A coach needs a bench to be like a toolbox. A whole bunch of different tools, some being in that box to do only specific jobs. So I don’t have an issue with all offense/no defense guys similar to not having issues with all defense/no offense guys. It’s up to the coach to use those tools properly.
My question before yesterday was whether Parker could still be that all offense/no defense guy. We knew he had no defense, last night showed that, but since leaving Atlanta, he had barely played and when he did he appeared to be overweight, not moving around well and his offense looked as it had taken a major step backwards.
If used right, like last night, and put into player groupings that hide his defensive deficiencies, he could be a nice addition. Now let’s see if Stevens continues to use him right and if Parker can consistently do what he did against the Warriors.
Completely agree. People who are trashing my “atrocious defense” posts aren’t also seeing that I have the same sentiment as this.
Jabari’s offense is much-needed and I’m willing to live with some bad defense to get this offensive punch in the right situations.
As a micro-example, look at the Golden State game. His defense was terrible. But without his offense, Boston loses that game.
And he was +6 in 16 minutes. One game, small sample but all this clamoring about how bad his defense was, we came out ahead when he was on the court. Semi is a really good defender but offers no offensive threat. You live with that when you need to. Parker is a offensive threat with limited defense. Teams will exploit that but let’s see how much. We are talking about the third or fourth off the bench role (Fournier, then RWilliams, then Pritchard?). Looking for an upgrade over what we have gotten from Grant and Semi.
I am really happy with what I saw from Parker after 1 game with respect to that role. I think his defense will improve some as he gets used to playing within our team defense schemes. If we get something close to game 1 plus even a little bit better defense, he is going to be a big help. If he goes 1-8 and plays bad defense, not so much. He has not even practiced with the team and pretty much walked off the plane on to the court. There were “moments” on rotations and close outs that weren’t great but as I said, I thought he looked great overall in game 1. I will reassess as needed in a couple of weeks but for now, I am thrilled with the addition.
As you sort of intimate, the problem with Parker isn’t that he is bad defensively (he is), it is that he isn’t super efficient offensively. So he doesn’t usually make up for his poor defense with great offense (like say IT4 or Kyrie did). He was super efficient against the Warriors so his defense was made up for, but when he has a more typical Smart like offensive game, he probably won’t make up for his poor defense.
Parker’s quite efficient within his shot profile. He’s predominantly a 2 point shooting power forward. Over the last two seasons (2019 and 2020), he shot 57.3% on 2 point attempts. That would tie him with Kyrie for 35th out of 126 qualifiers this season. If he qualified by his number of attempts, he would be 9th out of 22 PFs below Durant and above Barnes. He hasn’t been a passable 3 point shooter since he left MIL for whatever reason (I suspect it’s related to his injuries, but who knows). I don’t know that CBS can improve his shot profile like other players he’s coached.
Smart’s very inefficient within the arc (45.7% over the same period, which is awful), but passable as a 3 point shooter. But if you look at their respective FG%, which includes both shots, Parker shot 49.9% the last two years vs. Smart’s 37.5% (both are consistent with their career averages).
It doesn’t take away from your point about their respective defense, but Parker’s less likely to have the droughts that Smart regularly suffers and if Parker’s inside the arc, it’s a good shot. You want him to shoot, and he’s always been a volume shooter. Smart, not so much, and less is more.
One caveat, it’s tough to compare Parker to other players because of his injury/recovery history, so inevitably you have to cherry-pick his stats to separate his MIL numbers vs. his post-MIL numbers.