Just ask the Spurs, Celtics, and Pistons. I think Brandon is an underrated defender, and Blake is as well. I don’t have a very strong opinion on defense though, I turn the channel when the Blazers don’t have the ball. Nothing is going to be the same as last year. With the addition of Greg everybody will look better (because he is so ugly). I would suck if I tried to analyze our zone strategy, but I am going out on a limb and saying that it is going to be a good thing when at all times either Oden or Joel will be at center. Frye just was not good enough at the 5 spot. You need to break all this stuff down for me Dave. Thinking for myself is too hard.

I am enjoying what a team of committed, talented defenders are doing in Boston. And I am surprised at how substantial Posey’s role seems to be have become in the playoffs. I want one of those. He’d be our best defender after Greg (future repeat DPOY), I think.

I also think that LMA and Broy will be very special defensively alongside Greg. And I expect that Martell can develop into a better than adequate defender against the league’s offensive superstars.

And, much as it hurts me to admit Nate might have been on to something all along, Jarrett might become less frustrating to me playing his hard nosed defense among those listed above. He may well blossom in the same sort of synergistic way ( I didn’t say culture) that made Nate’s squads far more defensively special than the sum of their individual parts would have led one to expect. Though playing alongside the Glove didn’t hurt. Jarrett certainly has Nate’s (and my) appreciation for his consistent effort and smarts on D. Steve’s also okay by me defensively, especially when helped by his nieghbors. He seems to be a good help defender as well.

But I want a stopper. A Posey or a Bowen at their prime.

Who you ask? I fear that the mindset for ferocious effort needed is either obvious by 19- or it doesn’t exist. So Batum makes me nervous, though I trust KP to really know. I guess Westbrook would be my favorite, though he is more of a CP stopper with a little s, not my Kobe/LeBron type STOPPER. What about Brandon Rush? What about trading into next year’s lottery instead and baking some more?

Greg, LMA, Martell, Broy, Joel and my Wingbreaker. Add Steve and Rudy and eight of our rotation players are or will be solid defensively. And this is without additional KP upgrades.

If we get that one guy, we might be one of the best defensive teams in NBA history.

1. I only watched five or six games this year, so my thoughts would just be the regurgitations of what I’ve read here. And why regurgitate others’ thoughts when I could just wait for people to produce them here themselves?

2. Martell and LMA. I’m drinking the Coach Nate Kool-Aid on this one, but I do think that Martell could develop into something formidable on the defensive end: he’s got the bulk and strength to keep bigger guys like Maggette out of the lane and to hinder and knock off-balance smaller ones like Ginobli; he’s long and has great leaping ability, letting him sag off of smaller, quicker players but still able to contest the jumper; his lateral quickness is decent - not great - but it doesn’t need to be if he’s funneling his toughest defensive assignments to Greg and Pryz waiting hungrily in the middle.

As for LMA, he’s got the physical tools, and he’s a gym rat who soaks up coaching like a sponge. With his drive and a coach nationally respected for his defensive coaching acumen guiding his development, I see no tangible reason LMA can’t develop into an All-NBA post defender in the mold of Sheed or TD.

3. Just because it’s the prevailing opinion doesn’t make it invalid—we need a defensive upgrade at the 1. The NBA is filled with wing players who can score; they’ll get theirs, but they won’t consistently single-handedly win games unless it’s Kobe or LeBron. A penetrating PG causes all kinds of havoc for us though, and I’m not talking about CP or DW or Parker, the guys you have to specifically game-plan for because they’re straight-up awesome. I’m talking about Tyronn Lue and Jannero Pargo and players of their ilk: guys who, against this team as currently constructed, are gonna drive the lane and get our bigs in foul trouble while setting up their shooters for drive-and-kicks.

4. Perhaps I’m a homer, and I wouldn’t go as far as Ojala John’s final line, but I think we’ll throttle teams on the defensive end. Oden will be one of the best defensive bigs in NBA history, and as I stated above, I think LMA will become one of the premiere defensive PFs in the league. Martell won’t be a lockdown defender, but he’ll pose problems for even elite scorers. Broy will only be elite when we need him to be - channeling the offense through him and asking him to exert full effort on D is daunting - but he WILL be elite when we need him to be; he’s got the headiness, the physical ability, and the desire. And if Blake is the weakest defender in the crew, then I almost pity the other teams.

Not to mention that an underrated aspect of defense is rebounding. We will straight-up pound teams on the defensive boards in the years to come. I will not be surprised to see this be an even better rebounding team than our 1999-2002 edition.

BTW, I believe in the article you are referencing Justice Potter Stewart’s comment on obscenity, not porn.

Anywho, I think Greg and LMA can be a pretty formidable defensive front court. I think that LMA can defend players out to the 3pt line and can handle guarding finesse PF’s like Dirk and Pau as well as C’s like Okur. Greg will own the low block on D.
I’d like a stopper at the 3 that can defend PG’s a la Bowen, Marion, Artest. Maybe Josh Childress or Brandon Rush can do this?

By the way, If we trade 2nd rounders up or trade down from 13, I’d like to get Rush. He is a defensive 3 who can hit the three and has good bball IQ.

I’d rather have a lockdown defender at the 3 and a scorer at PG to play the Monta to Roys Baron Davis.

I want a super -quick guard that is an at least competent defender.

is a good offense:

• When Greg is scoring inside on putbacks and grabbing every rebound

• When LaMarcus and Martell are taking it to the hole instead of settling for outside jumpers

• When opponents have to play honest D instead of double-teaming because they have to respect all our players

then we will shoot a higher percentage and opponents will be starting their offense from behind the baseline instead of snagging long rebounds and beating our players down the court for easy buckets.

I think Webster has very good defensive capabilities. Not only is he coming along on the defensive end mentally, and has great physical skills, but he can also force a LeBron to run though screens on the offensive end. Over a seven game series, I bet LeBron will get tried of getting blind-sided by Oden, not to mention that his 3 point shooting could keep a good defensive wing out of the paint and from messing with the twin tower’s post game. The Web-Slinger isn’t very far away from being exactly what we want from a 3.

I know this isn’t really an original thought, but there’s no such thing as a Kobe stopper. The only thing that’s going to stop him is Father Time—and we’ve got a few years yet before he starts playing.

As someone above said, I think Jarrett Jack could very well develop into a great 2nd team defensive stopper, ala Greg Anthony. (He’ll probably never be a starting point guard unless he learns to deal with his emotions.)

Travis could be great too, but needs to get smarter/wiser and get the defensive schemes burned into his brain.

Agree about B-Roy—underrated defender.

I have a feeling Martell is going to be gone by the end of next season, if not sooner. Call it a hunch.

Which leaves us with the biggest question, which has been the biggest question for some time, and will continue to be until it’s resolved—who’s going to be the starting point guard of the future?

He’s got to be a good one on one defender, with the ability to pressure the other team’s point, and get the ball out of his hands—something we didn’t do well this year.

I think we’ll be at least decent, if not very good at all other positions, but it all starts at the point.

Okay, you weren’t gone THAT long. But I was just thinking that there are so many regular fanposters now posting great fanposts that it’s not such a big deal anymore when you take a walkabout. This site is almost running itself now. Nice job, Dave!

1. After the two big men, who’s the best defender on this team? If you prefer to pick one frontcourt and one backcourt defender to highlight that’s fine too.

I’d say Brandon Roy. He seems most immune to the occasional brain fart
that we see from our other decent-minutes guys: LaMardridge, MarWeb, Blake, JJ, Trout, and Sergio.
The only other two guys seeing decent minutes (JaJo & Frye) are more consistent, like Roy,
but they don’t see nearly as many minutes, nor as stiff assignments, as Roy.
On top of that, our Team Defense really took a step forward this past season;
as the team’s leader and Nate’s floor avatar, Roy deserves credit for that.

And let’s not forget, he just finished his second year!
For him to NOT be mistake prone on defense (in addition to being the team leader) is insane.

2. Which player currently on the squad has the best chance to develop into a good defender and why?

MarWeb.
First of all, even though I put him on that brain-fart list in the answer to question #1,
that’s based much less on this past season than on the previous seasons;
in all facets of his game, I’m still struggling to see MarWeb’s performance this past season
on its own merits rather than laboring under the many-seasons impression I have of him.

Also, he IS young, younger than JJ, Blake, and Trout, and his room to improve defensively is still big,
probably greater than anyone except Sergio, and unlike Sergio, MarWeb’s already shown improvement.

Lastly, his raw defensive material coming out of high school was a HUGE reason why we zeroed in on him.
Remember, once we got into the “we have our point guard and we need a shooting guard” mindset,
Gerald Green was the obvious front-runner for us, but we ended up gravitating to Martell for two reasons:
Martell didn’t restrict tryouts to solo showings (like GerGer did), and he was a much better defender.
Where is Gerald Green now? Not in this discussion; Webster is, and his defensive potential is a big reason why.

3. Outside of the center position, which position is going to be the most critical to our defensive success in the coming years? Where do we need a great defender to balance the pivot men?

Small Forward.
It’s not Power forward, simply because we know who The Man is there (LaMardridge),
and I just don’t see his defense ever being a selling point of his. That’s not to say we’re resigned to him
being a defensive liability; he CAN (and, as The PF, must) become defensively consistent and dependable,
especially with Oden to play off of, but I don’t see him as a key SOURCE of good defense, just a PART of it.

And, with my confidence in Roy and Oden’s given role, I see those two as anchors to great team defense.
To turn those anchors into a cohesive defensive TEAM, we need another key defensive link
to be in the range between Oden and Roy; you can’t tie those two individuals together into Team Defense
from the point guard position. (And yes, this view does kinda let Rudy off the hook, letting him be
Brandon Roy’s co-guard without his possible defensive shortcomings being a dealbreaker.)

Simply put, a forward has to play off of the team-leader role of Roy AND the denfensive anchor of Oden
in order to turn their qualities into Team Defense, and I don’t think LMA’s that kinda guy. So the 3 it is.

4. How good do you see us being defensively as we inch into our prime years?

Great.
For as young as we’ve been the past few seasons, we’re way less prone to Bad Defense than we should be.
Defense (and the politics of fouls) are what most takes several years (of major minutes) for players to learn,
and for everyone on this team except Blake and Joel, those years are still to come.
Throw in a disciplinarian, defense-minded coach, and players who listen to him,
including the player’s leader (Roy) being pretty much The Right Hand Of Nate,
and the likelihood of these young guys becoming a scary defensive unit are quite high.
Actually that’s always the case for a young team, that they should be a much better defensive team
a few years down the road than they are right now; it’s just that for these Blazers, “right now”
isn’t BAD, like it normally is for young teams.

The young team defensive equation of “BAD + Improves with time” is something else
when you take the “BAD” out of the equation, if the coach teaches defense and the players listen.

1) After the 2 big men, we don’t have any outstanding defenders. However, I think Roy, Jones and Aldridge and Webster are all solid. I’d probobly say Aldridge and Roy are the best of that group, though neither is great (yet).

2) LMA, Webster and Roy call all develop into very good defenders.

3) I’ll agree with howling that we could use an excellent wing defender, but the number one thing we need is improved PG defense.

4) Very good. This was not a bad defensive team this season. It was just below average (17th in points allowed per possession). Add Greg Oden, get improvement from Roy and Aldridge and upgrade at the PG position- this team CAN be an excellent defensive team. No guarantees, but the potential is certainly there.

1. After the two big men, who’s the best defender on this team? If you prefer to pick one frontcourt and one backcourt defender to highlight that’s fine too.

Maybe Jones or LaFrenz. Jones was limited by his knee, but he seems to understand defensive rotations and where players are supposed to be better than most of his teammates. He also has a long reach, which helped him get several key blocks during the season. We didn’t get to see much of Raef, but he’s a pretty decent defender and shot blocker. Were he to be utilized more, I think Blazer fans would appreciate him for what he brings defensively.

2. Which player currently on the squad has the best chance to develop into a good defender and why?

Aldridge maybe has the best chance, mainly because of his combination of size, reach and quickness. He’s often been compared to Rasheed. If he becomes even half the defender Wallace is, he will be above average.

I agree with folks who think Webster will continue to improve on defense. I thought he made leaps and bounds this year, from last. I also wouldn’t write off Jack. I don’t know about Brandon. I think he might become something like Kobe lite, in that he can be an above average defender and a top scorer both. I don’t see him becoming as good as Bryant defensively, only because Bryant has better physical tools. For right now, I don’t want Roy having to carry anymore of the load for this team than he already is.

3. Outside of the center position, which position is going to be the most critical to our defensive success in the coming years? Where do we need a great defender to balance the pivot men?

I think team defense is going to be more important than significant improvement devensively at any single position. As you point out, we likely have a dominant defender at the most important position, with a very good defender backing him up. How many teams can anchor a second unit with as good a defensive center as Joel? Rather than pick a position, I’d like to acquire a player capable of playing good to great defense at three positions, preferably someone quick enough to bother guys like Parker and Paul and strong enough to shut down most 2’s and 3’s. (Tom suggests getting Ron Artest in another post. As far as skill set goes, Artest would be perfect.)

4. How good do you see us being defensively as we inch into our prime years?

I haven’t seen the season ending stats, but didn’t Portland finish the year ranked in the top third defensively? Worse case I see us being a top ten defensive team every year. My expectations are top 5 or 6 at least.

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