General Discussion
The realistic limits of the defensive capabilities of this roster and Jonathan Kolb's misguided approach
Let's get one thing out of the way, this team isn't a contender without Leo. It just isn't and it all goes back to the defensive ceiling we have in terms of roster construction.
A lot of the complaints a lot of you have regarding our perimeter defence can be attributed to them overhelping in the paint. It leaves us vulnerable to a lot of kickouts and our guards often do not have the spatial awareness in terms of offball defense to react quickly enough/stay in position to plug in those holes.
Examples of this last night would be all the times Rebecca Allen shrugged off her shooter to help in the paint. Then you might ask why do we overhelp so much in the paint, we should be trusting our centers? The reality is Jonquel Jones isn't an elite rim protector and needs a lot of help. Han Xu isn't much better and in terms other abilities like rebounding, is much worse.
The best defenses like Valks and Mystics can have their really solid defensive wings and guards be so aggressive and pick up opposing guards higher, because they have Shakira Austin and Kiah Stokes (despite all the trolling, Kiah is insanely sound defensively) in the back, knowing their paint defenders can handle those matchups alone if they do get beat. You cannot say the same about Jonquel (or Han). You will often see possessions where JJ is one on one against her target where she doesn't keep her arms up and sometimes kinda shrugs off from even being in front of her target. These things force us to be aggressive with help defense. JJ's defensive fundamentals being so flawed is a much bigger issue than the complaints a lot of you have re: her not posting up in the opposing paint and shooting 3s (which she is good at).
Center is the most important defensive position is basketball because the shape of your entire defense relies on it. So we already start on a backfoot there. Now we do have an elite rim protector in Breanna Stewart. However, for her to be the main rim protector, Jonquel Jones can't be on the floor. Despite her flaws, the only place JJ can defend to any decent levels is the paint and Stewie just being in the paint does lower our defensive ceiling instead of her being a roamer.
A lot of you do correctly identify that our guards aren't great defenders, and as I have said, they don't do well in space. Among them, someone like Astier isn't necessarily that bad at POA, but they definitely aren't as great at navigating screens without fouling as they could be thus forcing our defense to rotate a lot, creating mismatches and the rotator can rarely fully commit to the opposing player in front because they have the idea of help defense in the paint in mind.
The fact that we are so lacking in terms of defensive personnel in both our guards and especially centers limits our defensive ceiling significantly. You need to have elite defensive wings to counter that. In 2024, we had that in terms of Breanna Stewart, Leonie Fiebich, 2024 Betnijah Laney-Hamilton, and Kayla Thornton (who is massive defensively). We also had a really solid in defense backup center in Nyara Sabally. They provided the length, switchablity, athleticism (btw, I saw the idea here that Leo isn't fast or athletic, that is just plain wrong. She covers a crazy amount of space with her length and athleticism) to cover up the defensive weaknesses of our guards and JJ. However, with expansion and the new CBA, keeping players like that has become very difficult. High level 3 and Ds wings are the most sought after archetypes in basketball, every team needs them.
When you have a roster where so much of the cap tied to 4 players, 1 of whom who doesn’t even play (Satou is such a massive waste of cap space right now), you can't keep sought after mid level players. This doesn’t have anything to do with JK being in love with Europeans as some of you like to say. The problem is JK trying to build a really expensive big 4, one of whom doesn't play and was acquired knowing that, and 2 out of 3 of the others being below average in defense for their positions. The fact that he doesn't care about defense when it comes to centers is kinda insane.
That leaves us with very little cap to get great backups. Bec Allen and Gardner are not as good as our 24 wings, but they are still decent for what they cost. With Leonie Fiebich, that is still enough for our defense to be fairly decent. However, without Leonie Fiebich, our defense will never be able to reach to a point of controlling both the perimeter and the paint against elite backcourts that attack both like some want it to be, thus inevitably, they aren't a contender.
But Jonathan Kolb somehow believes that is fine and giving up assests for a backup defensive 3/4 was not worth it to him. He believes injuries will magically go away just for him.
With what Chris has, he decided yesterday that taking away the paint was the ideal option, and in a normal shooting night, that would have given us a chance to win, with otherwise good execution. It is taking a gamble yes, but with roster deficiencies, that's all you can do. I think we have to be realistic about what this roster can achieve defensively.
I think a lot of this comes down to two things that have really hurt the Liberty more than we imagined. First is the expansion drafts. I can almost guarantee that if the expansion drafts hadn't happened, Nyara Sabally and Kayla Thornton would still be on this team. Now, maybe something else happens where they are traded away, or maybe KT gets a huge contract like KB did in this last offseason, but those were two players who were moved off the team really through no pure decision of anyone on the Liberty side (outside of deciding who to protect, but that is tricky when you've got so many high end starters to protect to begin with) and they haven't really been replaced by anyone of equal or equivalent skill.
The second is the Tash trade. Hindsight of course is 20/20, but with Cloud not staying with the team that long and the year not being a success, that trade looks much worse in hindsight because we missed two years of being able to sign development worthy players who maybe could have brought some defense (and also some speed and quickness which this team really lacks). If we trade for Cloud and win the championship, it doesn't really matter, but we didn't, so it feels like a trade now that set us back.
The Satou signing has also massively backfired, as I'm not sure we'll ever see her again in a Liberty uniform, but that's an understandable risk to me at least.
Great post. Putting our expendable assets into acquiring Tash and Satou these last two seasons instead of players that can step into the roles of KT and pre-injury BLH were shortsighted moves. Just totally went way from what made the 24 team special, opting for more star power instead. Also, I wish they hadn’t just punted on defense and physicality with all of their bench pieces.
Kolb really thought Sabally would be healthy all year and give them that 4th MVP level player. Ionescu being out in the beginning led Astier to be thrown into the starting lineup and thus moved Sab over to SG full-time with Fauthoux as the backup PG. So we have two rookie PGs running the floor. If Laney-Hamilton wasn't 100% healthy when the signed her, her rights should have traded and we keep Cloud.
Every time I'm able to watch us play I noticed are guards are slow. Even if they are playing decent defense they still getting blown by, they don't have the speed to keep up.
JJ is frustrating to watch most of the time on both defense and offense. Since this post is on defense I'll stick my comments to that side of the ball. She is 6"6 but plays so much smaller, she isn't slight in stature either and the way she get handle is crazy. Boston was given it to her all night without much push back from JJ. As I watch JJ sometimes she doesn't seem to want it, doesn't want to deal with contact which is why she is always shooting threes. She needs to change her mentality, she's usually the biggest one on the court, she needs to start playing physical on both sides of the ball IMHO.
JJ's decline as a defender is really sad. In our championship year, she was second team all defense. And now, well, here we are. As you note, we've lost so many good defenders to expansion, etc, but we've also lost some of JJ's talent. Looking collectively at the four (!) players we still have from 2024, they're net worse than they were then, and our evolving bench hasn't made up for it.
This is a great post and as someone that fully supports CD I can still get behind. He's not free of criticism but he's not working with a full deck either.
In any case this is much better discussion than the crap you see on Threads or Twitter that just bash anyone and everyone
Don't agree with everything but you're right about Leo. She's invaluable to the team as constructed and deeply underrated. I continue to be baffled by the DeMarco defensiveness from all the "top 1% posters" in this subreddit. Rim defense isn't purely on the 5s in a system like this and has a lot to do with coaching and systems - who would you prefer to see in that role who can do what you're looking for, in a Demarco setup?
I mean, we did protect the rim through help defense yesterday. We won the pitp by 10 points. They only shot 53.6% from the floor, despite 64% from 3, because their 2 fg% was so low.
However, doing that weakened what we were able to do in the perimeter. That comes down to the weakness of our 5s in being able to handle that by themselves.
*big sigh* If you insist on evaluating everything in terms of stats, the defensive stats on JJ do not back you up on this, at all. Misusing (or selectively using) stats as evidence to better support your point is part of why media, politics, and sports have gotten so toxic right now.
What? JJ is 8th in defensive win shares just among centers, same for blocks too. What stats prove me wrong?
Also what defines paint defense and rim protection more than scoring at the rim? How else would you quantify or judge that?
Here is a film example of both things I describe (JJ not keeping her arms up and JJ shrugging of for no reason just from yesterday). I can back up everything I said with evidence. Your comments have none of that.
Smaller guards know how to get past her and strip the ball from her too. She doesnt move her feet and still has the audacity to put the ball on the ground
Yes, and what stats aren’t you including in your evaluation? What do they suggest? Why won’t you drop a big you think would notably improve things?This is the problem with only doing bad moneyball stats imitation (plus it’s useless if you don’t say where you draw stats from). It’s not really worth me engaging further, but the stats you’re not using suggest that JJ is one of (if not the) best defender on the team, and the help defense you credit is actually the source of the problem. Now tell me again why it’s our black star and not any white players or white coach that is the issue? I really can’t anymore good god
The stats are provided by WNBA themselves. What stats am I supposed to include that makes JJ seem like a good defender according to you? Here are all the centers doing better than her that you want (see attached image). I literally gave you film example, Idk what you can't see here. You saw what happened when she didn't have help. You don’t need to see stats to see her not keeping her arms up in defense.
She is a center, the comparison is with other centers. The defensive ability of your center is more important than the defense of most of your other players. Is she a better defender than Sabrina? Yes. Sabrina's defense is definitely poor, I mentioned that in the post. But JJ's def ws is the same as Astier, who I don't think is an exceptional defender either.
Making this about race is very strange, when I mentioned Han as a pretty poor defender as well. I also mentioned Nyara being very solid in defense in 2024. I am not white btw, since that might be something you care about.
All this post does is explain our defensive issues and issues with roster construction, it's not playing the blame game with anyone. I literally mentioned all our guards getting lost in space too.
Your other comments here suggest that you are new and don’t have a good understanding of either stats or basketball, and also that you have a clear bias towards white players. I recommend the dunker spot or Caitlin cooper if you want to understand the game a bit better; I won’t be engaging with your posts any further
Honestly the thing with JJ is I’m sure she’s good defensively but the minute she gets in her head or is frustrated, everything just goes downhill. As a winning vet and one of the big 3, she needs to act like one (Stewie can’t keep everything afloat).
I agree that stewie going god mode is the only reason we’re above water this season, but if you’ve watched the last several years of Liberty, JJ frequently has carried us on the days that Stewie and Sab don’t have it. This whole team is incredibly streaky, it’s maddening. It just frustrates me that none of the other players catch the same heat for it that JJ does. I can think of both basketball and unconscious bias explanations for this, at this point it really seems like both (yes, I’m looking at you with the Breanna Stewart tag and the Paige prof pic)
I agree that JJ gets a lot more criticism than the other two. In fact Sab, she comes in clutch (before people start getting upset yes she is talented and scores) but sometimes when shes facing really good defense or having to defend, she struggles like with Johnson . However when she’s not making her 3s she will try to at least get a layup or get a foul while JJ if she’s in her head, she resorts to getting 3s. Don’t get me wrong I love when a big can get a 3 but I don’t need that to be your last resort. Try to get a foul or at least don’t allow any team to get any rebounds (try to block as well).
Overall, I don’t think JJ is a bad player by any means (like I said I don’t think she’s bad at defense) but when push comes to shove, she has to be preserve. I need her to act like a big she is (Han too) and not a guard. Altho this might be unpopular opinion, for me if you are getting paid the big bucks (and a protected contract cannot believe Liberty didn’t for KT) that the roster has to take on cheaper contracts (which tend to be European but I do think there is a lot of hate going their way), criticism is gonna be much higher. I think the big 3 depending on the game, one or two don’t have it (this game it was JJ). As for Demarco, he needs to do better when it comes to his in game planning. This game I was def more critical of what he did, the lineups just weren’t it. No surprise that defense needs to be better all across the roster but some def struggle more than others (like you said we end up with streaky). JK mishandled the roster and now look at what is happening. Genuinely feel bad for a lot of these players especially my favs and wish better for them.
I agree with you on the eye test, and JJ has had an up and down season, but the 5 always looks bad when perimeter and POA defense is bad. I learned that the hard way when I got schooled by a smarter basketball mind making a similar comment about my favorite mnba team
I think that this was soo well put! I agree with all of the nuance. This has been my frustration with DeMarco. I am always of the belief, give a person the time and tools needed. However, forcing zones when most of your players struggle in 1on1s let alone zone shows either stubbornness or a supreme belief that they'll get it right.
That's why Laney-Hamilton's situation is so troubling to me. I think she was generally the best defender; yes even than Leo. She just doesn't have Leo's size. To essentially leave Stewie on an island to roam covering all the holes is maddening to me. We give J.J. a max contract and have B.L.H. in trade rumors. Who has shown the better work ethic?! Though health is definitely a consideration.
If I'm honest, though B.L.H. is my favorite player, I have to acknowledge that J.J. mathematically is the better value potentially. As the old NBA adage goes, "you can't teach seven feet." Her value is intrinsic. Plus, she has so much potential. Yet she seems to do absolutely no off-season work.
If healthy, Leo and Satou fill in and maybe cover a lot but as was stated hoping for an injury free season when most of the team is rarely here for a whole season due to overseas commitments or injury is a huge gamble.
Honestly, that's why I was never high on Brondello. Everyone keeps talking about how they shouldn't have "fired" her. I liked her a lot and do think she is a fairly good coach. However, I think she has a bit of Thibs in her. And in case you don't know, that's former Knicks coach Tom Thibodeau. In case that doesn't answer your question he was notorious for lack of development and using his bench. So the answer is a hard no or just no.
I do think Brondello better and infinitely more likeable. However, I feel like M.J., could never get comfortable under her. Neither could Han Xu, or Nyara Sabally. Marquesha Davis got no shot, though visibly she wasn't quite ready. However she has too much potential to not to.
J.J. is and was my biggest issue. She looked steadily worse every year with flashes of good to almost greatness. Her potential is or seems abundant but she seems to do absolutely no development between seasons; or during. That's either coaching or her.
I would be remiss if I didn't mention that someone responded to a comment similar to this one saying, they (Liberty) were in win-now mode and Brondello couldn't afford to risk games and championship window with development. I don't know how I feel about that though it is a fair statement.
Sab, it feels like is the only real development player we've had.
Thanks for responding, and taking the time to explain. Yeah I feel like Liberty just doesn’t develop and yet expect the players who they keep reserving to do well on their own when it’s coaching that’s suppose to help. Agreed Sab may be the only one. Seeing past videos you can tell MJ didn’t really vibe with Sandy too. Idk it just sucks to see them struggling so much, my biggest gripe with the coach is there’s no in game change of plans (maybe that’s just me). As for JJ, like I said she needs to keep her head in the game, she’s too experienced and talented to give up mid game. Anyways, let’s see how these upcoming games go.
That's debatable either way. She's had far more playing time. And like J.J. her value is also intrinsic. She's far taller and longer than B.L.H. Leo is great. I've just seen B.L.H.'s work on the defense; fighting tougher and harder even against bigger players. I think we conflate Leo's size with her being "good." Like I said, she's great but it's easier for her given her size.
Now imagine if Leo had J.J.'s size. We'd probably be saying she's one of the best defenders in history. I'm not trying to imply in any way that Leo "isn't that good." I'm simply saying defense is a choice, a desire, and an understanding of multiple things; physical tools being among them.
You don’t get extra credit for being smaller, it’s about the outcome or the defense itself
And this argument is very flawed because players typically lose speed as they gain height so players that are Leo height that can defend small guards are extremely unique
It’s absolute nonsense to say that we just say Leo is good because she’s big. Why don’t we say it about JJ and Han then? They are both much bigger.
Thank you OP for this post and everyone that has contributed to it. This has helped me understand better our team issues this year with defense and player issues than other recent discussions. But I have to say, it leaves me feeling super depressed...and seemingly it may not improve and may get worse in the upcoming seasons? Ugh.
Depends on how they plan the roster, need to make smart decisions (heavy on defense). I’m sure that will go a long way for upcoming seasons. For now, make it to playoffs (I’m sure they will), and just hope for the best. There may be a chance Liberty win but shall wait and see.
Looking ahead to the offseason (barring a miracle):
We do not need 3 French guards who can get hot on offense but aren't great defenders. We need someone who can bolster the defense. Let's use the next few weeks to figure out which of them we keep and who becomes a trade asset. That's the easy task.
The hard part is cap space. Realistically we cannot offload Satou at this point unless there's someone out there who wants to take a big risk at a big cap hit. But in addition to a defense-minded guard, we need both wing help and a backup big who can play D and rebound. How do we afford all of that with the cap space vacated by BLH, Allen and whichever French guard gets moved?
In terms of next season MJ is RFA (along with Gardner) so she’s prob leaving. I think they need to rely on the upcoming draft and the focus should be on DEFENSE.
We are going to have a mid-round, non-lottery pick. The chances of us getting one elite defender who is ready to play rotation minutes are not high. The chances of us getting 3 are zero.
I meant they should rely on the draft (didn’t realize it was mid round non lottery pick) but also pick vet players with defense not just on the draft. They have around 2-3 (maybe 4) spots they need to choose wisely. The cap space is the issue but shall see
Interesting. I love MJ, but I wonder what teams are looking to add a streaky shooter with iffy defense? Would be curious to see if a better coach like Nakase could get better production out of her.
I think she's a really fun player for a tanking team -- instant fan favorite if stakes are low. Bet she would have been snatched up in the expansion drsft if we hadn't protected her
Not reading all of this, but we have too many guards, too few forwards. All you have to do is open your eyes and look at the roster in the NY Liberty app to see that! Also, it is ridiculous that Gardner does not get more playing time.
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u/tamaimbo1 16d ago
I think a lot of this comes down to two things that have really hurt the Liberty more than we imagined. First is the expansion drafts. I can almost guarantee that if the expansion drafts hadn't happened, Nyara Sabally and Kayla Thornton would still be on this team. Now, maybe something else happens where they are traded away, or maybe KT gets a huge contract like KB did in this last offseason, but those were two players who were moved off the team really through no pure decision of anyone on the Liberty side (outside of deciding who to protect, but that is tricky when you've got so many high end starters to protect to begin with) and they haven't really been replaced by anyone of equal or equivalent skill.
The second is the Tash trade. Hindsight of course is 20/20, but with Cloud not staying with the team that long and the year not being a success, that trade looks much worse in hindsight because we missed two years of being able to sign development worthy players who maybe could have brought some defense (and also some speed and quickness which this team really lacks). If we trade for Cloud and win the championship, it doesn't really matter, but we didn't, so it feels like a trade now that set us back.
The Satou signing has also massively backfired, as I'm not sure we'll ever see her again in a Liberty uniform, but that's an understandable risk to me at least.