The Rotation (2020-2021)

[KillerLeft]

Gobert is offensively what DP is....so that is a simple correlation (and my major point of connection with the two).

And defensively they are very different and I am not making a comparison, other than KP has historically done much better defensively when paired with someone else 6'10" or bigger (DP included). Heck KP was solid defensively with KANTER....ENES KANTER for crying outloud.

Ok, offensively, I'm with you. In a world where you decide you WANT a different player directly involved in the offensive action as screener, with KP spacing, then yes - Gobert/Powell function exactly the same. I'd say Powell is better at this, but Gobert is certainly good enough. EDIT: (Or maybe the better way of phrasing this is that young KP could do those things better with Kanter than older KP could do them with Gobert). 

And, good to know you see the difference defensively. I don't think we're that far off. When comparing two players who can run, move their feet, switch onto ball-handlers off of screens, play help defense in the paint and then quickly recover to a shooter in the corner, etc, etc (all the good stuff)...give me the bigger, stronger, longer one, for sure. 

But...

And Gobert is light years better as a defensive big.

This is just it...some of this might just be a semantic difference in how we're using the word "big," but I have no trouble with the idea that Kanter is more capable of performing the modern 4 role that I'm envisioning than Gobert, even though Gobert is clearly the better defensive presence in a vacuum.

In your dream scenario, Gobert would definitely be the 5 on defense and KP the 4. I just can't close my eyes and picture KP performing the list of tasks I mentioned earlier (move their feet, switch onto ball-handlers off of screens, play help defense in the paint and then quickly recover to a shooter in the corner, etc, etc) to a winning level. Maybe I'm wrong.