Defense: How much do players matter?

[Shakes]

We often have players labelled as bad defenders, or not trying on the defensive end, or being lockdown defenders. But after the Skiles and Del Negro experiences in Chicago, can we really be so sure that it's the players?

Now obviously no experiment on how much a coach means is perfect, because you never get exactly the same players, injuries, etc. But Skiles this year improved the Bucks 5 points per 100 possessions. He showed a pretty similar effect in his other coaching stops.

Of the players who played enough minutes to qualify this season, 19 players had a +5 or better defensive impact on 82games defensive +/- list. When you consider Skiles' +5 is in effect over the whole 48 minutes, there were only 4 players in the entire league who had as big a defensive impact statistically as Milwaukee changing its coach did.

Is the real 2010 question not whether we can get a star player, but a star coach to return us to league leading defence?

 

[clonetrooper264]

Well players at least play a factor in defense because they have to be willing to actually play defense. If every player is lazy on defense then the other team will score at will. This the coach can't really control. Sure the coach will get all on their cases for not playing defense and yell at them and stuff, but if the players don't want to play defense there's nothing the coach can do.

Of course both our offense and our defense need some work so to VDN and the rest of the coaching staff, adjustments need to be made.

 

[Hendu0520]

I think it is probably 50/50 most of the time. The coach has a huge impact but even Skiles wasn't making the Suns in '06, Mavs in '05, or the Knicks this year play defense. The Bulls with a good Wallace were actally a bunch of good defenders, now are big men are weaker and our PG is weak defensively. The Bucks traded for Jefferson and would put in Sessions when teams were abusing Ridnour. They became a better defensive team, but Skiles did have a large effect on them as well, he deserves credit.

If Paxson came down and made a statement that everyone better shut up because Skiles is going nowhere I wonder if we don't turn it around and play fine under him that year. We still would have missed the playoffs because of injuries but we would still have a good coach. I could be wrong though, maybe the team had just had it with him.

 

[Shakes]

I'm certainly not suggesting bring back Skiles, I do think that sometimes coaches have a shelf life and Skiles was past his. Maybe it's not possible to make the demands he does of the players and last more than a few years. Maybe it is possible but Skiles isn't the one who can do it. I don't really know, I just think it's interesting how much better every Skiles led team has been on defense than the teams that came before/after.

Interesting that you mention the Knicks ... they got better and the Suns got worse on defense. Although D'Antoni benching Curry probably helped more than any actual coaching he did ...

I guess my interest comes from the perspective of how to build a team. If defense can largely be improved by a coach, then doesn't it make sense to assemble the most offensively talented team you can, even if they're pretty average on defense, then hire a good defensive coach to make them elite on that end as well?

 

[TheStig]

Defense is set mainly by the bigs. It helps to have a good on ball defender in the backcourt or wing but if you have dominant big he can cover up many of the mistakes. When you have someone downlow that gobbles up boards and swats shots it allows everyone else to play more aggressive D on the perimeter and funnel players to the help. For example when we had TC and Wallace, BG had one of the best defensive ratings in the league, since then it has gone down only because he doesn't play with a defensive big. I think we can all agree BG is just an average defender who plays well within the defensive scheme. What we need is for Noah and TT to step it up and really control the paint on the boards and alter shots. If we get that, we can easily be a top 10 defensive team.

 

[chi_hawks_23]

With Skiles, I think it was more or less an accountability thing***. If you didnt play defense, and do it the right way, you sat. I think most players, even the Bonzi Wells' of the NBA, can and know how to play good defense...they just dont want to.

***Of course, that all went to shat during Ben Wallace's 2nd year. Guy played piss poor D, but was out there all game still.