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Can Donovan be a Good Defender

Can he?

  • Yes

    Votes: 24 70.6%

  • No

    Votes: 10 29.4%
  • Total voters
    34
KqWIN said:
Some discussion might be nice, but I’m not going to apologize for hurting someone’s feelings.

If it makes you happy to blindly support players, more power to ya. I don’t get to choose how others are fans and I’m not going to allow others to police me for having objective opinions.

If you don’t think Mitchell can get more out of his talent, you’re really selling him short. With his talent he can and should be a much more effective player than he is.
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Well said.

telling someone they should not be a fan of a team because they think a player on the team isn’t giving their best effort is the lamest **** I’ve read on this or any other sports board.
 
Don't need him to be. His job is to continue produce on offense when it matters. That's his one job. Let others worry about defense.
 
You know I sometimes actually wonder if Quinn, not necessarily encourages lack of effort for Mitchell defensively, but allows him to be more lax about it so he can focus more on his offense.

If Mitchell is exhausted from the best defense he can give, could he be at full strength offensively? Could he do what he did tonight for the last 90 seconds of the game? Hard to say. It’s really tough to be a primary scorer while also stopping guys on the other end. Probably why so few players are both amazing at both - and equally why those players are so valuable. You only have so much energy.
 
LoPo said:
CP3 is a valid point. The guy can't win big playoff games, but he's a good example of a small guy who is great on both ends. CP3, Stockton, and I can't think of many others who are top notch defenders while also being very important on the offensive end.

LeBron is a top 3 player of all time. Back in the day, he was a phenomenal defender. Should have been DPOY. I was talking about current LeBron though. He's average on D. Durant looked good on GS playing defense, but he had Klay and Draymond there for cover on defense while Curry helped tire people out on offense. He's still just an average defender.

I think Don wants to show the effort, but we also can't expect him to be an All Star on both ends. Those guys are so incredibly rare. MJ was a good defender, but he got to watch Pippen to do the heavy lifting on defense. MJ won 1 playoff game in 11 tries when he played without Pippen. Don doesn't have the luxury of a Pippen, Klay, Joe Dumars, etc.. We don't have a player on the roster who can stop the bleeding. None. Expecting Don to do it is as ridiculous as expecting Clarkson to do it.

We need an elite perimeter defender.
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Lebron average on D? The guy has a career 1.8 DBPM. Even at 36 he's still a 1.7. This is another pathetic post that you should be embarrassed to write.

Does he take it easy on D during the regular season? But he's still incredibly smart and engaged mentally. Don is just out there doing stupid ****. They arent comparable.

Same goes with Durant to a lesser extent.

Curry is not a good defender, but he's mentally engaged and is a smart defensive player.

It'd be one thing if Don could just turn on elite D like those guys can, but he has demonstrated little ability to do so. He seems to be low IQ on defense. He takes his "Mamba Mentality" to the defensive end at times and just overplays everything in an effort to look like he's trying.

He looks like a guy who puts ZERO work in the off-season on defense then just shows up and tries to figure it out on the fly, like the kid in class who think he's so smart he doesnt have to study.

You are making a ton of excuses for Mitchell. HE PLAYS WITH ONE OF THE GREATEST DEFENSIVE PLAYERS OF ALL TIME! He needs to be better point blank end of story. He has the tools. Making any excuse for him just makes you look like a blatant homer, especially when you are so quick to extend critiques to other players for much less flagrant offenses.
 
Don plays for one of the best defensive coaches with one of the best defensive players of all time.

Are his other perimeter defenders elite? No, but Conley and Ingles are both super high IQ defenders who punch about their weight class on that end. Royce is a great defender who gets it done against a huge variety of matchups. The only other *** defenders he has to play with are Clarkson (low IQ) and Bogey (poor body for defense). Even Niang has elevated himself into an average defender off effort and playing smart team defense .

And again, he plays with Rudy ****ing Gobert.

Its really ****ing pathetic that I have more confidence when Niang gets iso'd to stay in front of his man and move his feet than I do Donovan.
 
KqWIN said:
You can be a real asset by taking the easiest matchups, not messing up, rebounding, and doing well if/when they attack you. That’s how a lot of stars do it and they come out average, above average, or even great if you’re LeBron.

Mitchell is just so actively bad it kills me.
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This x1000. Then we got paint huffers who are out here making excuses for him like Lopo
 
Max Porter said:
You know I sometimes actually wonder if Quinn, not necessarily encourages lack of effort for Mitchell defensively, but allows him to be more lax about it so he can focus more on his offense.

If Mitchell is exhausted from the best defense he can give, could he be at full strength offensively? Could he do what he did tonight for the last 90 seconds of the game? Hard to say. It’s really tough to be a primary scorer while also stopping guys on the other end. Probably why so few players are both amazing at both - and equally why those players are so valuable. You only have so much energy.
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This is a decent question/explanation but aren't there players who are amazing offensively and use tons of energy on offense yet still play great defense?
Kobe? Jordan? Giannis? Embiid? Kahwii? Etc etc

Sent from my ONEPLUS A6013 using JazzFanz mobile app
 
Remember when we made the excuse that Don had too big of load on offense, and that why he was *** on D. I mean, he had to make up for Ricky Rubio playing PG and Favors playing PF, so it made sense and we all bought in. It was a valid excuse.

Then the Jazz went out and got Jordan Clarkson, Mike Conley, and Bogey, and he somehow got worse on defense.
 
I voted No, btw.

The issue of Don’s defense is starting to mirror a lot of discussions we’ve had with players like Burks and Hood—both of whom showed specific, promising developmental trajectories in years 2-4 that just never panned out despite them “having all the tools.” In fact, there was regression—for example, in Hood making good reads as a PnR ball handler, or in Burks’ ability as a ball-mover and his ability find a kick out on his drives.
 
Saint Cy of JFC said:
Remember when we made the excuse that Don had too big of load on offense, and that why he was *** on D. I mean, he had to make up for Ricky Rubio playing PG and Favors playing PF, so it made sense and we all bought in. It was a valid excuse.

Then the Jazz went out and got Jordan Clarkson, Mike Conley, and Bogey, and he somehow got worse on defense.
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Yup, almost everyone on the team is an offense first player. We run into the problem of having too many mouths to feed more than the issue of not having enough offensive firepower.

If Conley and Bogey are both out and Clarkson isn’t going. Ok...Mitchell conserve everything for shot making. But when they’re in uniform, put in the effort to be at least average and do yourself another favor and knock down some spot up 3’s instead of dribbling for 16+ seconds.

It’s really not a crazy ask IMO. He was a much defender as a rookie and he was suffocating under a lack of shot creation and spacing. Now that he has so much firepower around him it should be easier to play both sides of the ball.
 
Max Porter said:
You know I sometimes actually wonder if Quinn, not necessarily encourages lack of effort for Mitchell defensively, but allows him to be more lax about it so he can focus more on his offense.

If Mitchell is exhausted from the best defense he can give, could he be at full strength offensively? Could he do what he did tonight for the last 90 seconds of the game? Hard to say. It’s really tough to be a primary scorer while also stopping guys on the other end. Probably why so few players are both amazing at both - and equally why those players are so valuable. You only have so much energy.
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If he played the best defense he possibly could we wouldn't need heroics in the last 90 seconds.
 
fishonjazz said:
This is a decent question/explanation but aren't there players who are amazing offensively and use tons of energy on offense yet still play great defense?
Kobe? Jordan? Giannis? Embiid? Kahwii? Etc etc

Sent from my ONEPLUS A6013 using JazzFanz mobile app
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Yes, everyone considered true top 20 is, at minimum, a plus defender, and then usually elite on offense. The list of great 2-way players is longer than people think. Why do you think players like Mello stand out? Because true elite offense with virtually zero defense is actually fairly rare. The true great players pride themselves on being great. They don't have the "I'm not paid to play defense" attitude. Now I don't think Mitchell actually has that attitude, but his defense can, and absolutely MUST improve, both for him and for the team to take the next step.
 
fishonjazz said:
This is a decent question/explanation but aren't there players who are amazing offensively and use tons of energy on offense yet still play great defense?
Kobe? Jordan? Giannis? Embiid? Kahwii? Etc etc

Sent from my ONEPLUS A6013 using JazzFanz mobile app
Click to expand...
But those are either some of the best players ever or some of the best players now. What I mean is it’s rare, even more so for a guard his size. I’m trying to think of a player in the league right now who is his size that is elite offensively and defensively, I know they are out there but it’s much easier to think of bigger guys who are better in that regard. It’s also possible it’s a little harder to gauge great defense from smaller players. They aren’t exactly blocking shots.
 
Max Porter said:
But those are either some of the best players ever or some of the best players now. What I mean is it’s rare, even more so for a guard his size. I’m trying to think of a player in the league right now who is his size that is elite offensively and defensively, I know they are out there but it’s much easier to think of bigger guys who are better in that regard. It’s also possible it’s a little harder to gauge great defense from smaller players. They aren’t exactly blocking shots.
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CP3 for one. It's not some grand unicorn to find a guard that is elite offensively and at least passable on defense. And right now Mitchell is not elite offensively. His efficiency is bad right now. He can score in bunches but it doesn't mean he's elite.
 
LogGrad98 said:
CP3 for one. It's not some grand unicorn to find a guard that is elite offensively and at least passable on defense. And right now Mitchell is not elite offensively. His efficiency is bad right now. He can score in bunches but it doesn't mean he's elite.
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Kyle Lowry and Conley as well. A lot of small guards make up for being small by getting into guys and being pesky. Mitchell plays D like he's 6'8 and has the vertical length to contest by playing off, which he doesn't.
 
There is a a ton of room between an all NBA defender like Lowry/CP3 and where Donovan is right now. If he wanted to be an all NBA defender, I think he could. That's how highly I think of his talent. But I don't think anyone is asking him to be that type of defender. Being average would be a really nice contribution to this team and he's already done that in his career.
 
I’ve really soured on the phrase “all the right tools” when discussing defense. Most of the time, the tools people are talking about are various athletic metrics. That’s rubbish. If you’re biting on the wrong moves and can’t see the floor through the team’s defensive scheme, then you lose all those athletic advantages pretty much instantly.

Don is biting on the wrong stuff.

Don isn’t seeing the floor through the schema.

Stuff your “tools” in a sack.
 
This is another consequence of giving him the keys to the franchise from the tip. It is to at least this point impossible for me to believe that Donovan’s ****** defense is anything but a series of choices of his.
 
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