Re: #4 Best Defensive Point Guard of All Time - The ten best defenders in each position project

[feyki]

I didn't get, how Nate McMillan ignored that much. If it about getting less minutes and being not a First-Five, it's ok. But still McMillan's total defensive impact extremely high compared to PG's, think about Jordan in sixthman role; he would still better than likes Frazier or CP3, DJ.

And.. and McMillan was better defensive player than Jordan per 100 possesions.

My vote is McMillan.

[Gibson22]

I didn't get, how Nate McMillan ignored that much. If it about getting less minutes and being not a First-Five, it's ok. But still McMillan's total defensive impact extremely high compared to PG's, think about Jordan in sixthman role; he would still better than likes Frazier or CP3, DJ.

And.. and McMillan was better defensive player than Jordan per 100 possesions.

My vote is McMillan.

I think there just is a bias for great players, in general

[Luigi]

3265 "Stockton steals!" led to so many "Hammer dunk!"s on the break.

Kidd is next with 2684, Jordan 2514, and Payton 2445. Steals don't make you a good defender, but, that many swing points from John make a difference for me. My vote is Stockton.

Isn't that a significant methodology flaw to base the decision on a stat that did not even exist before 1974? How do you know that others would not have recorded as many steals, or more, than Stockton if the NBA had recorded that stat during their career?

1974 Steals get recorded
1985 Stockton gets drafted
2003 Stockton retires
2018 Today

I'm not very worried about a stat that was recorded for a decade before Stockton was in the league, which nobody has even posted anything close to. I'd love to see how many standard deviations he is outside of averages and even the next closest leaders. It's one of the safest records in pro sports.

Steals are a small part of defense. But it's worth looking at in a case this far ahead of the rest.

[SinceGatlingWasARookie]

I didn't get, how Nate McMillan ignored that much. If it about getting less minutes and being not a First-Five, it's ok. But still McMillan's total defensive impact extremely high compared to PG's, think about Jordan in sixthman role; he would still better than likes Frazier or CP3, DJ.

And.. and McMillan was better defensive player than Jordan per 100 possesions.

My vote is McMillan.

McMillan gets above 30 minutes per game once in his career. I am not a longevity guy, but minutes per game matter.
McMillans steal which are already high, jump higher after Payton takes ofer the starting point guard job.

Did they have no on court off court plus minus prior to 1997? How are they creating per 100 possessions defensive ratings?

[SinceGatlingWasARookie]

https://www.slcdunk.com/2013/1/31/3939352/the-offbeat-a-quick-note-on-individual-defensive-ratings
"BR's DRTG largely asks two questions: how good was your team overall on defense, and did how many steals, blocks, or rebounds did you get?"

[penbeast0]

3265 "Stockton steals!" led to so many "Hammer dunk!"s on the break.

Kidd is next with 2684, Jordan 2514, and Payton 2445. Steals don't make you a good defender, but, that many swing points from John make a difference for me. My vote is Stockton.

Isn't that a significant methodology flaw to base the decision on a stat that did not even exist before 1974? How do you know that others would not have recorded as many steals, or more, than Stockton if the NBA had recorded that stat during their career?

1974 Steals get recorded
1985 Stockton gets drafted
2003 Stockton retires
2018 Today

I'm not very worried about a stat that was recorded for a decade before Stockton was in the league, which nobody has even posted anything close to. I'd love to see how many standard deviations he is outside of averages and even the next closest leaders. It's one of the safest records in pro sports.

Steals are a small part of defense. But it's worth looking at in a case this far ahead of the rest.

I tend to agree that Stockton's records are going to be hard to beat -- assists even more so. But he is only 7th in steals per game (Alvin Robertson is first, Mookie and Chris Paul are higher) . Unlike assists, his steals dominance is more a product of his incredible ironman abilities.

[SinceGatlingWasARookie]

I am voting for Dennis Johnson

It looks like the vote is shoing up as Johnson vs West vs Chris Paul and out of those 3 I am picking Johnson. If I just wanted to defend small quick point guards I might take Cheeks or Blaylock (I did not see Van Lier). Johnson was often an off guard. Not having one posisition is both good and bad.


LeBron, Jordan, Chris Paul, and West all had to pace themselves and could have played harder on defense if they did not have to play on offense but I think they should be judged on what hey did rather than on what they could have done. Nate NcMillan played less minutes per game and I think that matters.

Steals should not be overated just because they are the only stat. Dean Oliver's defensive rating probably also underates good defenders on bad defensive teams.

[SinceGatlingWasARookie]

Stockton's steals are from being an iron man but court vision helps with steals and basketball iq helps. Quick hands help.
Curry has good steal numbers because he reads plays.

Gambling helps with steals but hurts with defense. I don't think Curry and Stockton gamble all that much.

Somebody using court vision or basketball iq to get steals may still have a problem staying in front of their man. Stockton was good at staying in front of his man but Stockton's steals should not lead to an overall overrating of his athleticism. Steals don't mean that Stockton was bigger and faster than he actually was. Stockton was pretty fast but that is not why he got steals.

[PigsOnTheWing]

The "podium" is spot on, not really much to argue about, good to see this project running quite well as of now (and I think the best has yet to come because PF and C positions will generate even better discussion).
About me, I did some research so as to put up some more in-deep thoughts. I focused on the 4 players who have been getting enough traction to win this spot: West (who I voted for in the first three threads), Paul, McMillan and Stockton.
The following numbers are an average of the 7-years prime of each player if not noted otherwise.

Jerry West: STLx100poss 3.6, BLKx100poss 1.0, DRBx100poss 3.8, DWS 3.1 (1965-1968, 1970-1973 for DWS, 1974 only for
others)
All-defensive 1st team 4, All-defensive 2nd team 1.
As I've written in the previous threads, from video he seems to be an excellent defender but other posters have
made me questioning his impact and I'm not sure if he belongs this high with a somewhat bad longevity anymore.

Chris Paul: STLx100poss 3.5, BLKx100poss 0.2, DRBx100poss 5.3, DWS 3.6, DBPM 0.6, DPIPM .9, MULTIYEAR DRAPM 1.1
(2008-2009, 2012-2016) All-defensive 1st team 7, All-defensive 2nd team 2.
Despite being just 6'0" he has consistenly been one of the best defenders of the last decade primarily thanks to
his immense IQ and great strenght and positioning. Sometimes suffered more physically imposing and extremely
fast guards but nothing to be worried about. Furthermore, he has 4 seasons in the top decile (90 percentile or
better) for defensive reboud rate among guards ever (I stole this from ElGee's writeup on him during his 40
greatest careers ever list )

Nate McMillan: STLx100poss 3.9, BLKx100poss 0.9, DRBx100poss 5.6, DWS 3.0, DBPM 2.7, DPIPM 1.8 (1989-1995)
All-defensive 1st team 0, All-defensive 2nd team 2.
This is tough. He's clearly the best of the 4 on a per-possession basis but I feel it is not enough when you play
2/3 the minutes of the others on prime alone. Then you add the lack of longevity and I feel you need to think
he had 2x the per-possession value of every other contender to justify him here. Personally, I don't feel this
way, so he's out of contention. (Also, the fact that he has so few selections on the all defensive teams may
reflect the fact that he was seen by his contemporaries more as a "give it all while you are in" type of (role)
player and not as a defensive centerpiece, though it must be noted the competition was at an all-time high
in those years with Jordan, Dumars, Payton and Blaylock dividing the sposts).

John Stockton: STLx100poss 3.8, BLKx100poss 0.3, DRBx100poss 3.0, DWS 3.9, DBPM -0.7, DPIPM 1.7 (1988-1992, 1994-1995)
All-defensive 1st team 0, All-defensive 2nd team 5.
He peaked earlier on defense than on offense and it's highlighted not only by his own metrics but also on a
team perspective. Monstrous team defender, he seemed to always know where to be on the court to get a
steal or to bother bigger players even in the post. Him and Paul are similar on defense, they are smaller than
the majority of the players but they are smart and strong enough to overcome that issue. They also both
suffer from being consistenly posted up but this is to be expected so it isn't necessarily a big knock (though it
has prevented him from play well and Porter for example). In the limited RAPM years he posted good to great
numbers, usually +1.5.

It comes really down to Paul and Stockton and, in the end, I choose Stockton with the tie-breaker being his still superior longevity.

[Gibson22]

I am voting for Dennis Johnson

It looks like the vote is shoing up as Johnson vs West vs Chris Paul and out of those 3 I am picking Johnson. If I just wanted to defend small quick point guards I might take Cheeks or Blaylock (I did not see Van Lier). Johnson was often an off guard. Not having one posisition is both good and bad.


LeBron, Jordan, Chris Paul, and West all had to pace themselves and could have played harder on defense if they did not have to play on offense but I think they should be judged on what hey did rather than on what they could have done. Nate NcMillan played less minutes per game and I think that matters.

Steals should not be overated just because they are the only stat. Dean Oliver's defensive rating probably also underates good defenders on bad defensive teams.

I do think that DJ is the best between those three.

[Gibson22]

I vote for McMillan

Here is my count at this point.

Stockton 3 (cecilthesheep, luigi, bounce)
Chris Paul 3 (trex, knickfan, uberhikari)
Jerry West 3 (pandrade, PistolPeteJr, samurai)
Dennis Johnson 3 (penbeast, Dr Positivity, sincegatlingwasarookie)
Nate McMillan 2 (lebron3-14-3, feyki)
Mookie Blaylock 1 (Shaq32)

[Gibson22]

There are still about 15 hours to go, but I'm reminding you about this, if you want to vote, because I'm going to sleep in 3-4 hours.

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[iggymcfrack]

I’ll vote for John Stockton. Incredible longevity and was still one of the best defensive PGs in the league by RAPM all the way through age 40. Not just the all-time steals leader, but has it by 581 steals. That’s bigger than the difference between 2nd and 10th. If you’re putting up incredible impact numbers all the the way into your 19th season and you’re putting up all-time great steal numbers early on before we have impact numbers, I think the chances are you’re pretty damn good.

[eminence]

Mmkay, didn't get my votes in in the 1st 3, but I'll try to be here from here on out. Kidd was my #1 choice, and Frazier is top 5 imo, Payton closer to top 10, so pretty okay with the way voting has gone so far.

For my first vote I'll go with Dennis Johnson - received as much recognition at the time for his defense as anyone has, on tape he really seems to pop, good awareness, hands, size, no real weaknesses that I can see.

The smaller guys Stockton/Mookie/CP3 I think have a problem consistently translating their defensive impact to the playoffs.

[homecourtloss]

CP3. Basically see @trex’s post.

[kendogg]

CP3 is my vote for reasons already mentioned

[Gibson22]

unfortunately the older guys are getting no consideration. I'm pretty sure that mo cheeks was better than a lot of those guys, and I would really be surprised if van lier and don buse weren't better than some of em

[SkyHookFTW]

After consideration, I am tossing my vote to Dennis Johnson.

[Gibson22]

In my opinion, mo cheeks was clearly better than stockton, cp3, probably not better than nate and DJ, and MRR and probably derek harper. I don't know West enough to make a comparison. About the pre 80s guys, K.C Jones, Don Buse and Van Lier are quite probably the best ones.

But, do stockton and cp3 have a bigger a impact on D than derek harper? I would say derek was way better. derek was a bit better than blaylock at what he did and he was bigger than all of these guys. I don't think stockton and cp3 had the tools to defend like derek

[Gibson22]

Micheal Ray richardson. You have a guy who was really really long, contested all the shots, nobody blew by him could disturb the dribble like some of these 6 feet point guards, stole tons of balls, could actually shut down people like a pippen (that's what you can when you're 6'5" with long arms and great athleticism)
Guys, there is a lot about defense that is not iq, help defense (richardson was the perfect help defender for his times) and positioning. You literally play half of your possessions on D and there's a point when you have to literally guard people, disturb their dribble, disturb passing lanes, contesting their shots, preventing their shots.

I can't rank these 3 guys I mentioned but I would probably go 1)MRR 2)derek 3)mo cheeks. DJ is at their level.

MRR was like a walt frazier (for what I understand about how Walt was, even If what I saw about walt disappointed me, I would bet that MRR and derek were better than him on defense) lighter but with better athleticism and longer. I can understand him still not being in his tier because of his short career but still he was at that level of defense

I would like to hear an argument for stock or cp over him, apart from the fact that they played for a lot of years.