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Message: [QUOTE="6Nattys4Us, post: 5182584, member: 13819"] Last year: 1. Castle was a clearly amazing defender, and creative scorer: teams knew he would be on their best player on D and he would be a priority to stop on O. 2. Clingan was an eraser that hardly wore down. Teams had to reckon with him on all drives and try for outside shooting. 3. Newton was an All-American PG who in his own right was a scoring threat. Teams could no just ignore him and had some inches on opposing point guards. 4. Spencer was a uniquely gifted combo of shot making and BBIQ with a will to win - had to watch him on the 3 line. Also had some inches on opposing guards. 5. AK had a dangerous first step, rifle 3pt shooting, and savvy passer as a point forward. But he was their fourth of fifth concern on D and needed a big power 4 to contain him. This year: 1. Ball is our best shooter but his defense is still C-/D+. To be fair it's directionally improving but any team just puts their best defender on him 2. Johnson has to be checked by guarding against the slip screen for a dunk - minor for a team as they just need to keep their big man behind him and over power him away from the rim. 3. AK is being given the assignment to guard team's most physical wings 1:1 instead of last year and paying the price. 4. Tarris if in the game negates #2 as he and Johnson RARELY play together - if on the floor he becomes the 2nd priority. That's about it - our backcourt is not taller than other's backcourt; our 5s are levels below Clingan for worries, our best individual defender is Ross (according to Hurley) but Ross is a very, very poor man's Castle on D. Mahaney is not going off for 30+. So there really is far less for team's to worry about this year than last...a lot less. We have 12 schollys and Singare and Abraham don't merit playing time and without Liam we have 4 useable bench players (Mahaney, Reed, Jr, Ross, Nowell) - yet with injuries to Nowell it's a bench of 3. But when Liam comes back - hopefully soon - he jumps into top 3 priority for teams to defend, and on D he helped us with rebounds, blocks, overall team D was better. Still with him back we are still nowhere near '23 or '24 in terms of how teams have to gameplan vs us. Clearly this team is at a disadvantage talent-wise to '23 or '24 - expectations should be similarly tempered. [/QUOTE]

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