Dominic McGuire was the man of the hour in last night’s narrow victory over Atlanta. He grabbed 15 boards, made life difficult for Joe Johnson–insofar as life can be difficult for so wealthy a dude. This isn’t what I loved most about McGuire’s performance, though. My favorite aspect was, “one shot, zero points.” In a perfect world, Dominic would have taken no shots. His layup try looked like a badly failed sobriety test. And this is the upshot: McGuire can be a valuable player if he just forgets about offense altogether.
From McGuire’s Hollinger profile: ‘Awful offensive player. Can’t shoot or handle ball. Shoots anyway.’
Dominic is such a valuable defensive specialist–he really does guard five positions. A few games ago, I was shocked to see DM shut down CP3. Though I follow the league obsessively, I didn’t think much of McGuire’s addition, or know about his defense beyond the vague sense that he played it. So far, he’s been a mono-dimensional revelation.
The quirk of basketball offense is that it’s less collectivist than defense. You really only need a few guys penetrating and scoring to make an offense hum. This is how Dennis Rodman rarely hurt offenses, this is how the GSW offense often got better with Ekpe Udoh on the floor. So the play for McGuire should merely be, “Do no harm.” It’s counter intuitive, but: If Dom refuses to play offense, he’ll shine as an overall player.