In comparison, I said before that b-ball IQ was Outlaw’s problem. I think pure will is the only thing that seems to stand between Webster and greatness. Obviously this translates directly to his defense. The question of of whether he will stand outside and take 3’s all night or take it to the hole and live with the abuse relates directly to his willingness to commit to defense. People may be overblowing what he did this year, but he showed marked improvement in both areas.

I agree completely. I’ve said this before, but only in comments. Hopefully people will understand that this isn’t bashing. I always make it clear that I think it is possible, and in fact hope he does become an amazing defender, but it hasn’t happened yet. Still, people are like “How dare you, he’s made great strides in improving his blah blah blah blah blah.” Then they bash Travis’ defense and basketball intelligence like that improves Martell’s defense. The part about how you said he was working on his defense and suddenly everyone put him on the All-Defensive Team is especially true.

But I felt he immensely improved his knowledge of WHERE to be on defense, and how to use his body to his advantage.

I bring up his defense when we discuss Martell vs Outlaw, because I feel like Outlaw is dreadfully abysmal at defensiveing the NBA players of today. Martell showed an understanding of what is expected of him on defense, and was at least mostly-solid. Normally, this wouldn’t be THAT noteable—but Martell was pretty sucky before at defense, making many of the same rotation mistakes that Outlaw still makes and often getting beat by quicker guards.

Moving to SF helped Martell, as did getting in really good shape. He had the best time in the conditioning drills Nate does, and the weight he lost improved his lateral quickness to my eye.

He still got beat, but it was less often, and he was usually in the right place. Not always, but again I usually praise his defense in regards to Outlaw’s lack of defense.

Since he showed the commitment and the potential to be a decent to good defender in the NBA, I think he could continue to improve as he becomes more experienced. Like Dave has said before, how successful Martell becomes in the NBA will be more defined by how much of an offensive force Martell becomes, not his defense, but I think improving his defense has led Martell to get a lot more minutes out on the floor and thus improve his offensive game.

He won’t likely ever become a Bruce Bowen, Teyshaun Prince lockdown defender. I really like his offensive potential, and that he commited to defense and seemed to play it intelligently (for a HS to NBA kid who was awful at defense before).

Since so many people assume Outlaw will drink a magic potion and suddenly understand what to do on defense and he’ll defeat the Big Boss guarding the gate at the end of level 9 and obtain the Big Boss’s sneakers with wings on them that enable his feet to not be stuck in mud on defense, I defend Martell’s defense as serviceable and thus more what we need in the starting lineup.

I also like that he scored 10+ points as a 3rd/4th option on offense and played within his limits along with the starters, rarely forcing shots. He also didn’t take risks on defense and basically did what was expected of him. Since I think that his burgeoning solidness on the defensive end is more encouraging than what Outlaw has shown, and that he wasn’t a 1st option as Outlaw was when he entered the game and is showing these signs of understanding basketball at an earlier age than Outlaw (and in many ways has surpassed the older Outlaw), I often argue in Martell’s favor.

But, I gotta say I do not think Martell is currently an amazing defender, just one that defenses won’t necessarily target as a weakness anymore.

I fully understand Martell may be traded because of his contract situation and his decent trade value league wide, but currently I much prefer Martell in the starting lineup because he has more of an all-round game than Outlaw, and I don’t hold out hope Outlaw will ever be a serviceable defender as a SF.

I wanna keep both players, as I think Outlaw is outstanding as a scorer off the bench, but would wilt in a starting role where he has to compliment the more talented players and not just do his own thang.

Martell showed the improvement I was hoping for, and while he was really inconsistent offensively, I think that part of his game is his natural strength and will come around. At the very least, he should be an athletic wing who will defend well and hit a lot of jumpers. That’s if he only stays as good as he is now, and just becomes more experienced.

Mortimer

yea he’s such a better player then Outlaw which explains his 4th quarter presence and willingness for Coach to put it in his hands…

adios Martell

Outlaw is a little worse, but makes up for it to degree with his athleticism.

Considering his youth and starter’s minutes, that’s saying a lot.
Most 21-year-olds, given over 28 minutes a game, would be blowing assignments fairly often.
It’s not his great D so much as his lack of mistakes that impresses.
Being relatively mistake-free at 21 should equate to foolproof by 28.

who never lived up to his expectations of being the outside threat he was drafted for. Now its his defense under debate. Travis made the leaps and bounds every year, martell played summer ball with co-be. Nuff said. Martells outta here as sure as when Jarrett sealed his fate with his selfish griping.

He tries hard on man-to-man, but gets burned most of the time. Plays the pick and roll poorly. Help D is suspect and not very aware on the defensive end. Yea, now that I think about it, I don’t recall many defensive plays from Martell.

His defense needs tons of work. He has all the physical tools to become a good defender, but he has to work on it. I’ve always felt Martell has poor balance in his defensive stance and his footwork is not the best. Lateral movement needs to be quicker as well.

All this talk came from Quick’s article. I don’t think anybody has really said Martell plays good defense.

Isn’t that team full of the Vince Carters and Tracey McGrady’s of the world?

I also, like many people above, disagree with you. He’s so young I don’t think it’s fair to judge him as a bust at all. The key thing is not so much his play as his contract. If he agrees to be a Martell type contract, he can stay.

I hope to see the Blazers starters all get paid 8 million a year, and each of the subs get payed 4 million a year and not a penny more or less. That would the easiest way to do things. Just have that as the set deal for any player who wants to play for Portland. [I know, there are plenty of problems with this idea. Plenty. I just think it would be a simple way to deal with the contract issues]

How many lockdown defense 3’s are there in the NBA at the age of 21? Martell will never be a Bruce Bowen or Ron Artest but he has become the best defender at SF on our roster.

What impresses me is that Martell has the desire and attitude on the defensive end which will see him improve that area of his game for at least a couple more seasons. He is far from a finished product. I understand we can’t keep holding on to a player with the hope that he will one day live up to his potential but Martell has shown enough growth in his game each successive season to warrant starting minutes.

As enamoured as I am to Travis’ offensive skills and clutch in the 4th quarter, he is the last person I’d want in a starting 5 that already boasts scorers like Roy, Aldridge and Oden. So it surprises me that Nate has said he will start Travis at SF. He’s hardly a complimentary scorer, if the ball is in his hands there really is only one option. And on defense… yeah enough has been said already. He seems better suited as the 1st option on the white team.

Bayless, Fernandez, Outlaw, Frye and Joel… dang we are deep. Poor Sergio.

I must admit that the posts are so fast and furious these days, that I skip a lot, but surely no one is claiming he plays all star defense (although as noted above, all star games are noted for their lack of defense-but I digress). It seems more that people say that he’s on the better side among some kinda bad defenders on the Blazers.

Just to add some objectivity to the debate (which is hard cause there is no clear stat e.g. for the ability to keep your man in front of you so he has to give up and pass/take a bad shot or box him out if that doesn’t result in something):

82games has on/off the field stats for the last season that indicate that e.g. per 100 possessions with the Blazers on defense opponents would score 111.2 point with Outlaw on the floor (+4.5 points net, so we are giving up points) and 109.6 points with Webster (+0.9).

In this stat, less is better! So both are not amazing by any stretch of the word, e.g. Joel has 106.7 (-4.6), which is good especially on defensive net (11th in this table).

Also Outlaw wasn’t that great offensively, in fact he adds just +0.4 which brings his total to -4.1. Webster was worse on offense (-2.5) but his total is slightly better, -3.4. All in all they both give up points. Best in this stat is Steve Nash, who adds 15.5 on offense but gives up just 1 defensively despite all people saying he is terrible on defense.

Outlaw was better when it comes to forcing and committing turnovers (-0.2 offense, +1.1 defense vs. +2.0, +0.0) and fouls (+7.0 offense, that’s 7th in the league, -5.5 defense vs. -5.5, +0.0).

When it comes to rebounding, Joel is the best defensive and overall rebounder. Surprisingly, Outlaw despite his size seems to be a terrible rebounder, in fact the worst one in this table with -7.2 defensively and -4.4 net. Webster brings +2.4 and +1.9 “to the board”, and is also positive in offensive rebounding.

Play around with it for yourself, but I sure was surprised about some findings:
http://www.82games.com/ONSORT5.HTM

This All-Star D is a “smoke screen” to increase his value and hope that people assume that when he disappears on the floor as he so often does, he is playing great D. HE stopped doing it last year, but Travis can defend guys that aren’t as quick as him, big or not. Remember all the blocks he was above the rim for? When he was drafted, one of the selling points was his defense (more defined; his blocks). I remember a poll asking what people were most excited about by drafting Outlaw. People picked : his name. So did I at the time nobody knew who he was, but the other options were something like how high he can get up and flying to block shots. Anybody ever say those things about Webster? Show me some great D stats for this argument. The truth is, when you sit in the corner of the floor, people forget about you Martell. When you want to excel watch some Rip Hamilton tapes.

I thought they didn’t play defense during the All-Star Game?

pertaining to Mr. Webster. I maintained since the first time I saw him play in Summer League that the best he’ll ever be is a fifth to seventh man on a good team. Very briefly last year I thought I saw something more and backtracked a bit but since then I wish I hadn’t.

Martell is (to all appearances) a good kid and has one of the all time sweet strokes. Occasionally he makes a spectacular drive to the hoop and he is a decent rebounder. That’s it. He wasn’t sixth pick material, he certainly wasn’t third pick material and he still doesn’t excite anything in me. I wait and wait for him to prove me wrong. I want to be wrong, I really do…

Sometimes I wonder if it is that Pritchard is really all that good or simply that Nash was just so spectacularly incompetent that that someone who is pretty good looks awesome by comparison.