Nah, because passing isn't separate from defending. If you're a liability on the ball in a side that tries to play out of defence, you're also a defensive liability. It's the sum total of what you offer in your team's style of play that counts. And for many top sides Lindelof would immediately be favoured over Smalling for that exact reason.
But the key point is that that those sides don't actually go with Lindelof just because he has basic technical competence, they go for any of a number of better CBs with that basic technical competence (or more).
That's why the Smalling comparisons flatter Lindelof. Having him as a reference point has always made Lindelof seem better on the ball than he actually was as Smalling was exceptionally poor in that regard. We shouldn't still be comparing him to a CB who was rightly deemed not good enough some three seasons ago, as if it was an either/or scenario.