croco

Kevin Durant, Defensive Stopper?

Posted Jan 7th 2008 8:00AM by Tom Ziller
Filed under: SuperSonics, Seattle

All sorts of attention has been paid to Kevin Durant's offensive execution, both the jangly start and the improving smoothness. And nearly all expected him to suffer mightily on the other end, his youth and thinness withholding sound defensive performance. Maybe it's more a discussion of Seattle's shortcomings, but as David Aldridge recounts for his Philadelphia Inquirer column, Durant is getting some big defensive assignments lately (via The Court Reporters).

Durant is third in blocks per game among rookies, behind Sean Williams and Jamario Moon... which is sort-of amazing, considering Durant more apt to defend a point guard than a power forward at this point. And Durant's knocking on the door of the rare 20 points/1 block/1 steal/1 three per game club -- it's only been done 14 times since the three-pointer was created, and the guys on the list are names like Dirk Nowitzki and Shawn Marion. And KD is a rookie.

http://sports.aol.com/fanhouse/2008/...nsive-stopper/


From what I have seen in the Sonics games lately you can't really say that he is a bad defender, not at all. Of course there are some stretches where he will be overmatched or loses focus on defense, but he wants to defend, has the right mindset and is giving effort which is definitely a great sign for the future.

Your thoughts on his defense ?

Chan

Well, man defense isn't much to be lauded for- even Drew Gooden can put a body on a guy. It's the rotations, keeping cutters out of the paint etc that really matters. So far, Durant has shown he's a good man defender and he can disrupt passing lanes with those long arms. But in a T-Wolves game he gave up 2 dunks when his man cut into the lane on consecutive plays.

Mentally, he needs work.

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Hold on a sec, sweetie.

ray_allen_20

He's also a chucker. He needs to work on his athleticism and take it to the hoop.

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Silky Smoothe