#8 Greatest Defensive C of All-Time - Top 10 Defense at each position project

[cecilthesheep]

I'll vote for Kareem. I think his reputation was harmed by being on really good teams right up until the end of his career, where he got compared to his old self and to other, younger, more athletic guys around him. He wasn't on the level of Russell, Wilt, or Thurmond, but he was really really good still, and kept it up for a long time.

Ewing's longevity is not something I'm totally sold on. I think there were definitely some dominant years where he combined athleticism with smarts, but the overlap isn't as big as all that. Early on he was jumpy, and after age 30 or so he got really, really slow. Stayed pretty intelligent to the end though.

[trex_8063]

Ewing's longevity is not something I'm totally sold on. I think there were definitely some dominant years where he combined athleticism with smarts, but the overlap isn't as big as all that. Early on he was jumpy, and after age 30 or so he got really, really slow. Stayed pretty intelligent to the end though.

While I'll agree he may have been "jumpy" early on (I suspect that's why his foul rates were sort of high those first three seasons), I otherwise disagree (at least pending what you mean by "or so").

I mean, he's 31 in '94, and as shown in the video I'd scouted in the last thread, he was more than adequately mobile (looks pretty good, in fact). And in as much as lesser mobility was effecting his ability to be a defensive anchor, it clearly was not an issue at age 30 or 31 ('93 and '94 Knicks being historically great defensively).
Continued to anchor fairly elite defenses for a few years beyond '94, too.
FrogBros4Life posted the following video from the '97 playoffs (age 34), and his mobility doesn't look too bad:

Watch on YouTube

Unfortunately it's mostly offensive highlights ('cause fans don't care about defense), but you can get an idea about how relatively nimble he still is on a couple of offensive plays shown beginning at the 3:20 mark in the video. Does he look any less mobile than late career Tim Duncan? No (in fact probably more fleet of foot than any post-2013 version of Duncan, at least).

And impact metrics clearly imply he was still a very effective defender until very late in his career. Observe his DRAPM's:
'97 (NPI; age 34): +3.83 (4th in league)
'98 (age 35): +4.06 (4th in league)
'99 (age 36): +3.66 (11th in league)
'00 (age 37): +3.42 (12th in league)
'01 (age 38): still a +0.8

This would all indicate his longevity as a solid defender is pretty darn elite.

[trex_8063]

Thru post #22:

Patrick Ewing - 9 (pandrade83, penbeast0, trex_8063, Dr Positivity, bledredwine, 70sFan, KnickFan33, SinceGatlingWasARookie, SkyHookFTW)
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar - 5 (Samurai, iggymcfrack, kendogg, WestGOAT, cecilthesheep)

FrogBros4Life had voted Ewing the last 1-2 threads, too, but hasn't shown up in this one yet. So I may end up just calling it a few hours early so we can move on, as Ewing appears to have this one. I'll let it go until maybe the 2nd half of the Saints/Eagles game....

[Owly]

Ewing's longevity is not something I'm totally sold on. I think there were definitely some dominant years where he combined athleticism with smarts, but the overlap isn't as big as all that. Early on he was jumpy, and after age 30 or so he got really, really slow. Stayed pretty intelligent to the end though.

While I'll agree he may have been "jumpy" early on (I suspect that's why his foul rates were sort of high those first three seasons), I otherwise disagree (at least pending what you mean by "or so").

There's some comments in the below that are very strong* and I probably don't agree with the overall take but there was the suggestion that Ewing was "jumpy" going on later into his career ...

To Ewing's credit, while he struggled, big-time, from the field in the Finals, he stepped it up defensively -- setting an NBA record for most blocks in the championship sereis [sic] (30) -- while hauling down 12.4 rebounds... You'd love to see that kind of production during the regular season -- after all, Ewing came into the league billed as the next incarnation of Bill Russell -- but that may be too much to ask of a player who has such huge demands placed on him offensively... Nice to have a superstar on your team: "He gets away with murder in the blocks," asserted one sage observer.... "If he didn't have the respect of the officials, there wouldn't be many centers he could play honestly"... Still a standing member of Rick's "Parachute Club" -- glance up in the air, and Ewing is airborne.
Defense: A
Shot Blocking: AAA

This after the Knicks' 1994 season.


*=

Spoiler:

*= Obviously the ""If he didn't have the respect of the officials, there wouldn't be many centers he could play honestly" is the very strong stuff. Aside from, I would suggest, being wrong, it raises the old question/problem of whether fooling the ref or getting an advantage from them matters. Obviously we want the refs to get it right and don't want anyone to cheat (or do anything unsporting, take advantage etc) but all the measures can't tell if calls given or not given were right, just the impact of what was or wasn't allowed is recorded.

[SinceGatlingWasARookie]

.

I might go with Mark Eaton next round. Kareem, Mourning, Golbert, Dwight Howard, Camby are also getting some consideration from me. I won't be voting for Parish but Parish was good. I guess I won't consider Walton out because of his injuries but Walton was good in Portland.


Vote Ewing

I don't think Camby belongs on that list, he blocked a lot of shots. Some of his own fans in Denver on this board thought his DPOY far fetched. Interested to hear why you think he was that good.

Camby had the DPOY. That is the main reason.
Camby had plenty of praise.

I liked him when I saw him but I never felt as strongly about Camby as I did about Dikembe. The problem is I did not see him enough to say that he wasn't worthy of the DPOY.

I did follow Camby's UMass team closely.For some reason UMass Camby has stuck in my memory better than pro Camby has. Camby really was quite a defensive force at UMass.

I don't really think I will be voting for Camby anyway.
What do you think of Eaton vs Mourning?

[penbeast0]

I don't really think I will be voting for Camby anyway.
What do you think of Eaton vs Mourning?

Eaton is one of those one dimensional shotblockers like Bol that fail the eye test but seem to have disproportionate impact. Zo has some extra impact in that his teams seemed to be unusually scrappy which I credit in part to his attitude. Looking at Howard and Gobert too, maybe even Artis though I've expressed my problems with him as a top 10 guy before; I have to look a bit deeper. IF I don't get a convincing argument, I just may vote George Mikan for the #10 slot on general principles.

[trex_8063]

Sorry, I got tied up with some stuff. Calling it for Ewing. Have the next up in a moment.