03-04-2020, 09:59 AM
(03-04-2020, 09:36 AM)hakeemfan Wrote: You cannot be the most impactful player if you don’t give constant effort on both ends which is the case with Luka.
Meaning that most great offensive players aren´t the most impactful players on their team? I call BS. Players that carry a heavy load on offense more often than not try to save some energy on defense. LeBron is famous for coasting on defense in the regular season. Harden has been a worse defender than Luka for most of his career. Westbrook chased rebounds instead of playing defense during his MVP season. GS was able to hide Curry and gave him the opportunity to gamble passing lanes.
It´s obviously a different story for bigman. Teams can easily get away with one bad perimeter defender but not a bad center.
KP has to do more on defense because he is playing the most important defensive position. Just like Luka as the primary ballhandler and decision maker is playing the most important position on offense.
There is obviously always room to improve but you are constantly complaining about a player that is easily among the top 5 offensive players in the league. His decision making is good most of the time but of course he also makes mistakes. Just like any other superstar. Harden takes bad shots. LeBron does it. And yes KP does it as well.
Dirks mid and late 2000s supporting casts were more defensive minded and that´s probably the way the Mavs have to go in the future. Right now a good comparisation would be the early 2000s Mavs. Incredible offensive fire power but no defense. It seems like Luka can run an effficient offense without a second star player next to him so it probably makes sense to surround him with more defense in the future.