Payton not having anything to do with Vuc defense is ridiculous nonsense.
Once again, Payton on Knicks ended up being one of worst guard defenders, as usaual.
Knicks wrter Drew Steele
Payton’s defense
Payton’s defense may actually be the most overrated part of his game. Sure, when he “tries,” he’s a pesky defender; however, if you’re not always trying on defense, doesn’t that make you an inherently poor defender?
We know that the catch-all stats aren’t great at measuring defense, especially in single seasons. Multi-year versions of adjusted plus-minus metrics, on the other hand, are better at measuring the impact a player has on the court. Keep in mind that “better” doesn’t necessarily mean “good,” but it does paint a more accurate picture.
My go-to defensive adjusted plus-minus stat is either three-year or five-year RAPM, because I already know the biases and flaws of the metric. It doesn’t take into account any box score priors — defensive box score stats are not good at capturing impact outside of opponent turnovers generated and defended field goal percentage differential at the rim — or reward players for being tall. It also still has collinearity issues (multiple factors affecting the same entity), so you need to be aware of lineup combinations. For example, there was a point in the 2017–18 season where Jarrett Jack had a better DRAPM than he-who-shall-not-be-named. Because Jack effectively only played with that bum that season, the numbers got screwy. That’s why you must watch the film on defense in conjunction with these metrics. They did eventually correct, for those interested.
Let’s get back on target. Payton’s three-year Defensive RAPM isn’t good.
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I picked three-year over five-year because I wanted to capture Payton’s more recent defensive impact. His five-year DRAPM is better than his three-year, suggesting that he has played worse on defense recently compared to earlier in his career. But the five-year figure is still not good: -1.45, ranked 759th out of 919 players.
For those curious: luck-adjusted is a method where you use a player’s average shooting percentage from the zone versus what they actually shot that game. This is a good and bad thing. The good part is that “well, that player was just on fire that game and nothing could be done about it.” The bad part is that “well, that player was on fire that game because we did nothing about it.” Without watching the film, we don’t know if the defender was the cause of the good shooting or a casualty of the good shooting. No matter how you cut it for Payton, he’s a bad defender.
Payton is painful defender who hurted every single big man and his defense who he ever played with him. Clueless, lazy, ballchashing during brodcasted on tv games, Payton is homless version of Beverly, who is poor bb player as well. Even Pelicans, with DPOY candidate every year in Davis, dipped to top 10 worst defense in same year somebody tagged along. Guessing who

Where Isaac is good defender, giving all credit for team defense for player that never plays is another laughable hot take.
Matter of fact Magic net rating was,despite team playing better defense with him, still better when he did not play. Actually, team's net rating WITH him was negative (-0,4) but (+1,5) positive when he did not play. So team did just fine without him. Mostly because isaac gives nothing to offense more often than not. ( actually more often than not he is just dead salary, but that's story for another day).
As far as defensive rating himself goes, Vuc standing on personal 109 def rating, witch is also team's def rating, still makes Magic top 10 best defense and i know it pains you that it's objective fact.
But on other side guys like Fultz and Gordon keep tanking defense as both are the worst defensive rated Orlando Magic players. You know " great defense Gordon" who never showed he is even "average joe defender".
What's most hilarious part about your post is that you went so far that you compared team that has DPOY Giannis and cherrypicked Brook Lopez and player that was second best defender last year ( actually probably best) in Davis to make a knocks about Vuc defense. So two DPOY favorites to make your point sound stronger

HOWEEEEVEEER
Defensive effective field goal percentage in pick&roll situations when bigs cover their ground shows one interesting nugget:
NIkola Vučević defended eFG% ----52%
Brook Lopez defended eFG% -------52%
Mitchell Robinson efG%-------------58% ( hello darkness, Elfrid's old friend)
Whitesdie ----------------------------60%
Anthony Davis------------------------56%
But once again, Vuc strenght isn't his average but acceptable defense, but his incredible offense. Where he wasn't most effective in his early days, last 2 years he is regular - fat BPM member, especially after averaging 28 ppg on 60% TS against league's best defense in playoffs.
His 3 point shot is respectable, his passing is one of best among big men and his feeling for a game is incredible.
Yet you are here, hating, trying to manipulate stats to fit agenda.
Life is what happens when you're busy making other plans. -John Lennon