Best defensive PF (if you already have a rim protecting C)?

[Texas Chuck]

OP question is best defensive forward. Not sure why people keep talking about the offensive abilities.

Because it clearly matters? If you take Lebron you have a slightly worse defender than a Duncan or Draymond but you have a way better offensive player so your overall team is clearly better.

And even if you tell me I don't want to worry about offense at all for the sake of this discussion(which would be like ignoring contracts and thus how much other talent you could have, missing the point), the fact is this isn't 1950's Iowa girls high school which was two different 3 on 3 half court games. What happens on the offensive end impacts the defensive end as well.

I mean we already know Lebron isn't the best defensive PF already. OP isn't asking us to simply rank the best defensive PF's. He's asking us who do we want to play next to our elite rim protector and why. I think Lebron is absolutely a valid choice even if you would pick someone different(which is good because its boring if we all pick the same guy).

[OhayoKD]

OP question is best defensive forward. Not sure why people keep talking about the offensive abilities.

Because it clearly matters? If you take Lebron you have a slightly worse defender than a Duncan or Draymond but you have a way better offensive player so your overall team is clearly better.

Slightly is doing alot of work here.

You can answer with "who is the best PF to take overall" if you want but that renders the "defensive" in the title rather pointless and given the options the OP offered I'm guessing it's not the intent behind the question

[cupcakesnake]

OP question is best defensive forward. Not sure why people keep talking about the offensive abilities.

Because it clearly matters? If you take Lebron you have a slightly worse defender than a Duncan or Draymond but you have a way better offensive player so your overall team is clearly better.

Slightly is doing alot of work here.

You can answer with "who is the best PF to take overall" if you want but that renders the "defensive" in the title rather pointless and given the options the OP offered I'm guessing it's not the intent behind the question

For the record, yeah I was hoping to discuss defense. People can discuss whatever they want, but I don't agree we have to talk about everything holistically/intersectionally in every discussion. I think there's room to discuss the ways offense and defense interact, but if we're just leaning into taking the best offensive power forward to answer the question, it defeats the purpose of any particularity.

Some people seem to think highly enough of Lebron's defense on its own that I should put him in the poll. I've never been quite that high on him. If I imagine a defensive specialist Lebron, I picture him being sort of a Shawn Marion type. We just have a lot more evidence of prime Marion carrying a big defensive load so I know the impact less theoretically. 2009 Lebron did some spectacular things on defense, but Miami did assign him specific tasks on defense and he wasn't an anchor. The Heat always had a defensive "dirty work" power forward, with Battier being the most famous in that role. Then Bosh was assigned the most important role in their aggressive trap and recover scheme. Compared to someone like Marion, who'd have to guard Parker and Duncan in a playoff series, cover for Amar'e weak rim protection, and help hide Nash, while also being the primary rebounder... I just don't see how to compare Lebron favorably without leaning on my imagination a bit.

It's very rare we get to see offensive #1 options also being defensive #1 anchors. Offensive centers are often forced into it. KG had to do it on bad teams, but that didn't have spectacular results. Tim Duncan did it at a championship level (though I think David Robinson was still playing the 'role' of defensive anchors, even if Duncan was the better defender), but the best Spurs teams scaled back Duncan into a secondary offensive option.

[Texas Chuck]

For the record, yeah I was hoping to discuss defense. People can discuss whatever they want, but I don't agree we have to talk about everything holistically/intersectionally in every discussion. I think there's room to discuss the ways offense and defense interact, but if we're just leaning into taking the best offensive power forward to answer the question, it defeats the purpose of any particularity.

My apologies then. I assumed you would want us each to answer the question in the way that made most sense for us. And I definitely wasn't ignoring defense. I mean if I have an elite defensive anchor, I'm pretty tempted to play Bird or Dirk at PF next to them. But I didn't consider them for this OP because you specifically mentioned defense.

But if its just best defensive PF next to an elite center I guess I'll take Draymond over Duncan since I don't have to worry about the offensive end at all.

[OhayoKD]

Because it clearly matters? If you take Lebron you have a slightly worse defender than a Duncan or Draymond but you have a way better offensive player so your overall team is clearly better.

Slightly is doing alot of work here.

You can answer with "who is the best PF to take overall" if you want but that renders the "defensive" in the title rather pointless and given the options the OP offered I'm guessing it's not the intent behind the question

For the record, yeah I was hoping to discuss defense. People can discuss whatever they want, but I don't agree we have to talk about everything holistically/intersectionally in every discussion. I think there's room to discuss the ways offense and defense interact, but if we're just leaning into taking the best offensive power forward to answer the question, it defeats the purpose of any particularity.

Some people seem to think highly enough of Lebron's defense on its own that I should put him in the poll. I've never been quite that high on him.

I mean if you're going to include rodman or shawn morian then yeah, he definitely merits inclusion. I just don't think any of them have a real argument vs Duncan, Draymond, KG, AD, or Giannis.

If I imagine a defensive specialist Lebron, I picture him being sort of a Shawn Marion type. We just have a lot more evidence of prime Marion carrying a big defensive load so I know the impact less theoretically. 2009 Lebron did some spectacular things on defense, but Miami did assign him specific tasks on defense and he wasn't an anchor.

With all due respect, you seem to be the party leaning into theory here. Between 2009 and 2021 Lebron's teams have, on average, seen a 4-point defensive improvement. Him being the anchor really shouldn't be a matter of debate until AD comes around. Honestly, there's probably a reasonable enough argument he's anchoring as early as 2007.

The Heat always had a defensive "dirty work" power forward, with Battier being the most famous in that role. Then Bosh was assigned the most important role in their aggressive trap and recover scheme. Compared to someone like Marion, who'd have to guard Parker and Duncan in a playoff series, cover for Amar'e weak rim protection, and help hide Nash, while also being the primary rebounder... I just don't see how to compare Lebron favorably without leaning on my imagination a bit.

Lebron literally was doing all this with better efficacy at 30 and 31. Are you just going off blocks and steals here? The heat did better defensively with Lebron than with either bosh or battier and did better with lebron and without the other two than vice versa. I'm pretty sure if I tracked PPs (possessions as the primary paint-protector) Lebron would be top 2 and he is also the defensive floor-general and he, by far has the most robust track record as an impactful defender with the surrounding cleveland stuff being scale-breaking for non-bigs statistically.

It seems you're arguing against a paper Lebron as opposed to the actual Lebron.

It's very rare we get to see offensive #1 options also being defensive #1 anchors.

Yeah but we have a decade worth of results very clearly signalling Lebron as the clear best defender on various defensive teams. I'm not sure why we're pretending he wasn't.

[cupcakesnake]

I'm not saying Lebron wasn't defensively impactful, and I'm not making a numbers argument against him or for anyone else.

I'm talking about the Miami Heat's defensive schemes and roles. The defensive backbone of that scheme was Bosh at the nail, playing aggressively on pick & rolls and even trapping. For that to work though, Lebron needed to take on more rim protection, and he had a frickn Ben Wallace like ability to teleport from the perimeter into the paint to contest shots. For Lebron to do that though, Shane Battier had to take on the on ball work.

Obviously this configuration wasn't the only way Miami defended, but it was their primary scheme. There were sections of games where Lebron had to do a lot more, guard different players, play different roles. I do not see his defensive load being anywhere near the equivalent to Marion on the Suns. I don't think I could "prove" this with numbers though, it would take a lot of playtracking. I just don't see the Bosh or Battier for Marion in these instances (maybe Raja Bell is a decent Battier analogue). Miami had a much stronger defensive personnel and a much better defensive coach, so Lebron didn't have to do as much. You could deploy Lebron to do almost anything on defense, but that doesn't mean the Heat were asking Lebron to do everything all of the time.

I'm not really arguing that Lebron wasn't "the best" defender on that team. I'm just not convinced that he was doing the most heavy lifting. I wouldn't expect him to.

I'm looking at the on/off numbers for those 3 during the 2012 and 2013 playoffs (when that scheme was fully developed), and I'm not sure there's enough here to feel definite about anything. Lebron plays too many minutes. We only have 60 minutes of Battier/Bosh without Lebron over 2 playoff runs. The defensive rating is 104, while most lineups that feature Lebron and any of those guys is 2 points better. 60 minutes isn't enough for me to feel strongly about anything though. If we tack on 2014, Battier looks the most crucial by on/off, but the sample is small enough (149 minutes with Bron or Bosh) to be mostly noise.

[prolific passer]

Depends on the rim protecting center. If you have a Bol or Eaton type then you probably want someone who can score and rebound like a KG, Giannis, or Duncan. If you have a Robinson or Hakeem then you want a Rodman to help on the boards or a Sheed to help spread the floor as well as help out on the boards a bit.
If it's a Mutombo type who can give you some scoring and rebounding along with elite shot blocking then you can really put anybody around him imo.
Ben Wallace? Garnett, Duncan, Giannis or Sheed.

[eminence]

the fact is this isn't 1950's Iowa girls high school which was two different 3 on 3 half court games.

6 on 6 actually went all the way into the 90s (I think '85 was the first year 5v5 was regularly offered and it took over pretty quickly).