Grant Williams better up his game

#51
#51
n_huffhines said:
What does that even mean?

Guys are trying harder than ever to defend the perimeter. Guys are built more now to defend the perimeter. It's a perimeter league now. There is no way you can compare anything you are seeing to other eras because the game was different. Perimeter defense is a priority because that's where the game is played. Remember when MJ hit 6 3's in a finals game? Every one of them was wide open. So yeah, sometimes you're going to see guys get open shots. Sometimes you're going to see a lack of effort in an 82-game season. But what you're not going to see is the best guard in the world get lazy spot-up 3's that are wide open in an NBA finals. I don't think a single one of those 6 3's even came off action. The announcers were freaking out for MJ. Today they'd be freaking out at the D, because that doesn't happen now.

The playoffs tell the story of the league, and just look at the rosters and compare them. Jazz won a lot of games the last 3 years but couldn't get anywhere in the playoffs because their team was built like a 90's D.
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This is so ludicrous I can only assume you are trolling today. That, or you must not be old enough to have seen much Michael Jordan. He's why the Jazz don't have a championship, not because they were built "like a 90s D".

In your mind, which current defensive stud would have closed out on Michael Jordan, the greatest offensive player in NBA history, and then stayed in front of him when he didn't shoot the three?
 
#52
#52
Rifleman said:
This is so ludicrous I can only assume you are trolling today. That, or you must not be old enough to have seen much Michael Jordan. He's why the Jazz don't have a championship, not because they were built "like a 90s D".
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I'm talking about the Jazz between 2019-2022.

If I were talking about the 1997 and 1998 Jazz, I would point out that they made it all the way to the finals 2x with just 1 legit perimeter defender in the starting lineup and 1 on the bench (Shandon Anderson, rookie and sophomore years = 17 mpg in the playoffs).
 
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#53
#53
Rifleman said:
This is so ludicrous I can only assume you are trolling today. That, or you must not be old enough to have seen much Michael Jordan. He's why the Jazz don't have a championship, not because they were built "like a 90s D".

In your mind, which current defensive stud would have closed out on Michael Jordan, the greatest offensive player in NBA history, and then stayed in front of him when he didn't shoot the three?
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Giannis

I'd welcome the opportunity to see that matchup.
 
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#54
#54
Rifleman said:
In your mind, which current defensive stud would have closed out on Michael Jordan, the greatest offensive player in NBA history, and then stayed in front of him when he didn't shoot the three?
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I'm not going to say anybody is stopping Jordan. I'm just saying nobody's letting him get that open in the first place. The closeout wouldn't have to be so drastic and he'd still go by them sometimes because he's MJ. The difference is they're not letting him get the ball like that. It's going to be much harder work.
 
#55
#55
n_huffhines said:
I'm not going to say anybody is stopping Jordan. I'm just saying nobody's letting him get that open in the first place. The closeout wouldn't have to be so drastic and he'd still go by them sometimes because he's MJ. The difference is they're not letting him get the ball like that. It's going to be much harder work.
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100% disagree. Jordan would average 50+ in today's NBA and to use that one scenario when the Jazz were psychologically broken by MJ's greatness to represent all 90's defense, which was far better than today, is just silly.
 
#59
#59
Rifleman said:
100% disagree. Jordan would average 50+ in today's NBA and to use that one scenario when the Jazz were psychologically broken by MJ's greatness to represent all 90's defense, which was far better than today, is just silly.
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Bryon Russell, Dan Majerle, Drexler, and Gary Payton....these are the only good perimeter defenders that MJ saw vs. 5 finals opponents. You'd have to go pretty far back to find a finals team that didn't have at least 3 good perimeter defenders, and that's all Jordan saw in 6 years. He was getting guarded by Byron Scott, Kevin Johnson, old Hornacek, old Stockton, Hersey Hawkins, Howard Eisley...it's a joke.

You don't really get into any specifics. You just make blanket statements and subjective and broad judgments without actually supporting them. I'm calling out example after example from past and present, and you're just saying stuff like that I didn't watch MJ.
 
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#60
#60
n_huffhines said:
Bryon Russell, Dan Majerle, Drexler, and Gary Payton....these are the only good perimeter defenders that MJ saw vs. 5 finals opponents. You'd have to go pretty far back to find a finals team that didn't have at least 3 good perimeter defenders, and that's all Jordan saw in 6 years. He was getting guarded by Byron Scott, Kevin Johnson, old Hornacek, old Stockton, Hersey Hawkins, Howard Eisley...it's a joke.

You don't really get into any specifics. You just make blanket statements and subjective and broad judgments without actually supporting them. I'm calling out example after example from past and present, and you're just saying stuff like that I didn't watch MJ.
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I'll post a poll and see what people think. Maybe I'm wrong.
 
#61
#61
Rifleman said:
I'll post a poll and see what people think. Maybe I'm wrong.
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You can post the poll question "is modern NBA defense abysmal?" and I can tell you the answer will be highly correlated with how much respondents watch the NBA. There's one thing that hasn't changed in the 30 years that I've been watching NBA and that is the people who don't watch think nobody plays D.

And even if I thought a poll would hold weight, I can't reconcile the ideas that the D is abysmal when dudes who literally all they can do is play D and shoot 3's are getting $80-$100m contracts. The league is paying a premium for perimeter D. There is no way that it's abysmal. Dudes are trying their asses off to get those contracts.
 
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