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[mvossman]

Do we disagree though? My comment isn't that Gafford is as good as Lively defensively, it's that there isn't a 15 point differential in defensive rating (and subsequent gap in their overall defensive ability). A 15 point differential isn't indicating Lively is better, it's indicating the type of gap between a great defender, and a really bad one. I'm saying I don't think Gafford is a really bad defender like the stat indicates, that he's very much a positive one.


The only relevance to my comparison was that Gafford is clearly a good overall defender though, despite his weaknesses. Nothing to do with trying to prove in any way that he's better or even as good as Lively. And yeah, even good defenders can get exploited by elite teams in the playoffs, we've seen plenty of proven good defenders get torched in that environment.

I'm not calling Gafford a bad defender, but I don't think I would call him a good one either.  He is a good rim protector, but really struggles in space.  This will be an unpopular opinion around here, but if we are going up against an offense that is going to put our center in space, we would probably be better off with Maxi or even Powell defensively.