Ahead of this year’s NBA draft, one of the biggest questions about Obi Toppin was how his defense would hold up at the NBA level.
There is one person, however, who is not worried about these concerns: Toppin himself.
“I feel really good playing any game with my offensive skills, and I do it with my defensive skills too,” the New York Knicks rookie said in a conference call Thursday afternoon. “A lot of people say I don’t play well on defense, but I feel like I’m trying every single day to improve at what I have to do to be great, and I have great people around me who are helping me with that.
“Coach Tom Thibodeau is a great defensive coach and when we go out on the pitch together, he will change me a lot. Everyone else, [assistant manager] Kenny Payne, everyone in the office pushes us to be great in an offensive way and defensive, and when the time comes for us to enter that field, we will be ready. “