On the contrary, I think defense IS a natural skillset that some players have and some players don't. Dwight Howard, Bruce Bowen, Artest, all those guys are just naturally good at defense and probably had it beaten into them at an early age. I mean when I see guys not collapsing, not helping on defense, I can't help but blame the players. When I played, and even now when I play pickup, guys who are not very good and do not do this for a living are able to switch, are able to play help defense...there is no coach, no "philosophy" in pick up games, no mindset. These are basic tenets of the game that players SHOULD understand. There are some that don't, those guys seem to be populating our team.
I only used Ray as an example b/c I watched him get burned by Bledsoe and Davis at the last game I went to, not to single him out. I do think he is rather good, I think he is better in an uptempo system though, like last year when he played against us, and we tried to run against Ray/G-Wall and Felton was throwing oops all day. He is just not a guy I think that is good in a Larry Brown system, but he is very fast in our system.