Joe Mama said:
I really have to disagree with you here. I agree that Shawn Marion is more effective guarding swingmen, but I don't think he would get any more appreciation across the league for it. In fact I think he would get less. He already gets a lot of attention because he guards bigger players. The bottom line is that he's a good defender, but he's not in the same league as the top defensive players like Bruce Bowen and Tayshaun Prince, regardless of who is playing behind them.
You asked if any defender in the NBA gets less helped in Shawn Marion. That's kind of a crazy question. Shawn Marion gets help defense on at least half of the opponent's possessions. Mostly this happens because he is undersized defending power forwards, but that's not the only time. Even a good number of the 3's in the NBA abuse Shawn Marion and the post if he doesn't get help. He also gets beat off the dribble by swingmen although I wouldn't say any more than average.
Where Tim Duncan (and to a lesser extent Tony Parker and Manu) help Bruce Bowen is on offense. He can basically camp out at the three-point line and just wait for open shots. defense of Leon sure it's nice to have players like Tim Duncan and Ben Wallace behind you, but what these players do well is keep the offensive player in front of them. Tayshaun Prince isn't quite as good at that, but he is an incredible recovery defender... better than Shawn Marion even.
Btw the Detroit Pistons are a better defensive team with Tayshaun Prince than they would be with Shawn Marion. I don't think there's a GM in the week that would take Marion for his defense over Prince. And I'll repeat what I've said for a couple years now about the two of them. The only thing that Shawn Marion does better than Tayshaun Prince is rebound, and I'll bet Prince would grab 8-10 boards per game here. Oh, and of course run the floor although I wonder how good Prince would look doing that here.
Joe
I respect your opinions here joe, but neither of our arguements have much objective content do they? We can agree to disagree on our subjective evals regarding what would be IF a situation were to occur(shawn playing on the pistons). One thing I can say objectively is that "good" defensive players "seem" to grow on trees, the same teams(trees), that is. Team defense is what the spurs and pistons are all about so to say that help defense doesnt matter in an individuals perceived performance flies in the face their very philosophies. To say that prince does not benefit from having shot blockers like ben and rasheed wallace backing him up is hard to digest. A physical athletic type player might bodyup prince and take him to the rim, but that is not possible with big Ben and Rasheed patrolling the lane is it? The same is true of bowen and Duncan, and as much as I dislike Manu, he's a better help defender than any suns player. I didnt say that Marion gets less help defense(in attempted help) but lesser quality help defense. Surely, we arent saying that the suns help D is as good as the spurs or pistons? Of course, a defender plays differently when he has excellent shot blocking or excellent help defenders backing him up. This is especially true when the offensive player can shoot and penetrate. If you play him tight, he may drive around you, if not he may shoot. That situation is greatly simplified with good shot blocking as is apparent to many suns fans. This is exactly the philosophy of the spurs on the suns, defend the three, force the penetration to the shot blockers.
Oh yeah, and shawn gets alot more steals that Prince(more than 2x as many this year) and not just this year, every year, so the claim that the only thing that shawn does better defensively than prince is rebound is not quite true.
That said, I like prince and would, like you, make that trade because the suns are not deep at the '2' position and they are at '3', and shawn cant play the '2' on offense at all. I never said that shawn was a better defender than prince, but just like the offensive performances of suns are circumspect in the suns system, I suspect that pistons perform better in the pistons defensive scheme than they would in other less disciplined systems.
As far as defending swingmen its really not so simple. Shawn plays stackhouse pretty well and Bowen does not. In the mavs series it seemed that manu played stack alot better than Bowen when he did. Stack had at least 2 strong performances while bowen was guarding him. It may be related to the idea that stack is bothered by ballhawking, which Manu and marion are good at and bowen is not. Bowen has averaged about 0.9stl/game over his career, clearly not a ball hawk. Shawn may play Jason Richardson better than anyone. Shawn also plays Artest very well. And yet there are guys that can fake shawn out of his shoes, like sam I am. Did you notice that Cuttino Mobley couldnt score well on shawn, but he did play well against Raja? Raja did better than shawn on Cassel, at least foulwise.
You know, I dont expect that you will change the way you think about this, but there is little objective content in your arguement for me to reconsider the way I think. No offense, I just agree to disagree.
