I've always suspected that Marbury's defense was not as horrible as people make it sound and that a lot of the criticism has more to do with his body language. Sometimes he looks like he's not trying hard.

I know stats don't tell the whole story, but I looked at opponents' field goal percentage on 82games.com for the better PGs in the league. (The #s are adjusted for 3 pointers because 3s are more valuable than 2s.) Here's the list that I compiled:

Iverson .421
Billups .425
Payton .432
Marbury .434
Parker .443
Andre Miller .444
Tinsley .444
Kidd .455
Cassell .468
Nash .477
McInnis .481
Bibby .492
Van Exel .495
Hinrich .497
Arenas .510
Stoudamire .511
Alston .511
Baron Davis .545

Keep in mind that Marbury does not have a shot-blocker protecting the basket like many of these players do have. Marbury is still among the best in the league.

(Note that the #s for Kidd and Baron Davis are probably not too reliable since Kidd and BD have only played a few games this year.)



[Edited by - Bonn1997 on 12/28/2004 08:32:59]

this is indeed really interesting.

thing is, parker for instance can afford to play less defense since bowen duncan and co cover his ass. same applies to cassel for instance.

in our case, marb has nobody and the knicks dont play d at all, so we need him to show them by defending much more.

endly, marburay doesn't suck, he just doesnt play d the way he should (could).

Posted by TMS:

let me ask you something...are those stats only for the opposing PG's or for the other team's in general when Marbury is on the floor?

watch Marbury be late getting over to cover when he is picked off a screen, or switching to the open man on the perimeter when someone else is forced to collapse on his man who's blown by him off the dribble, & then tell me how strong Marbury's defense is.

when you have guys like Milt Palacio & Tyronn Lue getting easy penetration that result in points, you have a problem.

WWW.justifyingMarbury.com

Why are we always trying to justify Marbs? Hes great, just enjoy the game. If yah don't like the trade, get over it, its done. If you love him, just enjoy the play!

He did good last nite, perhaps he is over the funk and Santa was good to him!.

that same quote surfaced in the NY times today, so you know Berman didnt just make it up.

Isiah is right, Marbury has been bad all year, letting guys like Earl Watson, Milt Palacio and Rafer Alston torch him. He played a great game on D against Nuggets, and his last 2 were also good.

I love Isiah's comment. I'm so sick of the coddling that goes on in sports with players and it was never worse than when Layden was here. Tell it like it is Isiah.

Bonn, those stats don't even tell anything, b/c they aren't FG% against Marbury. Plus, if you were going to use the old "Knicks don't have a shotblocker excuse" for him, you have to use it for basically, the rest of the Knicks, particularly the perimeter players. Everyone except Ariza and JYD and KT have been bad, and KT is only good against certain PFs and Cs. He gets beat of the dribble frequently, and like TMS says, he lets himself get caught in screens too much. An experienced guard with his mobility and strength should be able to get around these screens w/o a problem. And when he runs out to the man taking the shot, way more often then we'd like, he doesn't even put a hand up. He, for the most part, has been an extremely lazy defender this year.

Also, take this into mind; the PG is the shortest player on the court, so with all the big men surrounding them, logic would say that they would have the hardest time scoring. Hence, they would probably have the lowest field goal %s in the league, unless if they are just gifted scorers, like the NVXs, and Davis's, and Nashs, yada yada. However, when just about everyone goes up against Marbury, they score on him whenever they want. This is why I am still a little dissapointed in Marbury. That's b/c all I heard, before he came here, was how he was so strong and should be an all NBA defender, but that clearly isn't the case right now.

Now, he had a good game against Francis, LAST NIGHT, but for the 3 games before that, I saw Francis killing Marbury. CLEARLY, this was a game of pride for Marbury, b/c if Marbury again lost the matchup, he would have started to been known as Stevie Franchise's byatch, and I am sure Steph didn't want that. Now go ahead and tell me that's a stupid post, but you know just as well as I do, that it's true.

The defense, however, is still the main reason that his leadership is still in the air.



[Edited by - Allanfan20 on 12/28/2004 10:26:28]

Posted by Nalod:

Posted by TMS:

let me ask you something...are those stats only for the opposing PG's or for the other team's in general when Marbury is on the floor?

watch Marbury be late getting over to cover when he is picked off a screen, or switching to the open man on the perimeter when someone else is forced to collapse on his man who's blown by him off the dribble, & then tell me how strong Marbury's defense is.

when you have guys like Milt Palacio & Tyronn Lue getting easy penetration that result in points, you have a problem.

WWW.justifyingMarbury.com

Why are we always trying to justify Marbs? Hes great, just enjoy the game. If yah don't like the trade, get over it, its done. If you love him, just enjoy the play!

He did good last nite, perhaps he is over the funk and Santa was good to him!.

dude, i didn't post the thread... i was just commenting on the topic... i'm not bashing Marbury for the sake of bashing him, nor am i sorry that the Knicks made the trade... i love watching Marbury play... the simple fact is however, that he's not that great a defender.