Personnel does have a lot to do with it, but I think you can be a good defensive team without filling your roster with defensive specialists. To be an elite defensive unit like Detroit requires exceptionally talented defenders at more than one position, but to be a middle of the road defensive team one or two above average defenders and a real commitment to playing solid defense for 48 minutes should be enough. With this current squad, I think middle of the road defense would be a marked improvement.
To a certain extent defense can't be coached. We don't have anyone on the team with the athletic gifts of Kevin Garnett or Tim Duncan or Tayshaun Prince. Those guys are long and strong and quick. Their defensive potential is thus much higher than a player with average athleticism, strength, speed, etc. Bibby for example is not very quick for a pointguard so it's tough for him to stay in front of his man. Peja is not very quick or agile for a small forward and Brad obviously isn't going to be mistaken for a super athlete either. However, the fundamental skills of defense can be taught. A team defense which directs the offense to where it wants it to go requires 5 players working together, knowing what the others are doing.
Also, in the NBA offenses really seem to have an advantage. Certain players literally can get to the foul line at will because of the way fouls are called in the NBA. And guys are so quick and skilled with the basketball and so strong that they're just unguardable. Between an elite offense and an elite defense, the offense will win every time in the NBA. That's what I've seen in the last five years or so that I've watched the NBA a lot. Usually great offenses lose games when they get out of synch or the open shots (high percentage shots) just aren't dropping. All those years the Kings have been scoring over 100 points a game and we look at the defensive stats and see them almost last, remember that they're making opposing defenses look ineffective too. They don't need to hold opponents to 70 points per game because they don't have any trouble scoring that many points themselves on most nights. Elite defense is defined mostly by personel. If you've got the guys that Detroit has, you've got to play fantastic defense because that's what your guys are good at.
If there's one constant in sports (based on my observations) it's that there's unlimited pathways to a championship. If that weren't the case, we would know who was going to win every year. The games don't change much, but we're continually suprised by new stories and new pathways to a championship. If you've got good players and they play well together and they motivate each other and outperform expectations, you've got a good shot at a championship. We saw that here in 2002. That was a great bunch of guys and they really deserve to be thought of as champions because they had everything it takes to be there. You can't just replay the same year over and over again, but if you could I'd guess the Kings win that year a good % of the time.
So in relation to this discussion, I guess I really don't agree with the assesment that defense has not been addressed this offseason unless by addressed you mean taking apart the whole team and rebuilding it as an elite defensive squad. No Petrie didn't bring in Garnett and Artest and whoever else. Really I think the obsession with defense amongst Kings fans has more to do with the constant harping about how it's the Achilles heel of this team than how important it is to winning a championship. It's like when your car swerves and you swerve too far the other way to try and straighten out. An overcorrection. We're so desperate for any kind of defense that we won't settle for anything less than DPOY candidates at every position. No Kings' management hasn't overcorrected like that, but they're obviously making an effort to acquire players that have a reputation for being tough defenders. They've also got three core players that need to step up their defense.
And I also think bringing in a defensive specialist assistant coach might be a good idea. Adelman has done a marvelous job of pulling in different players and getting them to fit into his offensive system and be succesful with it. I question how much time and effort he puts into teaching these guys defense. Not that he doesn't care about defense, I just don't think that's something he's especially knowledgable about so he doesn't emphasize it. I don't think bringing in a 'defense is everything' head coach is a better solution. Those guys tend to emphasize defense and fundamentals to the point where skilled offensive players aren't having their best attributes maximized because they're trying to play within a restrictive system. But it wouldn't be such a bad idea to let Adelman keep teaching offense and bring in somebody else who's going to run defense drills on a regular basis and make sure the guys' heads are always in that part of the game too. It works well for football (which makes sense since the two - offense and defense - are literally two different teams). Maybe it takes two coaches for the guys to answer too so when they score 120 points and give up 115, Adelman can give credit where credit is due but Coach Defense can rightfully harp on them for failing at that aspect of the game. Keep guys accountable, teach them some skills to get them thinking about defense, and go into each game with a definite strategy for how to break down a particular offense. It's a lot to talk about, but other teams manage to get all of that done. I think maybe it's too much for Adelman to handle to be responsible for all of that and teaching the guys offense and finding good matchups. That's not a dig on Adelman, very few (if any) coaches really due a great job of coaching both offense and defense. Why be old fashioned? Split them up. In my opinion, that's really the best way for this team to address the defense problem.