TDL Archived: The 2nd Rnd Pick Yankee Swap

[Dundalis]

Not to me. He is THE best defensive player in the game and has consistently had a top ten impact on winning. I thought the price was higher than I expected, but not unfathomable. Gobert didn't just have back surgery. Gobert didn't just sit out months and months refusing to play. Gobert wasn't just traded in a trade that demonstrated that he was worth about one first in the league's minds.

If he's the best defensive player in the game he wasn't that impressive against us, and I wasn't remotely worried about him. Ben Simmons is someone who if healthy is to me a much more valuable and worrying defender to face in the playoffs (he's the one defender I've seen blanket Luka multiple times). I'm being a bit facetious, Gobert is a great defensive player, but he can 100% be defensively exploited and we've actually seen it multiple times in the playoffs. Someone like Simmons cannot be exploited defensively, to where there's a certain play you can run regularly to put him out of his comfort zone and gain a leg up. Same for someone like Giannis or those other super elite long wing defenders who can basically guard any position, regardless that they can't guard the paint as well as Gobert.

Gobert is a guy you target with shot creators on the perimeter and he's not that scary, especially if you can play 5 out.