Nail. Head.
Gay was a key cog in the last Team USA run in the World Champs. He is NOT just a throwaway. He is a decent 2 way player that excels offensively in a 1on1 situation but can also be pretty dangerous in a passing/decoy system because of his handle. I get that some poaters think he isnt worth Bledsoe straight up. However, Bledsoe has never been considered for USA ball and Gay has, and has been there too. Food.
Team USA is so far ahead of any other team in the world, that I don't think you can seriously compare the defensive performance on Team USA with the defensive performance when facing actual NBA competition. You know what's true for Cousins is true for Gay. His role on Team USA was entirely different from his role with his NBA teams. He was an offensive afterthought and was asked to earn his spot by hustling and playing defense. This proves he is able to play D when motivated and against inferior opponents with lots of help from his team. Now I think nobody can doubt, that Rudy is able to play D. Of course he can. Problem is he doesn't show it on the court.
Rudy Gay was a two way player only during a very short time span in SAC.
Yes we can argue, that his lack of defense is solely a coaching issue or is caused by all the turmoil over the years. But at some point we have to look at the player himself. Is Rudy really willing to play defense? Was Rondo willing to play defense?
Well to me both players look disinterested on that end of the floor. Ironically Cousins gets all kind of heat for being disinterested on D, while to me Rudy and Rajon looked far worse than him. You know Boogie is a 6'11 kind of heavy dude, so I expect him to be late getting back a few times during a game. And even though he is late a bit too often, he is our best defender by far when our defense is correctly set up, making crucial defensive plays almost every game. When was the last time Rudy made a crucial defensive play? Honestly I can't remember anymore.
And when Cousins gets heat for his D, lets look at it like this: Rajon is a guard with decent quickness and great awareness. Rudy is still a Top-10 guy, when it comes to athleticism for his position. What's their excuse for their poor defensive performances? For the countless missed rotations, lazy closeouts, horrible switches and so on?
The defensive scheme? A zone scheme that involves lots of switching is not an excuse for lazyness and simply not caring.
Yes it's a bad idea to play a scheme based on switching screens with two guards barely 6'0 tall. But no coach on this earth will tell his players to close out to the 3pt line, like we did last season. No coach will tell his players to switch screens without even trying to fight over it or without even trying to switch back in order to prevent missmatches.
You won't find players considered to be good defenders doing this, no matter who coaches them.
