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Newsok's Berry Tramel: "Kanter had no defensive mentor with Jazz"

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https://newsok.com/with-enes-kanter-the-thunder-plugged-one-hole-but-opened-another/article/5411297

So the question for this summer becomes, can the Thunder fix Kanter’s defense? “Absolutely,” said Scotty Brooks.

Nothing like a positive attitude. But there are reasons to be optimistic.

First, Kanter is just 22 years old. His experience was minimal before arriving in the NBA at age 19, and Utah hasn’t been the most stable of hoop cultures in the post-Jerry Sloan era.

“For Enes, it’s not a strength issue, it’s not a quickness issue,” said Steve Novak, Kanter’s Jazz teammate who came with him in the trade to the Thunder. “He has those things. I think it’s an education. It’s how to do certain things. He’s young. He’s still learning.”

Second, Kanter has had virtually no development time with the Thunder. No training camp. No exhibitions. Scarce few practices. What Kanter has learned, he’s learned mostly in games, which is invaluable but also is where young players get avalanched.

“A training camp will help him understand what we do defensively,” Brooks said. “He has to improve in that area.”

Think about the progression of Adams, who was Kanter’s sidekick the last month of the season and is becoming a quality defensive center. Adams has had two Thunder training camps and had Perkins as a mentor for almost two NBA seasons. Kanter had no such mentor in Salt Lake City. “I think what actually helped me out really fast was just the veterans around me,” Adams said. “As soon as I came in, it was all about defense and just learning everything about it. Enes, he came in late from Utah, and I don’t know how they do stuff there. I feel like he will be on the same page as me if we were in the exact same position.”

To Kanter’s credit, he doesn’t try to deny his status. He knows his defense is weak. I like that. That’s the first step toward getting better.

Kanter said that since his arrival, there hasn’t been much offensive instruction. Defense is the message.

“That’s one thing we have been talking about the whole season,” Kanter said. “We don’t really talk about offense too much. All we talked about was defense.”

Kanter even cops to his particular weakness. Says he plans to get a point guard out on the court with him this summer and work on the pick-and-roll. Get his defensive footwork to match his offensive footwork, which is quite deft and efficient.

Brooks made a valid point about teaching Kanter defense, saying, “You can get guys to do that a lot easier than you can get guys to get you 20 points and 14 rebounds night in and night out.”
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Not a good article, but it brings up several good topics. I am not going to go over all of them, but Kanter is only 22 years old, almost 23. Its no surprise that his defense is in question. However, if your going to gamble on Kanter over defense or not, how can you blame the Thunder or any team for choosing pro-defense? As young as he is, that is a normal weakness for almost all big men of his talent and his age. Just because we don't like Kanter, we still need to see the obvious. It was a good pick up for the Thunder. The Jazz benefited as well, but they could have held a better position with the trade.

Yes, hopefully Kanter will be a bust, but busts don't do this well this early in his career. I am not pro-Kanter, but anyone can see that he will get better and be a valuable Center in the NBA for the next 5 years to come.
 
Yeah, if the goal was to miss the playoffs, it was a great pick up. Otherwise, it remains to be seen what happens in FA. OKC may very well have given up multiple assets for the right to overpay the worst defensive center in the league or for a half-year rental.
 
Steven Adams you sh... for brains... "i don't know how they do stuff in Utah" blah blah ... Ummm with league leading defense dummy ????!!!!
 
Kanter had no defensive mentor with the Jazz and by the time he actually had not only a mentor but a Head Coach to improve his defense and BBIQ, he also had a better center than him chasing his tail to the starting job and minutes so he bailed out since he knew he had no chance.
 
The only reason Kanter demanded a trade is that he knew he cannot compete with Gobert on defense, BBIQ and team basketball. There is no other reason.

Also he wanted the spotlights on him but Jazz chose Hayward to be that guy and Hayward and Burke the main ball handlers hated him for screwing plays on both ends so it grew and grew.
 
I don't remember him complaining about Big Al's mentorship at the time. His offensive game must have improved under Big Al's mentorship. Strangely Favors and Gobert managed with our a veteran mentorship on how to play big man defense.
 
I had heard about OKC's legendary sports media.

See kids, this is what happens when you drop a pro franchise in a place that considers reviewing the new Ruby Tuesday news.

Jesus, they must think Westbrook is a alien.
 
Who was favors defensive mentor? Or goberts?
 
If Utah Jazz had Kendrick Perkins, Omer Asik, Joakim Noah or Andrew Bogut instead of Al Jefferson to mentor Kanter anyone think he would have been better defensively and worse offensively? I think a little bit but not too much. Utah Jazz have two of the top 5 rim protectors in Gobert and Favors but I don't think their defense could rub off on Kanter since they have physical tools that Kanter don't. Overall though Kanter might improve his defense from worst in the NBA for a center (and one of worse of all time) to maybe top 5 worst perhaps beating out Bargnani, Pekovic, Jefferson and a few others.
 
Thea best part about that article is that it glaringly overlooks the fact that Kanter's defensive mentor was Gobert. Rudy was always telling Enes where to be and how to rotate on defense. He would chastise him when he needed it and praise him when that was called for. Just because he was drafted two years later and is the same age doesn't diminish his value. Future Jazz players are going to have the same experiences. Hopefully they appreciate it more.
 
Jefferson is not as bad a defender as everyone here makes him out to be. Easily better than Boozer. Lightyears ahead of Kanter. Probably just at or maybe a little below average for a big.
 
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