FanPost

Is Damian Lillard a Better Defender Than We Give Him Credit For?

Recently, a post on Reddit broke down NBA Guards 2013-14 Opponent FG% at the Rim. Essentially, this showed how well opposing players shot against guards in the league. Unsuprisingly, Eric Bledsoe was at the top of the list by a good margin, which leads credence to the fact that he should probably be paid $12M+ a year. Also, I don't know why Giannis is on the list, as he plays most of his mins at SF and he's 6'11" tall.

Nonetheless, Dame comes in at #22 on this list, and Wes is at #19. Point being, though Dame has his issues fighting through screens and occasionally gets flat-out burned on defense, is he more apt than we previously thought? Are his deficiencies perhaps a product of the system that Stotts has instituted on defense?

A recent post here on BEdge showed that Robin was arguably the second best defender in the league, and team stats placed Portland around 16th in the league in overall defense. Is this team prone to making a big jump in the upcoming year and finally putting us in the elite category of a top-10 team in both offense AND defense?

There's a hell of a lot more information and statistics out there, but I thought this would be enough to at least get the conversation going. Feel free to do your own research starting with Basketball Reference and NBA.com Stats and add it in the comments below.

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via i.imgur.com