Friday, February 6, 2009

Splitting the Baby in the Defensive Debate

Well, I hope this makes John, Drew and company happy since I have been awol from I Am Not a Witness for quite some time now and every time I see John he's yapping in my ear about how I don't care or how easy it would be for me to just throw something together and post it. The fact of the matter is, it is not that easy, but whatever. On to my first post in like, no joke, a year or so...

I'm sure this Obama-esque argument where I try to sound eloquent but don't support either side of the debate in the NBA defense vs. NCAA defense is going to infuriate John, but I really don't care. You have to appreciate both sides of the coin to truly evaluate it.

I don't want to get too long-winded here so I will frame my points about college defense by referencing in this post the college team I most like to watch (the Kansas Jayhawks). In a subsequent post I'll talk about defense within the prism of the the pro team I most like to watch* (the San Antonio Spurs).

* Go ahead, heap piles of shit on me for loving the Spurs, but it's true. I grew up in an area without a regional team, so I developed my own criteria for liking an NBA team: (1) Win frequently (check, titles in '03, '05, '07); (2) Carry at least one ex-Kansas Jayahwk on your team (check, Jacque Vaughn); (3) Play in the better conference(check, not only is the Western conference better, this way you don't have to go through the agony of seeing a team like Milwaukee make the playoffs. Indiana, Milwaukee, Washington, and Charlotte have to be the worst teams to watch in the NBA).

The Defending National Champion Kansas Jayhawks (God, that rolls off the tongue well) are coached by the admittedly defense-first minded Bill Self, so they are a good example with which to reference all that's great and all that's bad about college defense. Coach Self's teams are well-disciplined in half court sets, hedge every ball screen like maniacs, and play in-your face man-to-man on the ball even if the ball is 30 feet away from the basket. When they're on, it's a beautiful thing to watch - team defense like synchronized swimming, forcing turnovers, 35 second calls, etc. Great stuff.

The bad part about it is it rewards less athletic individuals for fitting in to a team concept. Here's what I am talking about:



Brady Morningstar. The face of NCAA defense.

For those of you unfamiliar with Brady Morningstar, let me introduce you. Brady is a 6'3", 187 pound starting guard on the 2009 Kansas basketball team. His father was a forward on the 1974 Kansas team that reached the Final Four, and Brady was not highly recruited after high school so he spent one year working on his game at prep school in New Hampshire, played sparingly his freshman year and redshirted last year. This year, as a redshirt sophomore, he's starting on a ranked Kansas team and playing major minutes. Offensively, he's rather pedestrian. He averages about 7 points per game and can't create his own shot but is nearly a sure bet to hit an open 3 point shot (47% on the year). Defensively, however, he's Kansas' stopper. So much so that the local press makes love to his defensive prowess at least once a week. So much so that he's more likely to make the Big 12 All-Defensive team than sure-fire NBA lottery picks like Blake Griffin of Oklahoma and Damion James of Texas. Brady guards the best non-center player on the opposing team night in and night out and has done a very good job. This year he limited Arizona's Chase Budinger, who NBAdraft.net predicts going #15 to Milwaukee in the 2009 draft, to 5 points on 1-9 field goal shooting and predicted second round pick and scoring machine Dionte Christmas of Temple to 6-14 shooting from the floor. For the season, Brady Morningstar has held the man he matches up against to 32% field goal shooting.

At the college level, Brady Morningstar is a defensive master. But his success stems entirely from Bill Self's concept of team defense and Brady's impeccable knowledge of how to contribute around more talented players rather than his athleticism (which compared to NBA players is nearly non-existent). Brady understands sets well and knows when to help on the weak side. He fights through screens and guards his man from the belly-button. For the old school "we love Hoosiers" crowd, Brady Morningstar is all that is right with college basketball.

On one level it’s commendable that he is able to do so much with so little physical prowess. But really, for all his success, Brady Morningstar has got to be the least dynamic player on the Kansas team. He screams, in college basketball's 'Steve Wojechiewski/Khalid El-Amin/Teddy Dupay/Kevin Pittsnogle/Gerry McNamara/Mateen Cleaves/Patrick Sparks/Travis Ford/believe me I can go on forever' jargon, “insert a non-descript looking, unathletic guy with a high basketball IQ into the lineup and we win the conference”.** All those guys were/are considered good college defenders. But none of them found success or will find success in the NBA. Don’t get me wrong. That's part of what makes college basketball defense interesting. The guy who looks like an average Joe, if he knows a system well and has his weaknesses covered by more talented players around him, can be successful and reign in all the glories of being a big-time college athlete.

** Someday NBA GMs will wise-up and realize that Steve Blake belongs in this category and should not be on an NBA roster, much less your starting point guard.

But at some point, you have to yawn. None of those players hold a candle to NBA talent. They’re like the Mormons of basketball– completely resigned to their role and fitting in, well-run, and flat-out boring. Regardless of your qualms about NBA defense, can they rebound like Dennis Rodman? Can they block shots and body up anyone from a point to a center like LeBron? Can they be such defensive pests for 40+ minutes that they become reviled like Bruce Bowen or Ron Artest? Can they pick-pocket seemingly at will when they feel like it like Allen Iverson? No, no, no, no, and an emphatic no. Quite simply, there's no place in the NBA for the Brady Morningstars of the world, and the NBA is all the better for it.