FA: JaVale McGee 3yrs/$17.2M to DAL | will indeed start at center

[MrGoat]

Yes. I'm not meaning to insert myself into the McGee debate, but this board way got the wrong idea about Looney. 

He wasn't out there backing down defenders and then unleashing a huge array of pivot/footwork to score points. He was leaking into the paint after the team with the best ball movement in the NBA had gotten 4-5 passes into a possession and our poor Mavs defenders were completely bumfuzzled and out of position. 

Was part of that success unique to him being on the floor? Probably, but only because chemistry and familiarity with certain lineups is (I believe) much more crucial than we here often think.

But, the reason he was on the floor is because Luka/Brunson were unable to play him off of it. AND THEY TRIED. He earned those minutes on defense, not offense. Then, he also did some valuable things on offense and on the glass. But, it started with him handling Luka in space better than Gobert did, and MUCH better than Ayton did. 

Don't hate the McGee signing, but he's not that guy.

I think you're underselling how unacceptably terrible our rim defense in that series was. Kevon Looney is undersized, not athletic, and not a threat to shoot. We allowed him to get his first career 20 point game, and this is a guy who has played in over 400 games in his career counting playoffs. He had yet to even reach 10 points in a game that playoffs going into the series with us and he did it to us 3 out of 5 times. 

That wasn't just about Golden State's ball movement, it was a massive failure by our defense especially in regards to rim protection, you didn't see Looney establishing himself as much of an offensive threat like that against other teams. Apparently Nico agrees with me as evidenced by this signing and earlier comments about how we needed more rim protection