DeMarcus Cousins Is The Absolute Key to the Defense of the Sacramento Kings

[Bricklayer]

AKA the This One's For You Zach Lowe thread

Alright, been waiting to put together this splashy puppy. Its the thread you don't make. The claim you don't put forth. But its high time somebody changed the conversation on this topic. I elect me.

So here we go: DeMarcus Cousins is the Absolute Key to the Defense of the Sacramento Kings

Here's the proof:

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The Basics
-- he leads the Kings in defensive rebounding with 8.6 def reb a game, good for 5th in the league (tied for 2nd in def reb/per 48min) He has 590 def rebs on the season. Jason Thompson is the second highest king with 352.

-- he leads the Kings, and all NBA centers, in steals with 1.5stls a game.

-- he leads the Kings in shotblocking with 1.2. A modest number, but he has 86 blks on the year, JT has 55, no other King has more than 33.

-- he leads the entire NBA in charges drawn with 32 (as of Apr 5th). He has drawn several more since then.

In short he leads the Kings in essentially every defensive statistic.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

82games.com
according to 82games.com the Kings are a staggering 6.4pts/per 100 possessions (roughly 5pts per game) better defensively with Boogie on the floor than off it. That is better than Roy Hibbert, Joakim Noah, DeAndre Jordan and Dwight Howard. Its in fact one of the biggest marks in the league, and its driving Zach Lowe mad and I have no intention of stopping pelting him with it until he buckles and concedes the obvious.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Defensive Rating
All season long Cousins has had by FAR and away the best DRTG on the Kings. Here is the complete list with 3 games to go in the season (low is good):

Cousins 101
Evans 104
Hayes 105
Cunningham 105
Acy 107
Gray 107
Ndiaye 108
Mbah a Moute 108
Patterson 108
Thompson 108
Williams 109
Gay 109
Outlaw 110
Salmons 110
Landry 110
Thomas 111
Thornton 111
Fredette 111
McLemore 112
McCallum 112
Vasquez 114
Johnson 115
White 116

You know who else has a 101 Drtg in the NBA this year? Tony Allen, Kevin Garnett, Serge Ibaka, and Dwight Howard. In fact there are fewer than 40 players in the entire league at or above that number.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

So there you have it. Enough with group think. Watch what Cousins does out there in the last few games. Watch him step upto cut off lanes, move over to help. When he's on his toes, protect the rim. Constantly a menace with his hands for steals. Munch up defensive boards. He'll be slow to recover back sometimes after challenging up top, and often not get help from rotaters when he has to step up to stop penetration, which is not on him. Watch his defense when he gets switched onto somebody. And enough about him not getting back. Go ahead and count how often he gets beat down the court by his man anymore. The hustle is notably different. And when he doesn't challenge people inside 9 times out of 10 it is directly related to foul trouble and the need to avoid getting another one. Enough with old dialogue. Not only does it not fit with reality, but you're going to have a helluva time finding a stat to tell you it still does.

Kisses Zach.

P.S.Synergy
Synergy defensive stats are total bunk btw. But because its a name, then here you go:
1) Cousins is merely tied for 105th with about 20 guys in defensive rating. Of course amongst those 20 guys are Jaokim Noah, Anthony Davis, Tyson Chandler, LeBron James and Kevin Garnett, hewre's why you can ignore those alleged "stats": all those guys are trailing Kevin Love, Jared Sullinger, Carmelo Anthony and Jamal Crawford. Right.

P.P.S. I don't even want to talk about the mucked up faked DPRAM stat being pushed right now, including everything from previous years stats, to subjective tweaks, to mushing in team records, to grandma's apple pie, but it should be noted that Boogie finishes Top 20% in those stats too.

 

[Gilles]

Well, Drtg is a combination of box score stats, and on/off is always great, when a player is replaced with a much worse one, and Kings are putting duds as a backup Cs all the time (Landry, Acy and Evans played some time as nominal Cs, and Aaron Gray/JT are not world beaters either). That said with a bit more discipline he should leave no evidence for people, denying his defensive impact.

 

[King Baller]

Well my eyeballs tells me the Kings played pretty fair defense against Portland. Cousins contributed by taking a charge, blocking shots (I thought I saw at least two, the box score says zero), rebounding like a boss and just generally dominating. Cousins is the Kings cornerstone after all. Along with his improved defense his demeanor is improved. Instead or appearing to be raving mad all the time he is starting to just look like a Bad Ass (See KG).

Overall the Kings defense was pretty good especially the defensive rotations. Which made it all the more surprising Evans missed the coverage on that last three. Like it was fate or something. (Hey Reggie, sag off so we get the ping pong balls!)

I think Malone and crew can have this team playing good D early next season. Especially if Pete acquires a veteran guard who can defend NBA starters and a Defensive Goalie.

KB

 

[pshn80]

He needs to continue to improve his effectiveness at being a postive influence on Kings team defense. He needs to keep working on that. He has improved the % of his time that he is in the game on defense. Needs to keep on working on that. Each of our other players can play better defense. Cuz needs to keep working on that.

 

[jalfa]

DRTG as a team stat is as perfect as stats go, but gets difficult, once you use it as a player stat. watching the games, Cuz has made enormous strides in his approach to defence. he's always been a good post defender and that's still true. the real jump has come in his helpside defence. he's playing the angles better, cutting off driving lanes in p'n'r, and intimidating opponents at the rim (he's still getting attacked, but he's gotten much better at blocking and contesting shots, without fouling even!). he's also gotten a lot better at running back, even though he could still improve a ton in that area, and cutting out dumb/lazy fouls, again, could still be better. if he continues on this path, I've great hopes for him even on that end.

interestingly enough, Lowe just, sorta, addressed Cuz and his defensive stats just this week:

(buried in a bit of stats talk in the first segment)

 

[Gilles]

Drtg as a team stat is points allowed per 100 possessions. Drtg for players is an estimation, based on box score stats.

 

[KingsFanSince85]

After reading Brick's breakdown, it's pretty easy to understand why Cuz is always in foul trouble. Dumb fouls aside, he's always trying to cover for someone after they get beat off the dribble or fail to get over/under/through a screen. If his teammates start holding up their end a little more, DeMarcus might be able to avoid these games where he's bench ridden with 2 or 3 early fouls.

Think that might important to the team?

 

[swisshh]

He still struggles in transition defense, but his half court defense is a positive. His man post defense is also quite good.

 

[randymoss1881]

After reading Brick's breakdown, it's pretty easy to understand why Cuz is always in foul trouble. Dumb fouls aside, he's always trying to cover for someone after they get beat off the dribble or fail to get over/under/through a screen. If his teammates start holding up their end a little more, DeMarcus might be able to avoid these games where he's bench ridden with 2 or 3 early fouls.

Think that might important to the team?

I don't know man he gets 2 or 3 dumb let me reach in fouls a game. Usually he is in good shape to just let the person true to go over him but he reaches. If he can contain himself from that he wouldn't be in so much foul trouble.

 

[KingsFanSince85]

I don't know man he gets 2 or 3 dumb let me reach in fouls a game. Usually he is in good shape to just let the person true to go over him but he reaches.

Agreed. But he's usually in the position of making a dumb foul because his teammates didn't play good defense in front of him. While Cuz certainly needs to be smarter and learn to pick his spots, things can additionally be avoided by his teammates not setting the stage so much. That was the underlying point.

 

[Glenn]

I don't know man he gets 2 or 3 dumb let me reach in fouls a game. Usually he is in good shape to just let the person true to go over him but he reaches. If he can contain himself from that he wouldn't be in so much foul trouble.

A lot of his reach in fouls are retaliation fouls where he is ticked off and takes a swipe at the ball. He also takes a swipe at the ball at other times and gets it. It is still a matter of keeping composure and as I think we all, except for the Negative Nancies, have seen quite a bit of progress this year with his frustration level, I think he will knock off these kinds of frustration fouls. In my mind, he doesn't have to be perfect yet and this type of foul is correctable.

 

[Npliam]

After reading Brick's breakdown, it's pretty easy to understand why Cuz is always in foul trouble. Dumb fouls aside, he's always trying to cover for someone after they get beat off the dribble or fail to get over/under/through a screen. If his teammates start holding up their end a little more, DeMarcus might be able to avoid these games where he's bench ridden with 2 or 3 early fouls.

Think that might important to the team?

Every single big man in the game is covering for someone ofter they get beat off the dribble. Most of Cuz's foul issues are his own making.

 

[Npliam]

AKA the This One's For You Zach Lowe thread

Alright, been waiting to put together this splashy puppy. Its the thread you don't make. The claim you don't put forth. But its high time somebody changed the conversation on this topic. I elect me.

So here we go: DeMarcus Cousins is the Absolute Key to the Defense of the Sacramento Kings

Here's the proof:

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The Basics
-- he leads the Kings in defensive rebounding with 8.6 def reb a game, good for 5th in the league (tied for 2nd in def reb/per 48min) He has 590 def rebs on the season. Jason Thompson is the second highest king with 352.

-- he leads the Kings, and all NBA centers, in steals with 1.5stls a game.

-- he leads the Kings in shotblocking with 1.2. A modest number, but he has 86 blks on the year, JT has 55, no other King has more than 33.

-- he leads the entire NBA in charges drawn with 32 (as of Apr 5th). He has drawn several more since then.

In short he leads the king in essentially every defensive statistic.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

82games.com
according to 82games.com the Kings are a staggering 6.4pts/per 100 possessions (roughly 5pts per game) better with Boogie on the floor than off it. That is better than Roy Hibbert, Joakim Noah, DeAndre Jordan and Dwight Howard. Its in fact one of the biggest marks in the league, and its driving Zach Lowe mad and I have no intention of stopping pelting him with it until he buckles and concedes the obvious.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Defensive Rating
All season long Cousins has had by FAR and away the best DRTG on the Kings. Here is the complete list with 3 games to go in the season (low is good):

Cousins 101
Evans 104
Hayes 105
Cunningham 105
Acy 107
Gray 107
Ndiaye 108
Mbah a Moute 108
Patterson 108
Thompson 108
Williams 109
Gay 109
Outlaw 110
Salmons 110
Landry 110
Thomas 111
Thornton 111
Fredette 111
McLemore 112
McCallum 112
Vasquez 114
Johnson 115
White 116

You know who else has a 101 Drtg in the NBA this year? Tony Allen, Kevin Garnett, Serge Ibaka, and Dwight Howard. In fact there are fewer than 40 players in the entire league at or above that number.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

So there you have it. Enough with group think. Watch what Cousins does out there in the last few games. Watch him step upto cut off lanes, move over to help. When he's on his toes, protect the rim. Constantly a menace with his hands for steals. Munch up defensive boards. He'll be slow to recover back sometimes after challenging up top, and often not get help from rotaters when he has to step up to stop penetration, which is not on him. Watch his defense when he gets switched onto somebody. And enough about him not getting back. Go ahead and count how often he gets beat down the court by his man anymore. The hustle is notably different. And when he doesn't challenge people inside 9 times out of 10 it is directly related to foul trouble and the need to avoid getting another one. Enough with old dialogue. Not only does it not fit with reality, but you're going to have a helluva time finding a stat to tell you it still does.

Kisses Zach.

P.S.Synergy
Synergy defensive stats are total bunk btw. But because its a name, then here you go:
1) Cousins is merely tied for 105th with about 20 guys in defensive rating. Of course amongst those 20 guys are Jaokim Noah, Anthony Davis, Tyson Chandler, LeBron James and Kevin Garnett, hewre's why you can ignore those alleged "stats": all those guys are trailing Kevin Love, Jared Sullinger, Carmelo Anthony and Jamal Crawford. Right.

P.P.S. I don't even want to talk about the mucked up faked DPRAM stat being pushed right now, including everything from previous years stats, to subjective tweaks, to mushing in team records, to grandma's apple pie, but it should be noted that Boogie finishes Top 20% in those stats too.

These stats lead me to believe that Jimmer is a better defender than Ray.

 

[KingsFanSince85]

Every single big man in the game is covering for someone ofter they get beat off the dribble.

But anywhere near the same frequency? Nope.

Cuz is having to do it more often, which is a contributing factor as to why he always has to take so many charges and, now, has improved his shot blocking. He's getting far too much practice at it.

 

[HighFlyingMonkey]

DRTG as a team stat is as perfect as stats go, but gets difficult, once you use it as a player stat. watching the games, Cuz has made enormous strides in his approach to defence. he's always been a good post defender and that's still true. the real jump has come in his helpside defence. he's playing the angles better, cutting off driving lanes in p'n'r, and intimidating opponents at the rim (he's still getting attacked, but he's gotten much better at blocking and contesting shots, without fouling even!). he's also gotten a lot better at running back, even though he could still improve a ton in that area, and cutting out dumb/lazy fouls, again, could still be better. if he continues on this path, I've great hopes for him even on that end.

interestingly enough, Lowe just, sorta, addressed Cuz and his defensive stats just this week:

(buried in a bit of stats talk in the first segment)

A+ post. Noticed the same things.

But anywhere near the same frequency? Nope.

Cuz is having to do it more often, which is a contributing factor as to why he always has to take so many charges and, now, has improved his shot blocking. He's getting far too much practice at it.

Look, its simple arithmetic. When two offensive players run a screen and roll, it takes at least two defensive players to defend the initial play. Every team in the league deals with dribble penetration off of screens. The team used to be terrible at it mainly because the bigs were doing a horrible job at cutting off the ballhandler, which is mainly on the bigs. You can't stop dribble penetration in the modern NBA with just perimeter defenders, you can only contain it.

 

[The Hammer]

AKA the This One's For You Zach Lowe thread

Alright, been waiting to put together this splashy puppy. Its the thread you don't make. The claim you don't put forth. But its high time somebody changed the conversation on this topic. I elect me.

So here we go: DeMarcus Cousins is the Absolute Key to the Defense of the Sacramento Kings

Here's the proof:

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The Basics
-- he leads the Kings in defensive rebounding with 8.6 def reb a game, good for 5th in the league (tied for 2nd in def reb/per 48min) He has 590 def rebs on the season. Jason Thompson is the second highest king with 352.

-- he leads the Kings, and all NBA centers, in steals with 1.5stls a game.

-- he leads the Kings in shotblocking with 1.2. A modest number, but he has 86 blks on the year, JT has 55, no other King has more than 33.

-- he leads the entire NBA in charges drawn with 32 (as of Apr 5th). He has drawn several more since then.

In short he leads the king in essentially every defensive statistic.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

82games.com
according to 82games.com the Kings are a staggering 6.4pts/per 100 possessions (roughly 5pts per game) better defensively with Boogie on the floor than off it. That is better than Roy Hibbert, Joakim Noah, DeAndre Jordan and Dwight Howard. Its in fact one of the biggest marks in the league, and its driving Zach Lowe mad and I have no intention of stopping pelting him with it until he buckles and concedes the obvious.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Defensive Rating
All season long Cousins has had by FAR and away the best DRTG on the Kings. Here is the complete list with 3 games to go in the season (low is good):

Cousins 101
Evans 104
Hayes 105
Cunningham 105
Acy 107
Gray 107
Ndiaye 108
Mbah a Moute 108
Patterson 108
Thompson 108
Williams 109
Gay 109
Outlaw 110
Salmons 110
Landry 110
Thomas 111
Thornton 111
Fredette 111
McLemore 112
McCallum 112
Vasquez 114
Johnson 115
White 116

You know who else has a 101 Drtg in the NBA this year? Tony Allen, Kevin Garnett, Serge Ibaka, and Dwight Howard. In fact there are fewer than 40 players in the entire league at or above that number.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

So there you have it. Enough with group think. Watch what Cousins does out there in the last few games. Watch him step upto cut off lanes, move over to help. When he's on his toes, protect the rim. Constantly a menace with his hands for steals. Munch up defensive boards. He'll be slow to recover back sometimes after challenging up top, and often not get help from rotaters when he has to step up to stop penetration, which is not on him. Watch his defense when he gets switched onto somebody. And enough about him not getting back. Go ahead and count how often he gets beat down the court by his man anymore. The hustle is notably different. And when he doesn't challenge people inside 9 times out of 10 it is directly related to foul trouble and the need to avoid getting another one. Enough with old dialogue. Not only does it not fit with reality, but you're going to have a helluva time finding a stat to tell you it still does.

Kisses Zach.

P.S.Synergy
Synergy defensive stats are total bunk btw. But because its a name, then here you go:
1) Cousins is merely tied for 105th with about 20 guys in defensive rating. Of course amongst those 20 guys are Jaokim Noah, Anthony Davis, Tyson Chandler, LeBron James and Kevin Garnett, hewre's why you can ignore those alleged "stats": all those guys are trailing Kevin Love, Jared Sullinger, Carmelo Anthony and Jamal Crawford. Right.

P.P.S. I don't even want to talk about the mucked up faked DPRAM stat being pushed right now, including everything from previous years stats, to subjective tweaks, to mushing in team records, to grandma's apple pie, but it should be noted that Boogie finishes Top 20% in those stats too.

Seems pretty clear.

 

[The_Jamal]

Cuz no doubt has improved defensively, but these stats tell nothing at all. DRTG is heavily influenced by rebounding, which is why you see Evans so high as well. 82games +/- is ok, but again, it lacks a tremendous amount of context. We're 6 points better defensively, but who are the 4 guys on the floor with that causes it to be so?

Funnily enough (and not surprising that you'd say otherwise) Synergy is by far the best metric, but you just have to ignore the rankings. They don't account for sample size when making their rankings. So the guy who's allowed 40% shooting after 50 possessions will be ranked ahead of Boogie who's allowed 41% shooting on 600 possessions.

 

[Bricklayer]

Cuz no doubt has improved defensively, but these stats tell nothing at all. DRTG is heavily influenced by rebounding, which is why you see Evans so high as well.

You say that as if it shouldn't be so, when in fact defensive rebounding is an absolutely key part of finishing off the defensive possession.

As for Synergy, that is no more of an excuse than that clicking off the "qualified" button a list of the league's best shotblockers is somehow going to mess up the relative positons of the major ones. And it fundamentally does not address how two high possession guys like Cousins and Noah (likely DPOY) could have the same rating. Most of all Synergy's little site isn't particularly relevant to a claim that Cousins is the key to our defense, which is the key claim here.

P.S. Due to the use of 24 different Sacramento Kings this year and at least a dozen different starting lineups, Boogie's overall +/- is about as accurate as a +/- is going to get. I don't generally like +/-s, but when you've played with half the league over the course of the year on a constantly shifting roster and shifting rotations, your numbers are much more your own than are the numbers of a guy locked into a steady 5 man starting crew all season long.

 

[The_Jamal]

You say that as if it shouldn't be so, when in fact defensive rebounding is an absolutely key part of finishing off the defensive possession.

As for Synergy, that is no more of an excuse than that clicking off the "qualified" button a list of the league's best shotblockers is somehow going to mess up the relative positons of the major ones. And it fundamentally does not address how two high possession guys like Cousins and Noah (likely DPOY) could have the same rating. Most of all Synergy's little site isn't particularly relevant to a claim that Cousins is the key to our defense, which is the key claim here.

P.S. Due to the use of 24 different Sacramento Kings this year and at least a dozen different starting lineups, Boogie's overall +/- is about as accurate as a +/- is going to get. I don't generally like +/-s, but when you've played with half the league over the course of the year on a constantly shifting roster and shifting rotations, your numbers are much more your own than are the numbers of a guy locked into a steady 5 man starting crew all season long.

I never said defensive rebounding shouldn't be factored in. It absolutely should be. But the specific DRTG stat is far too heavily influenced by it, while having no way to account for probably 75% of what "defense" actually is.

Again, you're looking at the wrong stuff with synergy. Sample heavily favors Noah with over 250 possessions more than Boogie, which will naturally inflate Boogie's %'s compared to Noah. And that said, Noah has also defended 100+ more 3ptFGA and 40+ more 3pt FGM. They allow the same 3pt% at 39%. That's going to heavily influence Noah's overall PPP and the reason why they're "ranked" the same.

Noah's opp FG% is 38% on 2pt shots while Cuz's is 43%. That's a pretty significant difference

 

[LPKingsFan]

interestingly enough, Lowe just, sorta, addressed Cuz and his defensive stats just this week:

(buried in a bit of stats talk in the first segment)

Finally had a chance to listen to that segment, and I'd say it's more than "sorta addressing," and definitely more than the throwaway one or two sentence comment you'd see toward the end of one of his articles about Cousins. Lowe spent a couple minutes talking about how these stats have changed his view about Cousins and how he's heard that in-house numbers in many front offices Lowe's talked to say the same thing. That's very encouraging, because it both backs up what many of us have seen with our eyes (which is the improvement Cousins has made on the defensive end this year) and shows that maybe, just maybe, the narrative is bending a bit.

 

[jalfa]

Finally had a chance to listen to that segment, and I'd say it's more than "sorta addressing," and definitely more than the throwaway one or two sentence comment you'd see toward the end of one of his articles about Cousins. Lowe spent a couple minutes talking about how these stats have changed his view about Cousins and how he's heard that in-house numbers in many front offices Lowe's talked to say the same thing. That's very encouraging, because it both backs up what many of us have seen with our eyes (which is the improvement Cousins has made on the defensive end this year) and shows that maybe, just maybe, the narrative is bending a bit.

yeah, was going off unreliable memory when I posted that. it's basically Lowe's first step in admitting that Cuz is kinda awesome, even though he's still fighting it a bit.

 

[Padrino]

A+ post. Noticed the same things.



Look, its simple arithmetic. When two offensive players run a screen and roll, it takes at least two defensive players to defend the initial play. Every team in the league deals with dribble penetration off of screens. The team used to be terrible at it mainly because the bigs were doing a horrible job at cutting off the ballhandler, which is mainly on the bigs. You can't stop dribble penetration in the modern NBA with just perimeter defenders, you can only contain it.

indeed, and i think that's KingsFanSince85's point, that the kings need a stronger perimeter defensive effort to help contain dribble penetration. nobody said anything about flat-out stopping all dribble penetration. demarcus is becoming a much more consistent presence on defense, but he still isn't a lockdown post defender, nor is he a legitimate rim protector, and unless the front office is able to plant a serge ibaka-type next to big cuz, the kings aren't likely to make many improvements where they need to with such a defensively-limited backcourt rotation of isaiah thomas/ben mclemore/ray mccallum...

 

[KingsFanSince85]

indeed, and i think that's KingsFanSince85's point, that the kings need a stronger perimeter defensive effort to help contain dribble penetration. nobody said anything about flat-out stopping all dribble penetration. demarcus is becoming a much more consistent presence on defense, but he still isn't a lockdown post defender, nor is he a legitimate rim protector, and unless the front office is able to plant a serge ibaka-type next to big cuz, the kings aren't likely to make many improvements where they need to with such a defensively-limited backcourt rotation of isaiah thomas/ben mclemore/ray mccallum...

Yep. That's it in a nutshell. Thanks for the assist!

 

[HighFlyingMonkey]

indeed, and i think that's KingsFanSince85's point, that the kings need a stronger perimeter defensive effort to help contain dribble penetration. nobody said anything about flat-out stopping all dribble penetration. demarcus is becoming a much more consistent presence on defense, but he still isn't a lockdown post defender, nor is he a legitimate rim protector, and unless the front office is able to plant a serge ibaka-type next to big cuz, the kings aren't likely to make many improvements where they need to with such a defensively-limited backcourt rotation of isaiah thomas/ben mclemore/ray mccallum...

You could trot out prime Scottie Pippen out there, but the second he gets screened off its up to the big to cut off dribble penetration. Cousins has gotten massively better at it (and also the addition of Reggie Evans, who I think is a smarter defender than JT is) which is a big reason why the Kings defense has gotten much better as the season has come along. Earlier in the season you saw the Kings selling out the perimeter to help Cousins defend the rim. That's why the team's biggest defensive weakness all year has been spot-up shooters, because the rotations after the initial pick-and-roll are already at a disadvantage having completely shaded to the paint. As Cousins becomes better independently and learns how to protect the rim, the team can start closing out on shooters better. Its already happening; the team's defense is visibly improved since January.

Perimeter defense (and especially defense against PGs) has become largely irrelevant in the greater schemes. Thats why the Bulls get away with DJ Augustin at PG (2nd in DRtg), Spurs with Tony Parker (3rd in DRtg), Warriors with Curry (4th), etc. An elite wing defender is a must though, because while PGs are usually running pick and rolls, wings have to defend in isolation much more and are usually the 3rd/4th rotation against pick-and-rolls. Indiana has Paul George, Bulls have Jimmy Butler, Spurs have Kawhi Leonard, Warriors have Iggy, Thunder have Sefolosha, etc. Which makes a McLemore/Gay wing rotation questionable for the future.

 

[bajaden]

Drtg as a team stat is points allowed per 100 possessions. Drtg for players is an estimation, based on box score stats.

Say What!

 

[bajaden]

I don't know man he gets 2 or 3 dumb let me reach in fouls a game. Usually he is in good shape to just let the person true to go over him but he reaches. If he can contain himself from that he wouldn't be in so much foul trouble.

Of course its hard to lead all NBA centers in steals without reaching in and knocking the ball away. There's a risk to everything. You have to take the bad with the good.

 

[uolj]

Finally had a chance to listen to that segment, and I'd say it's more than "sorta addressing," and definitely more than the throwaway one or two sentence comment you'd see toward the end of one of his articles about Cousins. Lowe spent a couple minutes talking about how these stats have changed his view about Cousins and how he's heard that in-house numbers in many front offices Lowe's talked to say the same thing. That's very encouraging, because it both backs up what many of us have seen with our eyes (which is the improvement Cousins has made on the defensive end this year) and shows that maybe, just maybe, the narrative is bending a bit.

He basically said exactly what Bricklayer's OP said, only Lowe beat him by 3 days.

 

[upinsmoke]

You could trot out prime Scottie Pippen out there, but the second he gets screened off its up to the big to cut off dribble penetration. Cousins has gotten massively better at it (and also the addition of Reggie Evans, who I think is a smarter defender than JT is) which is a big reason why the Kings defense has gotten much better as the season has come along. Earlier in the season you saw the Kings selling out the perimeter to help Cousins defend the rim. That's why the team's biggest defensive weakness all year has been spot-up shooters, because the rotations after the initial pick-and-roll are already at a disadvantage having completely shaded to the paint. As Cousins becomes better independently and learns how to protect the rim, the team can start closing out on shooters better. Its already happening; the team's defense is visibly improved since January.

Perimeter defense (and especially defense against PGs) has become largely irrelevant in the greater schemes. Thats why the Bulls get away with DJ Augustin at PG (2nd in DRtg), Spurs with Tony Parker (3rd in DRtg), Warriors with Curry (4th), etc. An elite wing defender is a must though, because while PGs are usually running pick and rolls, wings have to defend in isolation much more and are usually the 3rd/4th rotation against pick-and-rolls. Indiana has Paul George, Bulls have Jimmy Butler, Spurs have Kawhi Leonard, Warriors have Iggy, Thunder have Sefolosha, etc. Which makes a McLemore/Gay wing rotation questionable for the future.

How does Mclemore/Wiggins sound?

 

[Bricklayer]

How does Mclemore/Wiggins sound?

Like a pair of highly athletic passive finesse players.

Seriously, Wiggins is a great athlete, but he stands out to me maybe less than any of the other Top 5 prospects as being unique. At least at the college level. I certainly would have no confidence we improved on Rudy Gay in the tradeoff, at least in the short term.

 

[upinsmoke]

Like a pair of highly athletic passive finesse players.

Seriously, Wiggins is a great athlete, but he stands out to me maybe less than any of the other Top 5 prospects as being unique. At least at the college level. I certainly would have no confidence we improved on Rudy Gay in the tradeoff, at least in the short term.

It's one of those things that remains to be seen. Here is what I thought was a interesting article about Wiggins it even references Rudy Gay as a comparison example of what could expect from him. http://hoopshype.com/columns/david-nurse/whats-wrong-with-andrew-wiggins-game.