Time in college has nothing to do with ability to play M2M.
The concepts are not tough. You need physical ability and desire.
I don't disagree with this, although you're ignoring a lot.
I did disagree with every statement in the post to which I was responding:
• In many ways, playing our 2-3 zone forces our players to have better conditioning and reflexes.
- I thought it was the opposite. Zone saves legs. I've never heard anyone ever suggest that zone defenders run as much as man defenders. Ever. Reflexes? That's not even logical.
• Anyone can play man.
- That's like saying 'anyone can be a good 3pt shooter. Anyone can "play" it, but how many do it well? And why? Skills, ability, desire — as you said. Not everyone has them.
• It's not like in our 2-3 zone players do not match up with other players. It happens all the time. There are constantly 1-on-1 matches on defense.
- We wouldn't have so many scrubs hitting 3s on us just by catching and shooting without making any '1-on-1' moves, if that were the case. While our defenders do a 'fly by,' sailing out of bounds, carried by the momentum from recovering from defending a different player or space on the floor. Maybe it's just semantics, but to me, "matching up" has a connotation of personal responsibility. Matchup M2M means something more than just keeping a hand up when a guy is in your designated area.
• The whole idea that our players can't play defense in the NBA is pure BS.
- Can't and Don't are separate matters. And often the IDEA of something is as important as the empirical reality when decisions are made by people who don't have our glasses on. We just don't have standout defenders in the NBA. We haven't, really. Since when? DC? Yes, a lot of NBA "defense" is by reputation, but it's kinda silly to suggest there's 'no defense in the NBA.' Else, why are a lot of excellent college scorers unable to show the same proficiency in the pros? We are talking about the best of the best college scorers making it to the NBA, and it's hard to stop that kind of a collection of talent. Yet, you look at the best NBA teams and you do see more than a few excellent defenders. Warriors has iguodala and green and Thompson... Scoring on any of them is WORK. No college team has that.
Even the guys we have had who are supposed to be good defenders (relatively) recently —Wes, and then going back to hart because he was just cited — they weren't really good NBA defenders. They're quick and play the finesse defense game, which might pull some steals stats in the 'team D' game, but that's not how you stop individuals.
As much as we love our teams, try to look at things from an outsider's perspective. We are the one team in the field that plays exclusively zone. The NBA is almost exclusively man. For a gm, that's a leap of faith, like picking a wing T quarterback to run the west coast. Sure, he CAN do it, but you gotta 'project' and projecting 'extra' stuff isn't good for careers. Fortunately, it's basketball, so a player can demonstrate attributes that show he can translate into the NBA, but the fact that our pro prospects don't play man IS noted by scouts and in reports. Maybe that's sometimes negated by a player's physical attributes or even HS game tapes — who knows. Dion, for example - can't imagine anyone would suggest he didn't have the ability to play m2m defense. But then there's the hidden question. If M2m defense is about desire, then does it say something about a player who chooses to go to the one school that plays zone?
