#3 Best Defensive Point Guard of All Time - The ten best defenders in each position project

[kcktiny]

I'm amazed Don Buse is even on this list as few fans know his name and even fewer actually saw him play. But back in the late 1970s when many were saying how "inferior" the ABA players were prior to the merger he was a big surprise to many NBA veterans after the merger. He was flat out an ace defensive stopper who also got a ton of steals (the most by any player the four years of 1976-77 to 1979-80) and at 6-4 always guarded the best PG, SG, or SF on the opposition regardless of who he was.

The Phoenix Suns were the league's second best defensive team (behind only Seattle) the three seasons of 1977-78 to 1979-80 despite being a poor shot blocking and poor rebounding team, and Buse was the only Suns player named to the all-defensive team. Think about that - the league's second best defensive team over a three year stretch, yet their best defender was their PG.

He was all-defensive first team the last two years of the ABA and the next 4 years of the NBA. He routinely shut down most of the best scorers in the league, and with teammates in Phoenix like Paul Westphal, Walter Davis, and Alvan Adams, you would think they were a great offensive team - but they weren't. They were however an excellent defensive team, that those three seasons had the league's third best regular season W-L record.

He likely won't be named high on your list of best defensive PGs, but for those of us that him play on a regular basis, he's easily top 5. No flash, no trash talking, just a stud defender.

[Dr Positivity]

My impression is Payton has the best peak left but by later in his career has to save more energy on defense and Kobe-ing his way to the all defense teams. There is probably a reason why at 31/32 he is suddenly having the best offensive seasons of his career. In 2001 his on/off is mediocre on D. It looks to me like his window as an elite defender may not be more than 5-6 years

Paul may have the best regular season career on defense left considering he's been arguable best at his position for a decade, but I think in the playoffs being smaller may have limited his ability to truly change a series on that end more. His best performances have probably been against Curry but bigger defenders like Payton may have been able to swing crucial series against Westbrook or Harden. Still PG play is really more about help defense nowadays. His teams have generally always been good on D but the Clippers had some good defensive seasons despite having a lot of holes, Paul was probably the defensive anchor of the team team, and Rockets made a sizeable improvement with Paul despite having Beverley the year before. You can also say that if Paul is not as valuable against bigger guards Payton may not be as against smaller ones. Here is a season in review post I found about Payton from 2002 (still made 1st team all-defense) that claims even in his prime he had a weakness against smaller guards and also backs up that at this point in his career his all defense teams had gone full Kobe

Defense: The one area where Payton has declined noticeably as he has aged has been on the defensive end. Because of the fact that he has to play 3000-plus minutes per season, Payton has had to cut back on his effort at the defensive end of the court and is now able to play the lockdown defense that earned him the nickname “Glove” for short stretches. Even in his prime, Payton struggled with smaller, quicker guards who could shoot from the outside (Pack and Van Exel -- at least in the context of the two series -- to name two). With Payton now 34, this effect is exaggerated and he struggled horribly against players like Houston’s Steve Francis and Phoenix’s Stephon Marbury. Only in the playoffs, against Parker, did fans really realize the extent of Payton’s defensive struggles and the fact that his all-defense position was a sham. While Payton may not be as good as his reputation any longer, that should not be taken to mean he’s a poor defender. On the contrary, he was still the Sonics’ best perimeter defender and the only player they could count on to shut down a high-scoring outside player -- even if not for 48 minutes. Against the vast majority of point guards, Payton did a fine job and players like Francis and Marbury give almost any defender trouble. At this stage of his career, Payton might be better suited to defending shooting guards and this could well be in his future.
Grade: B

http://sonicscentral.com/payton.html

West I am not sure, it seems like the competition was lower, but people are high on his help defense.

Based on what it appears to have more years at an elite level defensively than Payton my vote is for Chris Paul, the best defensive PG of this era. He is not the best man to man defender left but defensive requirements in the modern era are different especially at PG. You can see that because there are defensive PGs like Beverley who jump out more as 1 on 1 defenders but I believe the +/- data favors Paul most years

[pandrade83]

First - responding to a post from the last (now locked) thread.

From SinceGatlingWasARookie


West might have peaked in 1965. You would expect West to have his athletic peak earliy in his career because that is what is Inormal for an athlete. I have seen even less of mid 1960s West than I have seen of early 1970s West.

I don't agree with the premise that mid 1960s has a higher talent level than 1974. There was a lot of expansion including the ABA and that should have watered down the talent but that is not what I see. To my eye the guards are more modern in their style and more athletic in 1974 than they were in 1966.

One factor making the guards look more athletic in the 1970s than they did in the 1960s is that the refs seem to have already begun to allow more traveling. I think young people today percieve the 1980s as being less athletic in part because without traveling you could not make all the same plays. The 1960s ball handling looks a little mechanical and unsmooth to me but part of that was because they were not allowed to travel. It is easier to defend players that are not allowed to travel.

1970 is inbetween 1966 and 1974.

These two statements don't align well. West led the league in PER for the first time at age 30 in '69 and then followed the up by leading the league in PER & Win Shares in '70 at age 31.

The reason these feats were not achieved in prior years is that he had Robertson (past his prime by '69/'70 but still very good), Russell (out of the league in '70), & Wilt (past his prime in '69, missed the year in '70) to contend with and no one was yet better than West.

Anyway, I'm voting Jerry West again with the same reasoning as before (post #6): viewtopic.php?f=64&t=1750160

Please don't lock the older threads - it makes it harder to copy & paste when I have videos.

[migya]

John Stockton. Totally underrated and huge impact on both ends.

[uberhikari]

I vote CP3 for the reasons I outlined in the prior thread.

But on a side note, what are we doing here? Half of these threads are filled with insightful posts and the other half seems more like a popularity contest. What good, quantifiable evidence is there that Jerry West was the impactful defender we think he was, for example? And I'm not even saying he wasn't, just that I like to have an evidentiary justification for people's beliefs. As far as I can tell, there really isn't any good evidence for West and yet people are still voting for him.

Right now Paul has 11 years as being a high impact defender with pretty good evidence for his defensive impact. In terms of career value he's clearly the best left on the board.

Paul's peak isn't nearly as high as the other candidates, but for a 6'0 ft. 180 lb player to have this type of defensive impact over such a long period of time when PGs generally have the lowest defective impact of all players is pretty ridiculous. This is why I compared CP3 to Duncan. How "disruptive" someone was on defensive is not impressive to me. Hakeem was probably the most disupritve defensive force we've ever seen when you look at how many plays he blew up as evidenced by his block/steal numbers, and yet Duncan showed that Hakeem's defensive impact could be replicated with nothing but fundamentals.

CP3 is the master of fundamentals as far as defensive PGs go. Players like CP3 and Duncan are like their own personal zone defense. Even if they're not getting steals or blocks, they will take areas of the floor and make the offense's life a living hell.

[Gibson22]

Defense is hard to judge when you haven't seen the players; offense can use stats. So, you only get the oldtimers and those who watch a lot of tape speaking with any confidence.

Also, the only PG with real "stans" on this board is Nash who isn't in any defensive conversations. You might get out the fans with serious one player love when you get the top SGs (Jordan and Kobe fans), SF (LeBron fans), PF (KG has the true advanced stat believers), or C (Hakeem and Russell).

If you feel the participation is too light or waning, you could cut it to top 5 also.

No I don't even think there wasn't enough partecipation it the first two threads, it's ok, I just hope that we can continue to have about the same amount of votes going on

[SinceGatlingWasARookie]

I'm amazed Don Buse is even on this list as few fans know his name and even fewer actually saw him play. But back in the late 1970s when many were saying how "inferior" the ABA players were prior to the merger he was a big surprise to many NBA veterans after the merger. He was flat out an ace defensive stopper who also got a ton of steals (the most by any player the four years of 1976-77 to 1979-80) and at 6-4 always guarded the best PG, SG, or SF on the opposition regardless of who he was.

The Phoenix Suns were the league's second best defensive team (behind only Seattle) the three seasons of 1977-78 to 1979-80 despite being a poor shot blocking and poor rebounding team, and Buse was the only Suns player named to the all-defensive team. Think about that - the league's second best defensive team over a three year stretch, yet their best defender was their PG.

He was all-defensive first team the last two years of the ABA and the next 4 years of the NBA. He routinely shut down most of the best scorers in the league, and with teammates in Phoenix like Paul Westphal, Walter Davis, and Alvan Adams, you would think they were a great offensive team - but they weren't. They were however an excellent defensive team, that those three seasons had the league's third best regular season W-L record.

He likely won't be named high on your list of best defensive PGs, but for those of us that him play on a regular basis, he's easily top 5. No flash, no trash talking, just a stud defender.

I don't see how you are getting "2nd best defensive team".
They are not a top 6 defensive team any of those years no matter how I look at the stats.
They were basically an average defensive team that was good on offense.
They are an interesting team. They played small ball.

The 1977-78 Suns team has the all time team average steals per game record.
Ron Lee gets 2.7 steals per game in 23 minutes.
Buse gets 2.3 steals per game in 31 minutes.
Center, Adams and Power forward Heard were also stealing the ball.

But no, they really were a great offensive team and a mediocre defensive team. Sometimes their fg% allowed was downright bad and the steals were what was making them not a bad defensive team.

[SinceGatlingWasARookie]

I began to wonder if the list of point guards was influenced by an advanced the likes steals. Richardson is another surprise guy on the list. I think Richardson belongs on the list but I did not think people remembered him. what do Richardson, Buse and Nate McMillan all have in common besides being normally overlooked great defenders? They all got a lot of steals. Steals is really the only non-advanced stat that we have for point guard defense.

I don't know how the advanced stats are cooking up their statistics past players defensive play. I am suspicious.

Below is defensive rating for gaurds including off guards. The stat clearly like steals, but the stat is also nonsensical. I love Manu, but no Manu is not close to being the best defensive guard ever.

1 Manu Ginobili
2 Ron Lee 1977-78
3 Darrell Armstrong
4 Mookie Blaylock
5 Jason Kidd
6 Charlie Ward
7 Jason Kidd
8 Jason Kidd
9 Brevin Knight
10 Gus Williams
11 Don Buse 1977-78
12 Manu Ginobili
13 Manu Ginobili
14 Manu Ginobili

The list of defensive point guards that we are using seems to match up with point guards that made the all defensive team more than once. Sorry Slick Watts, once is not enough. No extra points for popularizing the headband.

4 time second team all defense Quin Buckner is not on the list

[SinceGatlingWasARookie]

. What good, quantifiable evidence is there that Jerry West was the impactful defender we think he was, for example? And I'm not even saying he wasn't, just that I like to have an evidentiary justification for people's beliefs. As far as I can tell, there really isn't any good evidence for West and yet people are still voting for him.

Right now Paul has 11 years as being a high impact defender with pretty good evidence for his defensive impact. In terms of career value he's clearly the best left on the board.

Paul's peak isn't nearly as high as the other candidates, but for a 6'0 ft. 180 lb player to have this type of defensive impact over such a long period of time when PGs generally have the lowest defective impact of all players is pretty ridiculous.

The short answer is that West repeatedly made the 1st team All Defensive team.

West's defense did not pop out at me from the few games of his that I watched. Jrue Holiday's defense also did not pop out at me as being all that great and he is on the all defensive team.

The All defensive team might also to some degree be a popularity contest.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/NBA_All-Defensive_Team

The thread inspired me to take a look at whether advanced defensive stats are actually advanced. On first impression, I am not impressed with advanced defensive stats.

We have beter data for recent years since we have plus minus stats now. Before that all we had was steals and team stats and maybe opposition turnovers.

Somebody could dig through the stats and do something with opposition box score stats by position but as far as I know that has not been done yet.

Is there any data on defensive point guards effect of opposing point guards assist numbers? As far as I know nobody has done that work.

The most objective stat we have is what the opposing team scored. Then we have to find a way of separating a player out from his team. I am not sure that the advanced stats have really succeeded at measuring individual defense even in recent years.

[uberhikari]

. What good, quantifiable evidence is there that Jerry West was the impactful defender we think he was, for example? And I'm not even saying he wasn't, just that I like to have an evidentiary justification for people's beliefs. As far as I can tell, there really isn't any good evidence for West and yet people are still voting for him.

Right now Paul has 11 years as being a high impact defender with pretty good evidence for his defensive impact. In terms of career value he's clearly the best left on the board.

Paul's peak isn't nearly as high as the other candidates, but for a 6'0 ft. 180 lb player to have this type of defensive impact over such a long period of time when PGs generally have the lowest defective impact of all players is pretty ridiculous.

The short answer is that West repeatedly made the 1st team All Defensive team.

West's defense did not pop out at me from the few games of his that I watched. Jrue Holiday's defense also did not pop out at me as being all that great and he is on the all defensive team.

The All defensive team might also to some degree be a popularity contest.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/NBA_All-Defensive_Team

The thread inspired me to take a look at whether advanced defensive stats are actually advanced. On first impression, I am not impressed with advanced defensive stats.

We have beter data for recent years since we have plus minus stats now. Before that all we had was steals and team stats and maybe opposition turnovers.

Somebody could dig through the stats and do something with opposition box score stats by position but as far as I know that has not been done yet.

Is there any data on defensive point guards effect of opposing point guards assist numbers? As far as I know nobody has done that work.

The most objective stat we have is what the opposing team scored. Then we have to find a way of separating a player out from his team. I am not sure that the advanced stats have really succeeded at measuring individual defense even in recent years.

Well if that's it, then Kobe is the best perimeter defender of all time.

[Gibson22]

I began to wonder if the list of point guards was influenced by an advanced the likes steals. Richardson is another surprise guy on the list. I think Richardson belongs on the list but I did not think people remembered him. what do Richardson, Buse and Nate McMillan all have in common besides being normally overlooked great defenders? They all got a lot of steals. Steals is really the only non-advanced stat that we have for point guard defense.

I don't know how the advanced stats are cooking up their statistics past players defensive play. I am suspicious.

Below is defensive rating for gaurds including off guards. The stat clearly like steals, but the stat is also nonsensical. I love Manu, but no Manu is not close to being the best defensive guard ever.

1 Manu Ginobili
2 Ron Lee 1977-78
3 Darrell Armstrong
4 Mookie Blaylock
5 Jason Kidd
6 Charlie Ward
7 Jason Kidd
8 Jason Kidd
9 Brevin Knight
10 Gus Williams
11 Don Buse 1977-78
12 Manu Ginobili
13 Manu Ginobili
14 Manu Ginobili

The list of defensive point guards that we are using seems to match up with point guards that made the all defensive team more than once. Sorry Slick Watts, once is not enough. No extra points for popularizing the headband.

4 time second team all defense Quin Buckner is not on the list

The truth is that the candidates list wasn't made following true criteria, apart from the obvious candidates it was more about throwing names out, if somebody suggested a player, and somebody else agreed with him, I added the player to the list. I think I mentioned quin buckner but nobody responded (I'm not sure), about slick watts, I think I just forgot to put him in there, but at the end of the day, the ones who will be voted are probably in the list (cp3, gary, west, mo cheeks, maybe blaylock etc), but yeah, As I said, starting with the next thread, I will state that the list is just there as a tip, if you want to vote somebody else, that's fine. And I will add watts and buckner

[Owly]

. What good, quantifiable evidence is there that Jerry West was the impactful defender we think he was, for example? And I'm not even saying he wasn't, just that I like to have an evidentiary justification for people's beliefs. As far as I can tell, there really isn't any good evidence for West and yet people are still voting for him.

Right now Paul has 11 years as being a high impact defender with pretty good evidence for his defensive impact. In terms of career value he's clearly the best left on the board.

Paul's peak isn't nearly as high as the other candidates, but for a 6'0 ft. 180 lb player to have this type of defensive impact over such a long period of time when PGs generally have the lowest defective impact of all players is pretty ridiculous.

The short answer is that West repeatedly made the 1st team All Defensive team.

West's defense did not pop out at me from the few games of his that I watched. Jrue Holiday's defense also did not pop out at me as being all that great and he is on the all defensive team.

The All defensive team might also to some degree be a popularity contest.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/NBA_All-Defensive_Team

The thread inspired me to take a look at whether advanced defensive stats are actually advanced. On first impression, I am not impressed with advanced defensive stats.

We have beter data for recent years since we have plus minus stats now. Before that all we had was steals and team stats and maybe opposition turnovers.

Somebody could dig through the stats and do something with opposition box score stats by position but as far as I know that has not been done yet.

Is there any data on defensive point guards effect of opposing point guards assist numbers? As far as I know nobody has done that work.

The most objective stat we have is what the opposing team scored. Then we have to find a way of separating a player out from his team. I am not sure that the advanced stats have really succeeded at measuring individual defense even in recent years.

Well if that's it, then Kobe is the best perimeter defender of all time.

To be fair, All-Defensive teams is way higher up the totem pole of credible markers for defense in 1965 than it is in 2005. There certainly has to be an acknowledgement of uncertainty when using them (which the poster does), but they aren't obsolete for then as they are for today, simply because we have so few tools (and clumsier, worse ones) so it becomes relatively more useful though not more accurate in absolute terms.

[SinceGatlingWasARookie]

The list of defensive point guards that we are using seems to match up with point guards that made the all defensive team more than once. Sorry Slick Watts, once is not enough. No extra points for popularizing the headband.

4 time second team all defense Quin Buckner is not on the list

And I will add watts and buckner

Bucknner may get relevant as the voting gets closer to the 10th spot. I guess Watts might as well be in there since he did get On the first team All Defensive team once.

[trex_8063]

I'll be honest, I'm all over the map in who I want to support right now. Extremely noisy stat, but the underwhelming defensive WOWY data is now giving me pause on Jerry West. At this point I cannot guarantee I'll be consistent from thread to thread, as there are about 5 guys I feel have similarly strong cases.

I guess I'll tentatively go with Chris Paul as my pick. Not much length, but built like a tank so he's not easily abused in the post and is one of the best pnr defenders in the league (gets thru those screens and is great fanning his quick hands across the passing angles if he's a quarter-step behind), arguably the most intelligent defender on the table, fierce competitor pretty much every possession, and awfully quick hands too.

His DRAPM's are typically around the +2-2.5 range year after year in recent seasons (typically in big minutes: he's >31,000 career rs minutes), and his defensive on/off's (which are always good) semi-consistently get even better in the playoffs. The Clipper defense fell from -0.6 rDRTG in '17 to +1.6 this year without Paul, and he's got nine All-Defensive honors to his credit (seven 1st Team).

Hopefully that's sufficient support of a vote for CP3.

[pandrade83]

. What good, quantifiable evidence is there that Jerry West was the impactful defender we think he was, for example? And I'm not even saying he wasn't, just that I like to have an evidentiary justification for people's beliefs. As far as I can tell, there really isn't any good evidence for West and yet people are still voting for him.

Right now Paul has 11 years as being a high impact defender with pretty good evidence for his defensive impact. In terms of career value he's clearly the best left on the board.

Paul's peak isn't nearly as high as the other candidates, but for a 6'0 ft. 180 lb player to have this type of defensive impact over such a long period of time when PGs generally have the lowest defective impact of all players is pretty ridiculous.

The short answer is that West repeatedly made the 1st team All Defensive team.

West's defense did not pop out at me from the few games of his that I watched. Jrue Holiday's defense also did not pop out at me as being all that great and he is on the all defensive team.

The All defensive team might also to some degree be a popularity contest.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/NBA_All-Defensive_Team

The thread inspired me to take a look at whether advanced defensive stats are actually advanced. On first impression, I am not impressed with advanced defensive stats.

We have beter data for recent years since we have plus minus stats now. Before that all we had was steals and team stats and maybe opposition turnovers.

Somebody could dig through the stats and do something with opposition box score stats by position but as far as I know that has not been done yet.

Is there any data on defensive point guards effect of opposing point guards assist numbers? As far as I know nobody has done that work.

The most objective stat we have is what the opposing team scored. Then we have to find a way of separating a player out from his team. I am not sure that the advanced stats have really succeeded at measuring individual defense even in recent years.

Well if that's it, then Kobe is the best perimeter defender of all time.

It's not.

-Fantastic box score defensive #'s in 1974 - his final year when his body was breaking down & he was past his prime.
-Russell's assertion in 1970 that he was the best defensive player in the game
-In the '72 All-Star game, Russell calls Frazier & West the premier defensive guards (see my original post)
-In the same game, it's clipped where they note West was averaging nearly 10 steals per game (probably an exaggeration - but given he was getting 3 per game in '74 while his body was breaking down, 4-5 might be in play) - also see my original post.
-Taller than he was listed - had incredible length & coupled with very high BBIQ

Probably the most damning thing about West's case is the Lakers' DRatings from 64-68 were below average every year - but even that is somewhat misleading as Russell produced outlier level teams. They were usually mid-pack and that's without a strong rim protecting center.

In West's WS Peak year ('66) here are your starting centers

Phi - Chamberlain 21.4 WS/28.3 PER
Bos - Russell 11.7 WS/17.3 PER
Cin - Embry 1.5 WS/9.2 PER
NY - Bellamy 8.9 WS/19.4 PER
Bal - Red Kerr 3.1 WS/16.3 PER
Stl - Beaty 10.3 WS/18.5 PER
SF - Thurmond 4.3/ WS/15.0 PER
Det - Strawder 3.6 WS/11.6 PER

Lakers - Leroy Ellis 2.8 WS/13.0 PER

There's a credible argument that the Lakers had the 2nd worst center in the league - going up against 1/3 of the league having truly elite defenders - & still finished 5th defensively in a 9 team league.

So while the team defensive metrics don't leap off the page, the Lakers did better than you would expect despite having one of the worst starting centers pretty consistently - and given the other (mostly) qualitative accolades, it's easy to infer that West helped lift the Lakers' defense higher than it would've been otherwise.

The puzzle pieces are somewhat challenging to put together since it's less quantitative than other players' cases are - but there's still something there.

[trex_8063]

I began to wonder if the list of point guards was influenced by an advanced the likes steals. Richardson is another surprise guy on the list. I think Richardson belongs on the list but I did not think people remembered him. what do Richardson, Buse and Nate McMillan all have in common besides being normally overlooked great defenders? They all got a lot of steals. Steals is really the only non-advanced stat that we have for point guard defense.

I don't know how the advanced stats are cooking up their statistics past players defensive play. I am suspicious.

Below is defensive rating for gaurds including off guards. The stat clearly like steals, but the stat is also nonsensical. I love Manu, but no Manu is not close to being the best defensive guard ever.

1 Manu Ginobili
2 Ron Lee 1977-78
3 Darrell Armstrong
4 Mookie Blaylock
5 Jason Kidd
6 Charlie Ward
7 Jason Kidd
8 Jason Kidd
9 Brevin Knight
10 Gus Williams
11 Don Buse 1977-78
12 Manu Ginobili
13 Manu Ginobili
14 Manu Ginobili

The list of defensive point guards that we are using seems to match up with point guards that made the all defensive team more than once. Sorry Slick Watts, once is not enough. No extra points for popularizing the headband.

4 time second team all defense Quin Buckner is not on the list

The truth is that the candidates list wasn't made following true criteria, apart from the obvious candidates it was more about throwing names out, if somebody suggested a player, and somebody else agreed with him, I added the player to the list. I think I mentioned quin buckner but nobody responded (I'm not sure), about slick watts, I think I just forgot to put him in there, but at the end of the day, the ones who will be voted are probably in the list (cp3, gary, west, mo cheeks, maybe blaylock etc), but yeah, As I said, starting with the next thread, I will state that the list is just there as a tip, if you want to vote somebody else, that's fine. And I will add watts and buckner

It's your project, so it's ultimately your decision; but fwiw, I doubt anyone would object to you adding a couple late-comers to the list of candidates.
Speaking for myself, I won't be supporting Quinn Buckner or Slick Watts in my top 10 consideration. Watts may have had a pretty outstanding defensive peak (I'd have to defer to the judgement of penbeast0 or Samurai or someone else who saw him play in his prime), but his career was a relative flash in the pan: he played just 6 total seasons (and starter-level minutes for only TWO of those). It's hard to value that over all these other candidates who might have 6-10+ heavy-minute seasons of defensive excellence [or at least defensive "goodness"] to their credit.

Somewhat similar concerns apply to Buckner, who played just a little over 16,000 career minutes.

[SHAQ32]

Still going with my guy Mookie Blaylock, lol.

[trex_8063]

As of post #37, I have the following count:

Jerry West - 4 (Samurai, PistolPeteJR, Bounce_9, pandrade83)
Gary Payton - 3 (kendogg, penbeast0, SinceGatlingWasaRookie)
Chris Paul - 3 (uberhikari, Dr Positivity, trex_8063)
Nate McMillan - 1 (lebron3-14-3)
John Stockton - 1 (migya)
Mookie Blaylock - 1 (SHAQ32)

Pretty good candidates, all. I'd be content with any one of West, Paul, Stockton, or Blaylock. Surprised Cheeks isn't having traction yet.

[KnickFan33]

Jason Kidd turned out to be 1st? I have Payton comfortably ahead of him, though I suppose you can make an argument for longevity.

From what I've seen, I'd put Frazier at at #1 and Payton at #2.

Reasons have already been mentioned by other posters.

[Gibson22]

Jason Kidd turned out to be 1st? I have Payton comfortably ahead of him, though I suppose you can make an argument for longevity.

From what I've seen, I'd put Frazier at at #1 and Payton at #2.

Reasons have already been mentioned by other posters.

You can vote for the #3 spot