The NBA has never been as offensively talented as it is right now. Until the early 2000s, offense and defense were equally crucial parts of the game, but things rapidly changed. Fast forward two decades and defense almost looks like a lost ‘art’, as the league keeps pushing offense-focused rhetoric. Former NBA player Austin Rivers used Stephen Curry’s example to highlight the league’s lack of defensive prowess. Even Dwyane Wade validated his comments.
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Rivers pointed out that, unlike earlier, the best players in the league often run from difficult defensive assignments. Furthering his point, on his show ‘The Off Guard Podcast‘, the former shooting guard sounded off on the current state of defense in the league,
“I miss seeing Jordan guard Clyde and Clyde guard Jordan…I want the best players to go against each other. That’s the only gripe I have with some of our stars that we have in today’s NBA game.”
Moving forward, the 6’4″ guard admitted that there were always stars who were defensive liabilities. However, as per him, what was once an exception in the league, has now become the norm. Praising Ant-Man for his versatility on both sides of the court, he stated,
“We always use that[ argument] against Steph, people love to say that against Steph. But now no one brings that up with all of our young talented players … Now half the NBA of our stars can’t play fu**ing defense…He[Anthony Edwards] plays on both ends of the floor, that’s why we like Anthony Edwards.”
River’s take seems to have hit home for NBA legend Dwayne Wade as the Miami native took to his Instagram to like the video snippet of River’s rant.
Players like Dwayne Wade and Austin Rivers saw the NBA transition from a defense-heavy league to an offensively dominated one. While Rivers didn’t enter the league till 2012, the 31-year-old has spent most of his life around basketball, having the privilege of watching the greats of yesteryear go at each other. Even Steve Kerr concurred with it and once warned the league against it.
Steve Kerr also highlighted the importance of defense
While some might call River’s take a little extreme, other members of the NBA community seem to agree with the Winter Park legend. Warriors head coach, Steve Kerr, seems to be one of them, as he warned the league against pushing the offensive side of the game any further. Talking to the media, Kerr said,
“I think we’ve[NBA] just gone a little too far. I think that the rules have really been geared towards giving the offensive player the advantage. It’s become much more difficult to play defense in the NBA now. “
While Kerr warns the league of its discrepancies, Celtics guard Jaylen Brown sees the offense-favoring rhetoric as nothing but a cash grab by the NBA. Brown thinks that ‘more scoring’ translates to “ better branding and marketing” for the league, thus making the move a no-brainer for the NBA.
Statistically speaking, Kerr is definitely on point. The 2016-17 Warriors, a team with four future Hall of Famers, put up one of the greatest performances in the league’s history, achieving an offensive rating of 114.8. While the Warriors ‘death lineup‘ performance was no doubt record-shattering, a similar performance in today’s game would not even earn the Warriors a top-10 finish in offensive ratings.
