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Point Guards:

1. Jason Kidd
2. Walt Frazier
3. Gary Payton
4. Dennis Johnson
5. Jerry West
6. John Stockton
7. Chris Paul
8. Mookie Blaylock
9. Nate McMillan
10. Mo Cheeks

Shooting Guards:

1. Michael Jordan
2. Sidney Moncrief
3. Tony Allen
4. Michael Cooper
5. Alvin Robertson
6. Eddie Jones
7. Jerry Sloan
8. Joe Dumars
9. Danny Green
10. Don Chaney

Small Forwards:


1. Scottie Pippen
2. Ron Artest
3. Lebron James
4. Andre Iguodala
5. Shane Battier
6. John Havlicek
7. Bruce Bowen
8. Shawn Marion


And this is where it started
Idea


THE CANDIDATES

Tom Sanders (1961-73) Celtics
Joe Caldwell (1965-1975) Pistons, St.Louis Hawks, Atlanta Hawks, Carolina Cougars, Spirits of St.Louis
Willie Wise (1970-78) Los Angeles Stars, Utah Stars, Virginia Squires, Denver Nuggets, Seattle
Bob Dandridge (1970-82) Bucks, Bullets
Julius Erving (1972-87) Virginia Squires, New York Nets, 76ers
Jamaal Wilkes (1975-86) Warriors, Lakers, Clippers
Bill Hanzlik (1981-90) Seattle, Nuggets
Paul Pressey (1983-93) Bucks, Spurs, Warriors
Rodney McCray (1984-93) Houston, Sacramento, Dallas, Bulls
Derrick McKey (1988-2002) Seattle, Indiana, 76ers
Rick Fox (1992-04) Celtics, Lakers
George Lynch (1994-05) Lakers, Vancouver Grizzlies, 76ers, Hornets
Grant Hill (1995-13) Detroit, Magic, Suns, Clippers
Posey (2000-11) Nuggets, Rockets, Grizzlies, Heat, Boston, Hornets, Pacers
Stephen Jackson (2001-14) Nets, Spurs, Hawks, Pacers, Warriors, Charlotte, Bucks, Spurs, Clippers
Andrei Kirilenko (2002-15) Jazz, Minnesota, Nets
Gerald Wallace (2002-15) Sacramento, Charlotte, Blazers, Nets, Celtics
Tayshaun Prince (2003-16) Detroit, Grizzlies, Celtics, Minnesota
Luol Deng (2005-19+) Bulls, Cavaliers, Heat, Lakers, Minnesota
Paul George (2011-19+) Pacers, OKC
Kawhi Leonard (2012-19+) Spurs, Raptors
Robert Covington (2014-19+) 76ers




Hi guys

Once again going to present some ranked and concise multi-modal stat/data/info comparisons for most of the top candidates for this spot plus ALL of the guys already voted in (colored), as well as several other persons of interest (some of whom perhaps should be among the primary candidates): Covington, Gerald Wallace, Paul George, Paul Pressey, Derrick McKey, Tayshaun Prince, Bob Dandridge, and Tom Sanders (new addition this thread). For DVOR figures I've used the defensive splits of Estimated Impact for Hondo, Dandridge, Pressey, Sanders, and some of McKey’s career. EI is likely less reliable than DRAPM, but any port in a storm for these older players. Although fwiw, I do feel the standard deviation on EI tends to be a pinch less than RAPM, so the numbers are often smaller than the RAPM figures: this goes for negative scores as well as positive ones, though for these guys it’s mostly positive figures (i.e. Estimated Impact split might be [marginally] underselling some relative to what DRAPM shows for others; just bear that in mind).
Use this info [or not] as you wish......

I’m bolding my pick for Luol Deng, just to highlight where he sits among this group. He is the single-best SF left on the table in terms of impact-measures (no matter how I split or evaluate it). As I noted in previous thread, he also appears to be a key piece [if not the main anchor in some years] of multiple elite-level defenses for two different coaches, including one year where Joakim Noah missed 34 games and the primary PF was Carlos Boozer--->they still posted a -7.0 rDRTG.


All-Defensive Honors "Points" (awarding 1.5 pts for 1st Team selection, 1.0 for 2nd Team)
Scottie Pippen - 14.0
John Havlicek - 10.5 (*All-D honors only awarded his final 10 seasons)
Bruce Bowen - 10.5
Lebron James - 8.5
Kawhi Leonard - 5.5
Ron Artest - 5.0
Tayshaun Prince - 4.0
Paul Pressey - 4.0
Andrei Kirilenko - 3.5
Paul George - 3.5
Andre Iguodala - 2.5
Shane Battier - 2.0
Derrick McKey - 2.0
Robert Covington - 1.5
Gerald Wallace - 1.5
Bob Dandridge - 1.5
Tom Sanders - *1.0 (*not awarded his first 8 seasons)
Luol Deng - 1.0
Shawn Marion - 0!

DPOY Shares
Kawhi Leonard - 1.736 (2x winner)
Bruce Bowen - 1.514
Ron Artest - 1.283
Lebron James - 0.886
Shane Battier - 0.548
Scottie Pippen - 0.503
Andrei Kirilenko - 0.366
Shawn Marion - 0.341
Gerald Wallace - 0.274
Andre Iguodala - 0.265
Paul George - 0.217
Paul Pressey - 0.154
Tayshaun Prince - 0.112
Luol Deng - 0.082
Robert Covington - 0.024
Derrick McKey - 0.019
**DPOY not awarded in Havlicek's, Sanders', and Dandridge’s career

Career DBPM (not including '19)
Andrei Kirilenko - +3.5
Kawhi Leonard - +2.7
Scottie Pippen - +2.4
Gerald Wallace - +2.3
Shawn Marion - +2.1
Lebron James - +1.9
Shane Battier - +1.9
Bruce Bowen - +1.8
Andre Iguodala - +1.6
Paul Pressey - +1.6
Derrick McKey - +1.5
Ron Artest - +1.2
Paul George - +1.2
Robert Covington - +1.0
Luol Deng - +0.7
Tayshaun Prince - +0.2
*John Havlicek - +0.1 (*only available his final five seasons)
*Bob Dandridge - +0.1 (*not available his first four seasons)
**not available during Tom Sanders' career

Career DWS (not including '19)
John Havlicek - 74.1
Scottie Pippen - 67.3
Lebron James - 64.4
Shawn Marion - 61.3
Andre Iguodala - 44.1
Tom Sanders - 41.9
Ron Artest - 41.3
Luol Deng - 38.9
Shane Battier - 35.3
Gerald Wallace - 35.0
Andrei Kirilenko - 34.7
Bruce Bowen - 33.5
Bob Dandridge - 33.0
Derrick McKey - 30.6
Paul George - 29.8
Paul Pressey - 28.0
Tayshaun Prince - 28.0
Kawhi Leonard - 24.7
Robert Covington - 12.1

Defensive Value Over Replacement Level [-0.75] as measured by DRAPM (Defensive Estimated Impact for Havlicek, Dandridge, Pressey, some of McKey)
CAREER Defensive Value Over Replacement
Andre Iguodala - 94,380.5
Ron Artest - 82,564.4
Lebron James - 81,906.4
Scottie Pippen - 81,078.8
Luol Deng - 77,700.0
John Havlicek - 74,842.5
Shane Battier - 73,682.5
Shawn Marion - 66,215.6
Gerald Wallace - 63,032.0
Bruce Bowen - 51,345.8
Tom Sanders - 43,322.4
Andrei Kirilenko - 40,306.35
Paul George - 39,813.7
Bob Dandridge - 32,717.5
Paul Pressey - 31,816.05
Derrick McKey - 30,092.2
Kawhi Leonard - 29,493.5
Tayshaun Prince - 26,136.7
Robert Covington - 25,349.9

Average Defensive Value Over Replacement PER SEASON
Andre Iguodala - 6,741.5
Shane Battier - 5,667.9
Luol Deng - 5,550.0
Lebron James - 5,460.4
Robert Covington - 5,070.0
Paul George - 4,976.7
Ron Artest - 4,856.7
Scottie Pippen - 4,769.3
John Havlicek - 4,677.7
Gerald Wallace - 4,502.3
Bruce Bowen - 4,278.8
Kawhi Leonard - 4,213.4
Shawn Marion - 4,138.5
Tom Sanders - 3,332.5
Andrei Kirilenko - 3,100.5
Paul Pressey - 2,892.4
Bob Dandridge - 2,516.7
Derrick McKey - 2,006.1
Tayshaun Prince - 1,866.9

Best 5-years Averaged
Shane Battier - 10,586.0
Luol Deng - 9,658.2
Andre Iguodala - 9,456.6
Lebron James - 9,417.8
Ron Artest - 9,160.5
Gerald Wallace - 8,470.9
Scottie Pippen - 8,030.2
Shawn Marion - 7,869.2
Paul George - 7,530.1
John Havlicek - 6,472.1
Bruce Bowen - 6,280.9
Kawhi Leonard - 6,031.8
Tom Sanders - 5,650.0
Andrei Kirilenko - 5,612.9
Robert Covington - 5,070.0
Tayshaun Prince - 4,917.2
Paul Pressey - 4,543.1
Bob Dandridge - 4,219.1
Derrick McKey - 3,930.55

Best Single-Season VOR
Luol Deng - 14,917.2
Shane Battier - 14,053.05
Paul George - 13,522.6
Shawn Marion - 12,713.65
Robert Covington - 12,254.9
Andre Iguodala - 11,810.75
Lebron James - 10,841.7
Kawhi Leonard - 10,805.2
Gerald Wallace - 10,760.55
Ron Artest - 10,175.8
Scottie Pippen - 9,162.6
Andrei Kirilenko - 7,942.2
Bruce Bowen - 7,711.2
Tayshaun Prince - 7,677.9
John Havlicek - 7,239.05
Tom Sanders - 6,922.65
Paul Pressey - 6,354.4
Derrick McKey - 5,189.25
Bob Dandridge - 4,991.0

And I've added a couple new means by which to scrutinize the impact data (DRAPM). Although I've provided peak season DVOR and best 5-year avg DVOR, it's all based upon minutes played......which I thought perhaps overly penalizes minor durability issues, as well as perhaps lower minute players. Take Kawhi for example: is it really that big of a deal if he misses 10 or 16 rs games? Arguably, arguably not; but he'll take a hit for it in my above methodology.

So I'm adding in two new categories:
1) Taking their five best seasons by raw DRAPM (defensive Estimated Impact for Hondo and Dandridge), and averaging them (no weighting for minutes or games played in each season, though must have played at least 500 minutes in a given season for it to be used). This hopefully provides a better look at their per minute/possession impact when on the court thru their best five defensive years.
2) Taking their five best seasons in DVOR, and dividing it by the total number of games played in those years (again must be 500 minute minimum). This should better illuminate average DVOR per game thru their five best defensive seasons.

Going with best 5-year samples, as we're still talking about career defensive value; so a one-year peak or even a best 3-year sample is just too small, imo.

Best 5-Year DRAPM Avg
Shane Battier: +3.18
Ron Artest: +3.09
Andre Iguodala: +3.00
Luol Deng: +2.54
Gerald Wallace: +2.54
Lebron James: +2.48
Andrei Kirilenko: +2.200
Bruce Bowen: +2.198
Shawn Marion: +2.16
Robert Covington: +2.07* (*only four seasons with 500+ minutes)
Kawhi Leonard: +2.06
Scottie Pippen - +1.95
Paul George: +1.92
Tom Sanders: +1.68
John Havlicek: +1.40
Paul Pressey: +1.24
Tayshaun Prince: +1.13
Derrick McKey: +0.79
Bob Dandridge: +0.76

Avg DVOR Per Game in Best 5 years
Shane Battier: 138.20
Ron Artest: 135.37
Luol Deng: 128.43
Andre Iguodala: 128.14
Lebron James: 121.99
Gerald Wallace: 121.36
Shawn Marion: 107.21
Scottie Pippen: 101.49
Paul George: 94.84
Andrei Kirilenko: 91.42
Kawhi Leonard: 90.30
Robert Covington: 89.16* (*only four seasons with 500+ minutes)
John Havlicek: 79.52
Bruce Bowen: 76.78
Tom Sanders: 70.31
Paul Pressey: 60.90
Tayshaun Prince: 60.86
Bob Dandridge: 55.81
Derrick McKey: 50.52

Still voting Deng. Seems like he’s been the numbers guy for a while and he has good meaningful longevity too.

These lists are mind boggling

Still voting for Kawhi Leonard based on peak value.

Looking at Kirilenko, then Kawhi, but willing to be convinced . . . . so won't vote yet.

Even without the longevity some others have, my vote is for Kawhi Leonard.

I'm going Kirilenko. It was between him and Deng/Kawhi for me. He has a solid career overall, not as long as Dengs but a significantly higher peak. Kawhi arguably has the highest peak, but no longevity yet.

Vote Luol Deng. He has the +/- data, size, motor/stamina, basketball IQ and longevity. For some reason people were more willing to go all in on Battier due to the +/- data but are apprehensive about the more physically talented Deng

penbeast0 wrote:Looking at Kirilenko, then Kawhi, but willing to be convinced . . . . so won't vote yet.

OK, well I'll take a moment to try and convince of the merits of Luol Deng. As iggymcfrack and Dr Positivity both stated, he appears to be the clear numbers pick (I'll reference the categories I've listed in my above post for some of the following)....

There are several eligible candidates who have clearly outdone him in defensive honors, but I think most of us agree this is likely the most unreliable of the "measures" we have at our disposal (we did, after all, just vote Shawn Marion in at #8, and he had precisely ZERO All-D honors to his credit; and you were one of his supporters if I'm not mistaken). I've only included All-D honors above for the sake of completeness.

He's also behind several available candidates in DPOY shares, though these are likely only marginally more reliable [if at all??] than All-D honors. And to be fair, Kawhi is the only eligible candidate who is ahead of him by a terribly significant margin.

Several are ahead of him in DBPM; well, it is a box-derived metric, and he doesn't get a huge number of steals/blocks. In the other box-derived defensive measure, he's second only to Tom Sanders among the remaining eligible candidates.

Then we get to the impact measures (except for pre-'94 seasons, as noted previously still have to rely on a box-derived measure for those), where I've broken it down to include measures of single-season peak, full-careers, and best 5-year primes......notable that Luol Deng rates best among ALL remaining eligible candidates in ALL of those categories.

Deng is long (6'8" listed on DraftExpress and nbadraft.net [not certain if those are his 19-yrs-old draft measures], 6'9" on bbref), with a 7'0.25" wingspan. I don't think I need to elaborate on how that kind of length is useful defensively. Despite other athletic attributes being average-ish by NBA standards, his lateral quickness is actually pretty good (this observation seconded on DraftExpress ["solid" being the word they used]), and he'd frequently draw the difficult defensive assignment among the SG/SF (or sporadically PF) positions.
Has averaged 1.5 steals/0.7 blocks/6.7 DRebs per 100 for his career, though this kind of stuff is not fully representative of where his defensive value comes from. Timely rotations on team defense, shot contesting (without blocking), and general man containment is more his jam.......all this while usually playing MASSIVE minutes (due to his wicked motor) and having offensive responsibilities (compared to someone like Bruce Bowen, for example). To back up the semantic choice of "massive": from '10-'13 (that's FOUR consecutive seasons) he averaged 38.8 mpg; he has SEVEN other seasons OUTSIDE OF that span where he averaged >32 mpg.
What that means is that he's exerting his positive influence on defense more frequently per game than most of his competition.


I'll also once again bring up the '11 Bulls.......
There were certainly several good defensive players [aside from Deng] on that team, such as Joakim Noah, Ronnie Brewer, Taj Gibson, Kurt Thomas, and Keith Bogans. However, I'll point out a few things with them:
NOAH: missed 34 games that season
BREWER: was only a 22.0 mpg player.
GIBSON: 21.8 mpg player.
THOMAS: Although his career was primarily based upon being solid defensively, he was never a true defensive anchor [imo]. And at any rate, he was 38 years old this season (well past his prime), was playing just 22.7 mpg, AND missed 30 games that season to boot.
BOGANS: just a 17.8 mpg player.

I'd also note that the guy who was a close 2nd [behind Deng] in total minutes was Derrick Rose (an average defender), and 3rd in total minutes was Carlos Boozer (a poor defender).
The '11 Chicago Bulls nonetheless a -7.0 rDRTG, tied for the 16th-best team defense in the history of the NBA......
*ahead of ALL Jordan/Pippen/(Grant/Rodman) anchored Bulls defenses
**ahead of ALL Eaton/Stockton/Malone anchored Jazz defenses
***ahead of ALL Moncrief/Pressey/Lister anchored Bucks defenses
****ahead of ALL Hayes/Unseld Bullets defenses or Frazier/Reed anchored Knick defenses
*****ahead of all but five of the Russell Celtic teams

This is the season Deng posted a career-best +3.9 DRAPM (while playing 39.1 mpg and missing not a single game); so he was arguably the biggest piece of this all-time elite defense. He was a also a key piece in THREE OTHER top 25 [of all-time] team defenses.


By way of comparison to this '11 Bulls team, I'm going to highlight the '04 Jazz team headed by Andrei Kirilenko (because this was a squad that was brought up in AK's support specifically within the context of this defense project). I don't want to blatantly take away from Kirilenko (and Sloan), given how they overachieved that season, but I must point out that he had a decent defensive center in Greg Ostertag (27.6 mpg) and a decent defensive SG in Raja Bell (24.6 mpg), both of whom were healthy that year........The '04 Jazz posted a +0.4 rDRTG.


I'll stop there. He's not the only good candidate here, but I do think Deng is the best candidate left.

I really don't understand how Iguodala isn't #1.

What Curry is to shooting is what Iguodala is to defense.

oaktownwarriors87 wrote:I really don't understand how Iguodala isn't #1.

What Curry is to shooting is what Iguodala is to defense.

Then what is Bill Russell?

HeartBreakKid wrote:

oaktownwarriors87 wrote:I really don't understand how Iguodala isn't #1.

What Curry is to shooting is what Iguodala is to defense.

Then what is Bill Russell?

Better!

Iggy is good, but probably better at the 2 since he can be overpowered in the post. I can't see him over Kirilenko though; and the stats guys are making strong arguments for Deng. Is there a statistical argument for Iguodala?

my vote goes to kawhi since a vote to him would have beeb fair as high as #2

penbeast0 wrote:

HeartBreakKid wrote:

oaktownwarriors87 wrote:I really don't understand how Iguodala isn't #1.

What Curry is to shooting is what Iguodala is to defense.

Then what is Bill Russell?

Better!

Iggy is good, but probably better at the 2 since he can be overpowered in the post. I can't see him over Kirilenko though; and the stats guys are making strong arguments for Deng. Is there a statistical argument for Iguodala?

Iggy was voted in #4. His arguments are even stronger than Deng’s.

Edited the numbers in my original post wrt Kirilenko. For "Peak Single-Season DVOR", I'd actually cited his 2nd-best season on accident. Correction has been made (and it did move him up like four places in that category). All other categories were listed correctly.

EDIT: Also adding in yet another DVOR split (one that definitely won't undersell guys over shorter career length)--->avg of DVOR of best THREE years......

Best 3-Year DVOR avg
Shane Battier - 12,429.4
Luol Deng - 11,330.7
Andre Iguodala -10,536.3
Lebron James - 10,142.1
Paul George - 10,000.5
Ron Artest - 9,687.9
Gerald Wallace - 9,350.1
Shawn Marion - 9,227.0
Kawhi Leonard - 9,036.3
Scottie Pippen - 8,667.1
Robert Covington - 7,736.4
Bruce Bowen - 7,076.95
John Havlicek - 6,852.7
Andrei Kirilenko - 6,661.2
Tom Sanders - 6,559.1
Tayshaun Prince, 5,542.15
Paul Pressey - 5,283.3
Bob Dandridge - 4,676.6
Derrick McKey - 4,413.3

Mmmh, I'm a bit split between the remaining three top candidates since one of them won't be included and it's seems unfair, though obviously it's only a matter of the quality of the field (I'm talking about Deng, Kirilenko and Leonard).

In my boxscore derived metric (for which I haven't found a name yet and I think I won't because I hate 3/4 letter acronyms) Deng is rated for career, 5-yr prime and peak respectively #11, #13 and #12, pretty bad considering I've just examined 14 players.
Reasons for this were prefectly explained by trex, namely his low block and steals numbers above all. Despite this, he always excelled at lineup level (and consequently in RAPM) and it means he provided more value to his teams than the raw boxscore numbers would suggest.
Kirilenko is a still a great candidate on his own as he is rated #5, #5 and #4 on my metric. While his impact numbers were always sky high, consistency/durability and longevity are the issues that keep him away from being a top 5 defensive SF ever imo.
Kawhi would also be well deserving of a spot in the list but I really can't take him with such a poor longevity if we keep this project as a career evaluation.
So I'm left with Deng and AK47. Not gonna lie here, I came in the thread thinking about how to make a case for Kirilenko since I was sure about voting for him, but then I read trex's post on Deng and it made me change my mind, mainly thanks to the well presented team data (which imo is really the most important one we have to gather a player's true value). So, in the end, I vote for Deng.

P.S. I'm a bit "disappointed" that Erving has got no traction at all yet (and likely will never at this point). I always thought of him as an impactful defender and both the eyetest and the data I have of him seem to agree with me. If I have some free time, I'll make a case for him in the last thread, even though I probably won't vote for him anyway.

trex_8063 wrote:

penbeast0 wrote:

HeartBreakKid wrote:Then what is Bill Russell?

Better!

Iggy is good, but probably better at the 2 since he can be overpowered in the post. I can't see him over Kirilenko though; and the stats guys are making strong arguments for Deng. Is there a statistical argument for Iguodala?

Iggy was voted in #4. His arguments are even stronger than Deng’s.

Duh

I'm going to conclude this thread sometime this evening. So anyone wanting to state a pick needs to do so soon.

trex_8063 wrote:

penbeast0 wrote:

HeartBreakKid wrote:Then what is Bill Russell?

Better!

Iggy is good, but probably better at the 2 since he can be overpowered in the post. I can't see him over Kirilenko though; and the stats guys are making strong arguments for Deng. Is there a statistical argument for Iguodala?

Iggy was voted in #4. His arguments are even stronger than Deng’s.

Iggy can be over powered on the post by SFs? I've never seen that. Not even LeBron could over power him in the post.

This is the guy that won FMVP simply because he's a freak on defense. Even the numbers suggest that he's the GOAT defensive SF.