Victor Wembanyama to deliver the NBA’s greatest defensive season ever (Hot Takes We Might Actually Believe)

The 2024-25 NBA season is here. At the end of an uneventful offseason, we take our annual trip too close to the sun, daring you to stand the swelter of these views. This is Hot Takes We Might Actually Believe.

Last season, when Minnesota Timberwolves wings Jaden McDaniels and Anthony Edwards hounded Boston Celtics counterparts Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown down the stretch of a game between the NBA’s two top-seeded teams, I wondered: Is Wolves center Rudy Gobert — then a three-time Defensive Player of the Year and the betting favorite to win the award again — even the best defender on his own team?

That led me to some conversations with front-office folks from around the NBA about the importance of interior vs. perimeter defense. That discussion also became a hot topic among executives in 2022, when both Marcus Smart and Mikal Bridges finished ahead of Gobert in Defensive Player of the Year voting.

Here’s everything you need to know for the 2024-25 NBA season. (Henry Russell/Yahoo Sports Illustration)

If the game is more reliant on 3-point shooting than ever before, and versatility has never been so vital, shouldn’t the ability to switch across positions on the perimeter be the most coveted defensive skill?

Measuring defensive impact

There is no reason why teams should do the legwork to measure one kind of defense against another. Who wins awards has no bearing on their record. Is someone a good on-ball defender? A good help defender? A good rim protector? These are the questions. Ideally, one player does all three well, but in our imperfect world, teams tinker to find five-man units that canvas the court, as they say, “on a string.” A rim-protecting center here, a few switchable wings there, just to mask the guard who cannot guard.

But could teams measure one aspect of defense against another?

“Sure,” one Eastern Conference executive told Yahoo Sports, “but our data is finite.”

You either block a shot or you do not. Your opponent either makes a shot or misses it. Teams have access to a wealth of analytics beyond those publicly available, but even that cannot tell you everything your eyes do. Each possession…

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Author : Yahoo Sports

Publish date : 2024-10-24 15:02:00

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