Raoul Duke
Gonzo Journalist

we won our sig bet against the toronto fans and they dont want to acknowledge it. i posted in the pistons forum about it. its funny to look back at all of the stuff. haha

Yup. Thanks a lot.

Yes sir! Thanks much.

I didn't get it. So yeah...send it again.

Thanks!

Draft grades??? Sorry for being a pest.

Hey, thanks for the heads up. I'm not sure if anyone got to that already or not, but I'll head over to the Pistons forum now and check it out.

As your attorney, I advise you to become a Bulls fan.

*throws ice cream on the floor*

jerk

You understand theres a balance to the game, offense and defense matter. Its just according to your methods of evaluating offenses and defenses, defense matters more because youve seen ugly O win titles because of Great D, but never Ugly D win because of great O right. Well in a sense I can agree with that. I just find people exaggerate the expression, like the Spurs basically represents a common misconception. Great Offense should score alot of points, when in reality great offenses need only to score as often as possible in the framework of their own pace. Pace skews per game results, efficiency is what wins games. Thats why when measuring performance you look at per possession stats.

Since the Spurs have been a dominant defensive team throughout the decade they serve as a great barometer for the defensive theory.

BOLD= CHAMPIONSHIP YEAR
YEAR - Offensive/Defensive Ranks
2002 - 9th/2nd
2003 - 7th/3rd
2004 - 16th/1st
2005 - 8th/1st
2006 - 10th/1st
2007 - 5th/2nd
2008 - 15th/3rd

For a team that people describe as not having a great offense they sure rank pretty highly in the years they won a title, and pretty mediocre when they didnt. This again confirms the balance, yes the Spurs won with defense mostly but think of it this way, had that offense regressed even further to lets say 30th or worse (yes there is worse), that same championship caliber defense wins .500% of their games, this is just a fact. So how can defense be any more important than offense to the point where you can say defense wins championships?

Thats for the general masses, for people who understand the balance like we do then you asked for the inverse example of the Pistons. But you have to realize the Pistons werent just a great defensive team, they were quite possibly the GREATEST defensive team of all time, playing in an era where they could play to their strengths. They need only to not have a pitiful offense to win a title with that kind of defensive ability. In the end they had the best combination of defensive and offensive efficiency, it just wasnt as obvious because we only saw them together for a short while that season. When they got to the finals, the Lakers were undermanned it shouldve been a great series.

Anyways these are the best examples of great offensive teams winning a title

The latter day (87-88)Laker teams when Kareem could no longer rebound won titles. They were the best offensive teams in the league but still top 10 defensively, just not on the glass. Ironically it was their offensive rebounding that offset that loss on the glass, yet another example why both sides matter. Only when it comes to rebounding, offensive rebounds matter more.

Those Bulls teams had the best offensive weapon in the planet to go with that defense, the Lakers of the Shaq era had the same thing going. Basically every team thats ever won a title has done so because of a balance, unless it was a some weird year from 1977 (the subject of my next thread actually).


As for the worst defensive team winning a title.... thats a little tricky to gauge but its not like the Pistons were horrible they were better than their 17th ranking because Wallace was brought on board midseason. But a similarly bad rated defensive team were the 2001 Lakers who rated dead last in defensive efficiency the year they won the title, but those were the lightswitch Lakers and had Kobe and Shaq on page at their best. Thats alot of offense to overcome for any defense.

Outside of those teams they dont really exist. Defense is mandatory, I suppose slightly moreso than offense, but you still need a great offense.