@AlbrechtShotFake I mean, did you watch him play? I’m not even going to argue about his defense. It’s clear cut to me and anybody who has seen him play that he is unbelievably bad at it. I don’t see how showing us that there were other bad defenders on our team mitigates that fact at all.
Talking about Dawkins is low hanging fruit and makes him an easy target. Talk to me about the returnees and additions and how they will impact the D and what we can expect from guys like Donnal/Robinson/Wagner/Irvin etc…
People have been talking about additions. Half the conversation is Dawkins vs. Watson.
Good stuff. Dawkins gets scapegoated because 1) there were some truly awful replays this past season in which it was obvious he was the guy getting beat, and 2) he managed to be a substandard defender while also being the most athletic guy on the team.
That’s a tough combination. The former prevents any disagreement on the issue, and the latter prevents sympathy.
Dawkins obviously was a limited player, but it’s often foolhardy to presume that true freshmen can step right in and do X, Y and Z. If Watson is simply a rotation player this season, I’d be pleasantly surprised.
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What? What on earth are you even talking about about? How is discussing what Ibi will have to do to replace Dawkins “attacking an easy target”? I wouldn’t be that dumbfounded by your comment if it hadn’t come from the person who will not shut the hell up about Beilein not getting a grad transfer and assuming he hasn’t even tried. At least what I’m discussing deals in absolutes, not your weird, distorted reality. Dawkins was a terrible defender. Therefor, Ibi doesn’t have to shoot 43% from three to be an equal player, he just has to be acceptable at that and decent at defense. THAT is what we were discussing. I have no clue what your point about not dissing easy targets is. If they’re easily dissed because of their ability, doesn’t that say something about them? Are you saying that just because others were bad he can’t be held culpable? That’s just silly, and frankly it’s troll-like. Coaches can be held accountable for things we have NO idea are true or not but players can’t be for things we can clearly see from watching them? Lol, sure thing bud.
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You know what, I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt and let you explain. What are you even arguing? Are you saying Dawkins wasn’t the worst defender on the team? Are you saying Watson won’t be able to be a decent replacement off the bench? What’s your point?
I am saying it’s hard to be the worst defender on the team when your minutes are so little it’s hard to have that type of impact. For instance I think Robinson being 6’8 and not being able to guard 4s or handle quickness is a bigger detriment especially when he plays 29 minutes per night.
I don’t know if Watson can come in and be a decent guy off the bench. I do think it’s important Watson can shoot it well when he comes into the game because guys like Irvin/Walton were very inconsistent shooting one couldn’t hit inside the arc, the other couldn’t hit from the outside. There are a lot of things that need to improve on this team both offensively/defensively but let’s talk about how bad Dawkins was on defense.
It’s an interesting conversation… Dawkins saved Michigan’s bacon in a few games last year, but he also didn’t really do anything better as a sophomore than he did as a freshman.
The reason that he’s a topic here is obviously because Watson is one of the primary natural replacements for his minutes.
And it is fair to talk about Dawkins’ D because he entered the season as a starter with high expectation and ended up playing single digit minutes in many of his final Big Ten games. The primary reason for that was that he could never lock in defensively.
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I think it’s pretty clear that Dawkins’ defense wasn’t the only problem. That doesn’t mean we can’t discuss it on a fan blog message board. You’re acting like by not talking about Robinson’s defense we’re somehow hurting the team. We discussed him ad naseum in his own thread too. Right now, the conversation swung to Ibi Watson and how he can replace Dawkins, therefor it is 100% fair to judge his defense individually and seperate from the rest of the team.
Aubrey’s minutes were so low BECAUSE his defense was unbearably bad. Aubrey was so bad at defense, that his great shooting couldnt get him consistent/more minutes, and it’s why Duncan continued to start/get heavy minutes even after his shooting slumped. Yes, Duncan was not good at defense, but he was obviously better than Dawkins, better enough to justify his minutes and justify the lack of Aubrey’s minutes.
Pointing out that the team had more faults than just Dawkins’ shooting is running from the argument. You decided to argue the magnitude of the effect that Dawkins’ terrible defense had on the team.
But, to move this subject back to topic: how do people feel about the philosophy shift that appears to be happening: Dawkins leaves (shooting and bad defense) and the staff might be looking at Bearden (good defense and slashing, but bad shooting)? I think the staff should still hold out for a grad transfer. I understand that there might not be an actual option, when all is said and done, but the roster could really use it. Using the two roster spots on 2 sign-n-stash transfers feels a little like not only giving up on a 2017 target, but also making 2016-2017 season less of a priority.
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Lol what?
We can’t say Dawkins was the worst defender on the team because his terrible defense kept him off the court?
That makes absolutely no sense.
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Scenario A: Beilein benches Dawkins because Dawkins is terrible on defense.
“We can’t call Dawkins our worst defender because he didn’t play enough minutes.”
Scenario B: Beilein plays Dawkins enough minutes to be considered our worst defender.
“Beilein should never have played Dawkins that much when his defense was so bad.”
It’s pretty easy being negative.
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Hm… imagine that.
Dawkins would have played more if he didn’t play matador d.
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So you agree that Dawkins didn’t have a clue defensively…
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So you DID watch the games and draw the same conclusions we all did about Dawkins defense.
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Wait, what? You literally said that he plays matador defense and needs to develop a clue defensively.
Epic. Bravo. It makes sense that this guy would only defend a player after he transferred out of Michigan.
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I don’t think he’s particularly good on defense but I am not willing to make the correlation that the team was poor on defense because Aubrey Dawkins was poor on defense. Dawkins was merely a symptom that has plagued this team for the past few years. Stauskas was an awful defender but great on offense but he might find himself out of the league because he can’t guard anybody. Robinson was put at a disadvantage at times because he was forced to guard 4s. It isn’t far fetched to say Beilein has trouble identifying guys that can play defense.
Yes he didn’t have a clue defensively much like 3 or 4 others on the team. Defense is geared from the top on down if your PG is inconsistent on defense, lacks agility it puts everybody else at a disadvantage. Far too many times this team was beaten by penetration.
Yikes, you got kinda murdered here. RIP.
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Nah man. You literally went from saying he’d play more if he didn’t play matador defense to saying that we can’t paint him as a horrible defender because he didn’t play enough.
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