Yeah he was bad against starters last year.

Chris Paul has a 41% true shooting percentage this year. He could still be better than the fringe guys, but he was not performing like it

He can be annoying but I will never discredit his game. All time great for sure. Even as a Laker fan I wish he would have gotten a ring, same with Russ. Always played hard, even in shitty situations and didn’t cheat the fans.

The conspiracy theorist in me loves this take.

Board man gets paid.

Unpaid man gets bored.

And a complete system that does not allow for lazy defense

He was on the raptors in ¹⁸⁄₁₉ not ¹⁹⁄₂₀

yeah you can somewhat hide a wing defender defensively. but a center? there’s no hiding a center defensively

Jokic at least brings elite defensive rebounding value, which is also a big reason many defensive adnavced stats show him as a positive on the defensive end

The Jokic archetype centers just bring a different value, their playmaking and easy offense.

Many elite defender center types need a good playmaker on the team to feed them in their spots or their offense looks stagnant.

Teams can skip on a PG with a playmaking center, fill it out with another play-finisher, while initiating the offense is also MUCH more effective with the opponent center on the top of the key.

Obviously, Jokic brings more to the table since he’s effectively a stretch 5 and a rebounder as well, ideally those types of centers need that in their game to be elite.

It’s both bc centers generally get easier shots. But you can’t have your center be a bottom 5 defender.

LeBron has been doing his best Jason Williams impression this season 

Incredible passing but 50% speed at everything else those old man sciatica injuries don’t mess around 

Luka is pretty poor 1-1, but is becoming a more saavy team defender, interestingly. He gets swipes at drivers on help defense, and he’s devious with jumping passing lanes for run outs.

Lebron is literally playing himself into shape slowly and is clearly trying less than even his recent regular season standard for most of his minutes. On key possessions however, you can see him switch it on and lock guys down unless they have crazy foot speed.

Jokic seems to just be coasting.

No idea wtf it’s up with Kawhi tho.

You better trade Maxey for him /s

Yeah, defense is the side of the ball where you can best gauge how many fucks a player gives, because if they care there will be improvement. Not all players can be great defenders but any player who cares enough can be close to average, which isn’t a wild expectation.

The Joe Rogan Experience…

Or maybe Indiana’s Jeremiah Robinson-Earl?

Thank you for this comment, I was also wondering who JRE was. Idk why people abbreviate non star players, I keep up with the league and have never heard of this guy

Jarl Ranthony Eowns

James Robinson Earl

Jalen Rorton Eucker

I’m always thinking this in movie discussions. Maybe it works for them, but as a lurker who’s curious I often get lost. No idk whatever AGUEHGY is and why IVYEBVYA inspired it

Found that pretty shocking as well. There hasn’t been much reason to tune into Mavs games & Austin Reaves was making him look 50 a few nights ago, so I just assumed he was washed.

This stat covers ability to contest shots. Getting blow by won’t show up here, which is probably where some of the outliers come from. I’ll admit I haven’t watched him much this year, but it wouldn’t surprise me if he’s still doing a decent job staying close and contesting when guys don’t just run past his broken knees.

This stat is dogshit

Yeah though this season’s numbers are not quite as good since they’re not 0, I feel he has had some really good seasons/stretches defensively since like 2022

His defense has always been more about his intelligence than his physical ability. I guess it makes more sense that hes gotten smarter on that side of the ball and his physical abilities haven’t dropped that far yet, so he has actually gotten better.

Is he scoring less? I wonder if his motor allows him to be slightly more pesky on defense while he isn’t carrying as much offensive load.

Yeah I think SGA is a good defender but the fact he’s not facing the other teams best guy combined with the fact that the other team is being hounded by dort Caruso and Cason for half the game definitely has an impact

This accounts for that. It’s how well opponent’s shoot against SGA compared to how they shoot against everyone else.

Shai is really good at contesting shots and help defense because he’s smart, disciplined, and has great length for a guard. The realtive weakness that makes him just a really good defender instead of a top teir one is that his lateral quickness and ability to defend 1v1 on the perimeter without getting blown past by stars is only average.

He’s serving his youthful porpoise

It’s not even just that, a bunch of old heads can work with Chris, like on the warriors when there’s a clear org hierarchy and the shared goal to win.

The clippers are just a mess of an organization, having Chris there immediately exposes their MANY issues, including a lot of office politics.

And FO/coaches did not like getting exposed.

Yeah lol, young guys are like oh shit its chris fuckin paul, listen up. Kawhi’s just like bro shut the fuck up

He was nowhere near the offensive player he currently is when he won those awards, he was able to expend more energy on defense at the time. By the time he got to Toronto, through a combination of injuries and offensive responsibilities he wasn’t the best defender on that team.

For a guy who could barely stay on the court, playing lockdown defense and getting buckets was not a realistic option anymore. I’m sure most Clippers and Raps fans would know this but he could barely finish games as they got deeper into the playoffs, he’d be limping by the end of games. He’s been coasting off of his reputation and moments of lockdown defense for a while.

Even in his prime guarding point guards was a difficult for him so no surprise Luka gave him trouble. On the Spurs, Danny Green and Cory Joseph filled that gap in his defense.

Kawhi Leonard is 34 with a degenerative knee injury

Or he simply is a 34 year old player with a horrific injury history

Kawhi Appleseed strikes again 

It’s appropriate to say when you’re talking about his accomplishments and legacy, but not his current level of ability. Sidney Moncrief has two DPOY awards, but they wouldn’t do him much good if you tried to put him on Shai, now that he’s in his 60s with a bad back and two degenerative knees. And it doesn’t diminish Sid’s accomplishments or the love and respect that he deservingly receives to acknowledge that sooner or later, everybody gets old.