#5 Best Defensive Shooting Guard of all time - Top 10 Defense at each position project

[HeartBreakKid]

My vote is for Jerry Sloan. For whatever reason, he is more remembered by fans as a coach than as a player, which I think is a serious disservice to him. He was a 4-time All Defensive first team member and a 2-time second team member, but this vote is more based on the eye test than accolades or stats. Probably the roughest and toughest man defender on this list of candidates, including those already named. He was such a rugged defender that opposing players nicknamed him "the Butcher". One of the best ever at being willing to sacrifice his body to take the charge for an offensive foul; he was so good at it that even the ever-cool Walt Frazier would get so frustrated by Sloan that Clyde once admitted that he focused too much on trying to beat and damage Sloan taking those charges that it would take him out of the flow of the game. And Billy Cunningham and Rick Barry, both known for being more emotional than Clyde, admitted that Sloan's constant grabbing, slapping and knack for drawing offensive fouls would get under their skin to the point that it did distract them at times.

Some have criticized Sloan for not being as quick as other SG's on defense. While Sloan would admit that he wasn't the fastest player in the league, he made up for his lack of sheer foot speed by out-hustling everyone else; Sloan would lead the league in floor burns as he was constantly diving for loose balls.

Sloan is one of only 4 players thus far to have his number retired by the Bulls; the others are Love, Pippen and Jordan. That's a pretty decent group to be a part of.

That really just means that the Bulls haven't had many stellar players - it doesn't infer that Sloan is the same caliber as Pippen or Jordan.

[iggymcfrack]

I’ll vote for Eddie Jones. Sounds like he’s got the best support from the metrics and it didn’t seem like Sloan had all that much impact on the Bulls defense just looking at team performance.

[zimpy27]

Alvin Robertson, full court hounder, leader in steals 3 times during MJ prime. On-ball defender. Most decorated from that list, 6x all-defense, 1 DPOY

[KnickFan33]

Dumars

[Flopper]

Remove me from the spam list too please.

[SHAQ32]

Voting for Alvin Robertson

Once he's in, and if they're still on the board, it's going to be thinking about Eddie Jones or Doug Christie; maybe Thabo Sefolosha.

[mdonnelly1989]

Revote, not Dumars Robertson

[PigsOnTheWing]

I'm throwing a quick vote to Alvin Robertson. I'm feeling he deserves a spot over the good players with great longevity because his defensive prime from what I've seen in my quick research was just something else. He still holds the steals per game record for what it's worth. I'm not really consistent with my previous votes but I can't put him any lower than this. I'm gonna edit this post later if I find some more time to add why I believe he was so good his in brief prime.

[feyki]

Hmm, it's between Wade and Danny Green. Wade is the greatest shot blocking SG and great defender at anything, minus rebounding. Green is an extremely help defender. He could stop you in any situation, which he showed us lots in the Spurs-Heat Finals'. He had also pretty good on ball D and also count as good rebounder at his position .

I'm voting Wade, cause of more years he played at that level. Wade was playing with that level even when he was sidekick of Lebron, till 2014.

[cecilthesheep]

Voting for Jerry Sloan. Reputation and eye test are almost universally positive; he is tougher and more physical than just about anyone I've seen, in the film that's available. Advanced impact stats also love him - PIPM and WOWYR go nuts over him despite mediocre offensive impact. His steal totals from the two years available are also very respectable, despite him being past 30 at the time. Had DPOY existed in his day, I think he could have grabbed one.

[Gibson22]

Didn't have the time this time

[trex_8063]

lebron3-14-3 has asked me to temporarily stand in for him on this project. I have the count as:

Alvin Robertson - 4 (Luigi, zimply27, BAMBA5, Bounce_9)
Eddie Jones - 4 (LA Bird, pandrade83, Dr Positivity, iggymcfrack)
Jerry Sloan - 3 (Samurai, trex_8063, cecilthesheep)
Joe Dumars - 2 (OdomFan, KnickFan33)
Don Chaney - 1 (penbeast0)
Dwyane Wade - 1 (feyki)
Andre Roberson - 1 (mdonnelly1989)

So we'll have to move to a runoff (let's say ending tomorrow morning) between Robertson and Jones. If you didn't vote for one of them, please state your preference.
btw--I just copied his spoiler of quotes from earlier in the thread, deleted a couple names I know requested to be taken off the notification list. If anyone else wants taken off, please let him/me know.

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[PistolPeteJR]

Alvin Robertson for me. Steals, blocks, while not sacrificing team success for them as stats that he is padding. Very versatile and long, good quicks, and did so beyond a season or two.

[SinceGatlingWasARookie]

Vote Robertson
Jones wasn't great enough but he might still be the right choice. Robertson was more electric but the accusation the he was a gambler might be valid. Clyde has his moments. Augmon waa great in college. Dumars was impressive but for an off guard it would be nice if he was an inch taller. Butler looked good when I saw him but I am looking for great. I saw some Chaney in the 197Os but I understood hockey better than I understood basketball at that time. I haven't seen Sloan. I am not buying Kobe as being as good as Jones despite the Kobe Stans insisting that Kobe was an all time elite defender.

I feel like I am forgetting somebody better than all these guys.

Robertson got more awards.

Robertson gets my vote.

[cecilthesheep]

Voting Robertson if it's between him and Jones. Robertson runs circles around Jones as far as awards and honors despite having a shorter prime, and that's enough to give him some separation in my book.

[Samurai]

For the runoff, my vote is for Alvin Robertson

[trex_8063]

I'll go with Eddie Jones for my runoff. tbh, I thought about giving him my primary vote.

Some food for thought on Eddie Jones (particularly if you're basing the decision primarily off of accolades/honors):

*We have 12 seasons of RAPM data for EJ's career......he had a positive DRAPM every single one of them [using PI RAPM where available]. His worst DRAPM from '97-'08 was +0.6. And fwiw, he was 21st in the league [among those whose seasons were NOT split between two teams] in rs APM in '96 (likely a nice defensive split in there).

**His best DRAPM was a fantastic +3.21 (in '00). To put that into perspective, here are the PI DRAPM's of the last four DPOY's:
'15 Kawhi: +3.59
'16 Kawhi: +3.79
'17 Draymond: +4.04
'18 Gobert (rs only, NPI): +3.08

***He had SIX seasons with a DRAPM of +1.5 or better.

****Kobe Bryant (with his NINE All-D 1st teams) does not have a single season with a DRAPM as good as +1.5. I note that not to stick it to Kobe, but rather to call into question the reliability or accuracy of honors/accolades.

*****EJ has these impressive impact metrics with a career total of nearly 33k minutes over 14 seasons (significantly more than several of the other principle candidates, including Alvin Robertson).

[PigsOnTheWing]

I've done a quick calculation for this run-off. I've used the defensive component of the three most important statistical plus/minus I know (PIPM, BPM, Estimated Impact). This approach allows to compare them in a fair way, which is impossible using purest plus/minus derivates like RAPM, because they are not computable for Robertson.
I blended these three stats with a weighted average. I found the coefficients in a retrodiction test some time ago and they are about equal to each other for the defensive side (not for offense though) so it's basically a arithmetic average. Then I multiplied the result by the total possessions to make the final result cumulative of all the regular seasons values.
Eddie Jones:
1995 - 80.7, 1996 - 103.1, 1997 - 150.5, 1998 - 115.7, 1999 - 104.8, 2000 - 155, 2001 - 114.9, 2002 - 177.4, 2003 - 79.4, 2004 - 78.4, 2005 - 141.6, 2006 - 125.0, 2007 - 53.4, 2008 - 40.0 - FINAL SCORE: 1520.1
Alvin Robertson:
1985 - 73.5, 1986 - 254.5, 1987 - 178.2, 1988 - 167.3, 1989 - 148.4, 1990 - 178.9, 1991 - 193.3, 1992 - 132.2, 1993 - 116.4, 1996 - 103.8 - FINAL SCORE - 1546.6

So, despite this being a cumulative calculation, Robertson comes up slightly ahead of Jones. He also has 4 seasons with better value than Jones' best. I obviously know that boxscore derivated numbers aren't enough to make a final judgement, primarily because they rely too much on steals and blocks (in which Alvin easily trumps Eddie). Fwiw, I've read (though I don't remember where) that a steal is worth about 1.4 points. So averaging 4.8 steals x100poss like Robertson did in his DPOY season provides your team about 7 points per game. As for gambling issues, they made me question if he was good enough to be #5, but ultimately it's a problem which can dammed with a good big men, while having a disruptive force on the perimeter is something that every coach would be glad to have. Consider this post my argument for Robertson, since I have already voted for him.

[trex_8063]

At this point I have it 8 for Robertson, 5 for Jones. Calling it for AR. Will have the next up in a minute....