Quote:
Originally Posted by Dallas41
As for Luka, he's a big boy and I'm not sure I buy into all that enforcer stuff.
This isn't the NBA from the 90's when the term enforcer was more appropriate. Luka is still going to get fouled a lot and players are still going to jaw back and forth with each other and not a single punch will be thrown this year by a Mavs player.
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This. As if anyone is going to refrain from giving Luka a hard foul because they're afraid that James Johnson knows karate. It's a ridiculous thought.
Honestly, I'll go even further than that. It didn't matter in the 90s either. I've always believed that this alpha dog, caveman sh*t is incredibly overrated and doesn't actually help anyone win games. What
does help win games is playing tough, disruptive defense. People seem to confuse the two. Sure, maybe sometimes they overlap in that the best defensive players are sometimes the dirtiest ones. But honestly I think those are the exception, not the rule. But just being "tough" or "crazy?" Seriously, who gives a sh*t?
What killed that idea forever for me was Jerry Stackhouse. Stackhouse is by all accounts one of the surliest players in NBA history, who was apparently always ready to fight someone. Did that ever ONCE help us win a game? Did that supposed toughness translate on the court at all? I don't believe it ever did. For all the talk about how he was willing to follow someone into a parking lot, he was a turnstile on defense. The only "tough" thing he ever did on the court was dish out a flagrant foul in the finals and get himself suspended for a game. Fat lot of good that did us. The Mavs were still seen as soft throughout the basketball world every year he was here.
You know who actually was tough? Like, in a basketball sense? Shawn Marion and Tyson Chandler. Neither of those guys needed to follow someone into a parking lot. They were great defensive players. Now Deshawn Stevenson was also one of those crazy, dirty types. A "dawg" if you will. But surprise, surprise, he was also a very good defensive player.
So, I am very much looking forward to seeing the new Mavs in action. But they will make the team better by being good perimeter defenders, not by being Luka's body guards.