I’ve always preached that the success a player and their team can have is based on how well they play defence.
“Defence wins championships,” as I always say.
But apparently, one-time NBA champion Jason Williams doesn’t think this is the case.
On a recent episode of Flagrant with Andrew Schultz and Akaash Singh, the White Chocolate said he would rather have a team of Allen Iversons than a team of Ben Wallaces.
“Defence doesn’t win championships for me,” Williams said. “You gotta score to win, right? Like I always say, ‘do you want five Ben Wallaces or five Allen Iversons?’ Who’s winning that game?”
Williams and the hosts proceed to debate why that’s the case and Williams explains that the Ben Wallaces would foul out.
“They’re gonna foul out. Ben Wallace is going to foul out… what else people don’t realize, now I’m guarding Allen Iverson, he gets by me, and now the big guy has to come and help -my big guy defensively- and he gets into foul trouble, or AI dumps it off to his man and he’s got 32 at the end of the night. And now everybody is looking at the big guy, like, ‘your guy scored 32. What the hell?’”
Akaash Singh then goes on to say that even though that makes sense, the reality is defensive teams tend to win more championships than offensive teams and uses the Golden State Warriors as an example.
“Even Golden State had to get good at defence. Without Draymond, that team folds.”
Williams, however, counters that argument by saying, “But without Steph Curry and Klay Thompson’s three-pointers, where [would they be?]”
Here’s what I think about this:
To win a game of basketball, points need to be put up on the board. But at the same time, teams need to get stops to get a lead.
And if a team of Allen Iversons played against a team of Ben Wallaces, who on the Iverson team could stop Wallace from getting into the low post and dunking? Wallace, on the other hand, can get at least a couple of stops on Iverson.
Thus, defence gets wins.
But of course, teams aren’t cut and dry like this.
They’re much more balanced and nuanced, where they have a variety of player types. There isn’t a single team in the NBA that is only offensive or only defensive. They have defensive specialists, offensive specialists, and all-around players.
I’m now going to pass the question down to you: Do defensive teams win more titles or do offensive teams win more?
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