Here’s an interesting thing: The Bulls, the Heat, and the Magic are all top-5 teams in defensive efficiency. All five of those teams start power forwards who were considered defensive liabilities in the recent past. The Bulls are particularly weird — going into this season, I thought the Noah-Thibodeau combination would produce a top-10 defense no matter who else was on that team, but I was worried that Boozer would kill their chances of becoming a top-5 defense. Well, the Chicago is #2 in defensive efficiency, adjusted +/- says Noah is the worst defender on the team, and the defense has only gotten better since Noah got injured and Boozer got healthy.
At this point, we have to say that Tom Thibodeau is the best defensive human in basketball, right? Look at the players on that Chicago roster. Would anyone have batted an eye if they were an average/below-average defensive squad? No. But Thibs has them at #2. Honestly, I don’t know if Dwight Howard or Thibodeau is a more valuable defensive entity. Thibs’ track record is simply too freaky. Although nobody scores in the paint against Howard.
So the moral of the story is that just like every quarterback, every defender is a system defender to some extent. This is why Chris Bosh is good at defense now, and why Byron Scott probably shouldn’t get a free pass for letting the Cavs’ defense go to [poop]. LeBron’s one of the three best defensive players in the league, Shaq and Z defended the rim, and Delonte is hell in sneakers, but come on. Shaq and Z were inconsistent defensively, Delonte was flat-out inconsistent, all three of them were out of the lineup for extended stretches, and LeBron was going at about 80% on defense.
Is laughing at Laker misfortune still kosher in Cavsland? Legitimate question: does the Cav fanbase still hate its former rivals (Kobe, DeShawn, et cetera), or are we now of the opinion that they were right all along? I’m confused. Anyways, the Lakers are going to be fine. I’m not positive of that, but I’m still far from convinced that they’re not going to win title #3. Blame it on last year’s Celtics and the “never, ever count out Kobe” factor. Also, Pau’s stuff isn’t right and they’re still working Bynum back into things.
Dear God yes, the season is already over for the Cavaliers.
That’s all for me tonight. Until later, campers.
list of teams the Bulls have played since Noah was put on the IR: Clippers, sixers, Wizards, Knicks, Pistons, Bucks, Nets and Cleveland. I’m gonna take a wild guess and say that’s the easiest schedule in the league over that span of games. I would think that has something to do with the Bulls being better w/o Noah. However, your point is well taken. The Bulls currently employ two decent defenders: Deng and Brewer. Rose is still pretty bad, Boozer is terrible, and Korver might as well just not even run down to play on that end. Thibs is definately a good coach.
However, I think we can say many of the same things about Dwight. Look at the god awful defenders they brought in after giving up some really decent defenders (gortat and Pietrus). Yet, here they are still playing some damn good defense and I think most if not all of the credit has to go to Howard. Based on that alone I have him #1 in the MVP Race.
As far as the Lakers, I’ll be writing about this at my site, but I think they do have one major problem. Ron Artest. He’s playing SO poorly on the offensive end that it’s doing more harm than whatever good his defense does for that team. They either need to seriously consider giving Barnes the majority of the minutes, or start thinking along the lines of a trade. Just a few stats, but among SFs who play at least 20 minutes a game, Artest is 3rd worst in terms of TS% and Total Rebound Rate. He’s 7th worst in terms of PER for the same group and all of the players above him play for really bad teams, save Ariza. He’s 4th worst in terms of EFG% for the same group as well. Basically, I just don’t think a team can win a title with that type of production from their SF on the offensive end. If he were making up for it in rebounds, then maybe, but he is terrible in that department too.
Should we root against the Lakers this year? No — we want the Lakers (and the Celtics) to beat Miami. As for DeShawn, we should hate him just because he was a D-League player who talked trash to LeBron. Did anyone even know this guy before he started talking?
My dislike of the Lakers faded after they won the title this year.
DeShawn never really bothered (after all, its DeShawn Stevenson), but if the Mavericks somehow win the title this year with him as the starting SG… well, that would be hilarious. Simply hilarious.
Keith Bogans and Kurt Thomas are both decent defenders, as well. That’s the biggest reason Bogans starts (at least that I can tell.)
All of my hatred has been shifted to one team….the Heat….I am now a fan of the Cavs first, and everybody else in the league, other than the Heat, second. I don’t see that changing for a very, very long time. Unless, of course, the Cavs somehow become respectable again sometime in the next few seasons. Not really sure if that’s a possibility.
Oh, and I agree with Bob, I really hate no team except the Heat at this point. Anyone that will one day play the Heat is the enemy of my enemy, and therefore my friend.