care why any of the old timers are bitter. It doesn't come off well. And the way Wilt has always seemed to me is as someone with this massive ego defect whereby he needs this super validation. He needed to be larger than life. Or that's the way it seemed to me.

Really, if you're a GOAT candidate - someone who holds that many records - why do you act threatened if someone breaks one of your records or some later generation fails to mention you? Don't you think Wilt did enough to prove to himself that he was great? He shouldn't have needed any more validation.[/QUOTE]

Well, Wilt wasn't/isn't the only one with ego issues. Russell, KAJ, Oscar, Bird, MJ, Kobe, and now Lebron. All with huge egos.

And look at Eric Dickerson, or the members of the '72 Dolphins. I don't think anyone really wants to see their records broken.

[QUOTE=Carbine]Pippen vs. Anthony is pretty easy to me.

Pippen has an argument as the best perimeter defender ever. He was also very good on offense with his combination of play-making and scoring ability.

Melo is a great scorer only on offense - his play-making is lacking. [B]His defense is decent when he tries, and bad when he doesn't.[/B] He's not consistently decent, and not consistently bad. In between.

Basically,

Using the 65/35 theory:

Pippen = 35/35 on defense, 55/65 on offense = 90/100

[B]Melo = 20/35 on defense[/B], 60/65 on offense = 80/100[/QUOTE]

Minor technicality, but your description does not match the numerical rating. I'd put the D rating down around 10-15/35 based upon your description. "Decent" and "bad" do not equate to "above average" in my book.

Defense does win championships, but not every single player on the team needs to be a superb defensive player for that team to have great defense.

It's all a function of context. First of all, there are differences in position. For instance, most PGs can get by one another, individually, so 1 on 1 PG defense doesn't matter that much. Secondly, a defensive specialist can help cover up another player's deficiencies in a way that having both on the court is beneficial to the team as a whole (think Dirk + Tyson Chandler). Thirdly, there's occasionally a player who's not a big offensive threat on the other side you can stick your relatively poor defender on. For instance, if you're a defensively challenged PF, you can have him cover Kendrick Perkins, Joel Anthony, Tiago Splitter... or if you're a guard, Tony Allen, Thabo Sefolosha, etc. Finally, at the individual level, you observe diminishing returns of sorts on defense: terrible defense brings about terrible results and screws up the entire team effort, but once you avoid the most obvious egregious mistakes, you don't have to be a magnificent defender to justify your place on the roster.