Quote:
Originally Posted by sergsz
I know stats don't always tell the whole story, but still.... Regarding D, he's been awful the past few years based on both DRTG and defensive win shares. Re efficiency, his TS% has actually been higher in Atl than in Pho. It went from awful when he was a younger player, to halfway decent but not that great the past few years. His last year in Phoenix was also the only season where he had positive WSAA. I mean, he is certainly a reasonable player to take at this point in the draft, but his advanced stats make him look a lot worse than his general reputation among casual fans.
Now I'm not going to compare his defense to Pierce's (because Pierce is a better defender), but it is the same type of situation, in that Johnson's D was a good amount better on the Suns (yes I know drtg doesn't show it, but I remember people always raving about his d on the Suns, and he was the Suns defensive stopper and best defensive player besides Marion).
Once Johnson went to Atlanta and had to shoulder most of the offensive load, his defense obv dropped because it's almost impossible to spend so much energy on both offense and defense. Like Pierce, when he was playing on those old Celtic teams that went to the ECF, he was one of the best defensive wing players in the NBA. Then he had to shoulder the offense during all those bad Celtic teams once Walker left, and his defense dropped. Now that he has a ton of help this year, his defense has become what it was back during his early years because he doesn't have to spend so much energy on offense.