2017 Curry
Was thinking of putting Giannis above but I feel it was the perfect offensive performance on a great team, level of play it’s hard to beat but I don’t know if I’d pick Curry over giannis in a vacuum
2021 Giannis
I’m a bit conflicted here, but contextually I do think he should be on here already.
One thing I will say though is that I was looking through the retro player of the years for 2019 and 2020, while I thought he deserved a spot here, my assumption for why Giannis hasn’t been chosen yet or had much consideration was because people were lower on his offense than I was, I now realize it looks like people really didn’t rate him highly on defense?
The peak Duncan vs peak Giannis on offense thread suprised me a bit, I didn’t think it would be so clear cut, my assumption was that people weren’t high on his offense as much as his defense.
The basis of my argument comes from 2021 and 2022 giannis not being a different defender than 2019 or 2020 giannis, rather less effort in the regular season (and I know this past season they mixed up their screen coverages like Miami for postseason versatility), supported by his impact data in the playoffs, the bucks going from league average to probably best or near best in the league defensively in the playoffs
I don’t think 2021 or 2022 Giannis is intrinsically a different defender than his 2019 or 2020 versions, I do think that in general they took those defensive seasons off and ramped it up in the playoffs.
So my arguments on 2021 Giannis defensively will revolve around the impact of his defense in 2019, and in 2020 first and foremost
I wasn’t going to make much of a take about giannis’s defence mostly because I didn’t realize what the general opinion was vs I guess my opinion on his defence.
However, for this to make sense a base assumption is that 2021 playoff giannis on D is the same as 2019 or 2020 RS giannis on D, although there’s an argument for him being better than his 2019 self at least.
So ive kinda gotten the vibe that people (based off retro player of the year voting) didn’t think of him as a super clear DPOY those two years? 2020 I can understand because of ADs postseason exploits, but purely RS wise, those two were imo the best DPOY seasons post 2010.
I realize that might seem like a wild take (I honestly thought it was a pretty normal take) but It’s just that… it just seemed kind of obvious?
First of all, data when he did play vs when he didnt
NOTE: for games with giannis, I got it for 2019 but since it was the same as the on court percentage +_
2019
72 games
105.3 def rtg with giannis
10 games, 108.5 def rtg
(107.7 def rtg 8 games, 2 without starters)
- Avg off rtg faced (10 games) - 108.9
- Avg off rtg faced (8 games) - 108.5
2020
102.5 def rtg with giannis 63 games
108.6 (7 games)
108.5 (10 games, 2 in bubble 1 without starters)
- avg off rtg faced 109.2
- Avg off rtg faced 108.45
So in the 20 or so games that they played without giannis, the bucks were a slightly better than league average defense given their competition, taking only the 15 games their starters played or that weren’t in the bubble, they’re still slightly above average
Not the biggest of samples and there are a few outlier results both ways as is the nature of games in small samples, but still not insignificant. The bucks with giannis otoh, are a -5.2 defense in 2019 and a -7.7 defense in 2020.
Keep in mind budenholzer is weird with rotations, giannis only plays 30 minutes a game not because he’s unable to play longer but because budenholzer is known to be SUPER conservative in this regard
His on court and raw net rtg compared to other ATG defensive teams
https://syndication.bleacherreport.com/amp/2185159-ranking-the-nbas-20-best-defenses-of-all-time.amp.htmlOn court def rtg
2019 bucks
G 104.5 in 2019 (-3.7 net) (110.4 league avg)
2020 bucks
G 99.6 in 2020 (-7.9 net) (110.6 league avg)
1999 Spurs
David Robinson 92.0 (-2.4) (102.2 league avg)
2004 pistons
Wallace 94.8 (-2.0 net) (102.9 league avg)
2004 Spurs
Duncan 92.1 (-5.4 net) (102.9 league abg)
2005 Spurs
Duncan 94.5 (-8.9 net) (106.1 league avg)
2008 Celtics
Garnett 97.3 (-4.1 net) (107.5 league avg)
2014 pacers
Hibbert 98.9 (-2.9 net) (106.7 league avg)
In this comparison Giannis looks pretty solid, his 2019 season maybe a bit behind, his 2020 season fully deserving to be here.
I’m of the belief that top end defensive impact is limited in the past few years, the advent of three point shooting just means there are less shots to contest at the rim, and the pick and roll means especially in the playoffs you need versatility. Furthermore, even in the RS this leads to the defensive impact one individual can have to be a bit limited in comparison.
Kind of similar to how offensive numbers are inflated nowadays, defensive numbers are probably deflated (in terms of blocked shots and everything) because less blockable shots at the rim occur compared to back then (like it’s easier to block someone driving in a Congested paint than in a 5 out while ur drawn out to the three point line)
I think offensive impact isn’t as inflated maybe because general offensive “scheme evolution” and to a large extent more lax rules as well just means teams can do a bit better when their stars leave the court, but this pretty much has the opposite effect defensively
I think here’s where a bit of an issue comes in for me. Like how I believe it’s probably silly to say, oh devin booker averaged XXX he’s as good as Kobe, it’s also similarly strange for me to think that all the best defenders of today are clearly inferior to the defenders back then.
Or another way to say it, comparing the best defenders now to the best defenders back then, maybe I would get it more had TD and KG been so far head over shoulders above everyone else in defensive impact stuff, the first few Boston KG and some years of TD were, but as a whole while they stand out it’s not in the sense that they consistently dwarfed everyone else like currys offensive impact stuff I think, rather it seems there were usually a few guys that had really high impact in general
Another way to say it, I think the potential defensive impact today has lessened, and that especially on good teams if you transport a guy like Mutombo to todays game, he would not be AS impactful, despite his in eta impact based off rapm and what not making him seem like a (non russell) GOAT defender candidate with how much he dwarfed everyone else
Like, when we talk about how KG is perfect defensively today, I agree, but I don’t think that means he’s more impactful today than he was in the 2000s, I think this means he has less of a dropoff than some others would. This isn’t to say the others wouldn’t be absolutely fantastic but I think defenders have less impact in general today. I feel if you take a Rudy Gobert, whose absurdly dominant as an interior defender he’s probably gonna be a perennial DPOY candidate
Like he’s probably about as good as a mutombo, but even if we say a bit worse, who by some RAPM data consistently dwarfed the competition, and some of his post prime years were competitive or even better than some prime TD years, so I think peak Gobert is probably in the running for DPOY and in that category, even if he probably didn’t peak as high on that end (thats a whole can of worms)
The likes of TD and KG do dominate their era in metrics like defensive RAPM far more than Gobert does, although bigs don’t tend to dominate that as much as they did back then.
I used bball ref for the stuff above, admittedly just because it is far easier and older data seems hard to find.
Luck adjusted RAPM vs regular RAPM is a can of worms imo, luck adjustments generally work better in testing but for multiple years apparently they’re worse so take that with a grain of salt. (They may be worse in individual testing)
Regular defensive RAPM
2019 Giannis ranked 2nd behind PG
2020 Giannis ranks 1st by a lot
Regular luck adjusted defensive RAPM
2019 Giannis ranked 1st by a lot
2020 Giannis ranks 1st by a lot
To be clear, ranking second isn’t a sort of death sentence, this is NPI rapm so it’s a bit more noisy and to my knowledge TD never ranked first in his career, although was really close a bunch, Garnett only did so in his Celtics run, and while he was a clear first in 3/5 years 08 was the only year with a large seperation between him and second
Just checking a user named shadows data on apbr who seems respected, giannis’s placements are the same although the gaps are different (he’s a clear second with PG as a crazy first in 2019, and he’s a clear first with a Decent amount of seperation but not a crazy amount over bron in 2020. It’s still roughly equal to most of they Boston KG years though, and it should be noted high end defensive values are higher in general).
To be blunt, I’m way too lazy to make a Google doc with the files from the shotcharts website, especially since it’s easily publically available and accessible. While comparing across seasons with standard deviations is important, for this I’ll only put the top 2 values each year with the name of first place if it seems significant.
While this seems dumb and might not tell enough, I think it’ll be clear what im trying to say when I put in the data. For giannis’s 2020 year I’ll add more incase there’s doubt for that year specifically
RAPM regular 2010
2.77 (Tim Duncan)
2.7
RAPM regular 2011
4.25 (Garnett)
3.19
RAPM regular 2012
4.21 (Taj Gibson)
3.46
RAPM regular 2013
4.06 (Garnett)
3.39
RAPM regular 2014
2.47 (Iggy)
2.21
RAPM regular 2015
2.57 (Tony Allen)
2.55
RAPM regular 2016
2.54 (Kawhi)
2.45 (Green)
RAPM regular 2017
2.32 (Gobert)
2.03
RAPM regular 2018
2.73(Covington)
2.56
RAPM regular 2019
2.03 (Wayoff P)
1.79 (Giannis)
RAPM regular 2020
3.49 (Giannis)
2.49 (Matthews)
2.28 (Schroder)
RAPM regular 2021
2.74 (Gobert)
2.25 (Conley)
2.1 (PJ Dozier)
RAPM regular 2022
2.41 (George Hill)
2.23 (Kenrich Williams)
The overall DRAPM declines as a whole I think after a certain point, Giannis’s is almost certainly the highest here in terms of seperation from second as a percentage and in terms of standard deviations from 0.
This site has luck adjustments too
LARAPM 2010
2.99 (Bogut)
2.87
LARAPM 2011
5.39 (Garnett)
4.65 (Dwight)
3.99 (Caron Butler)
3.89 (Asik)
LARAPM 2012
3.01 (Taj Gibson)
2.87
LARAPM 2013
3.93 (Garnett)
3.14 (Sanders)
2.61
2.59
LARAPM 2014
4.11 (Splitter)
4.09 (Kemba!?)
3.95 (Cp3)
LARAPM 2015
2.47 (Tony Allen)
2.21 (Bogut)
LARAPM 2016
2.33 (Jokic!?)
2.19 (Kawhi)
2.1 Tim Duncan)
LARAPM 2017
1.82 (Gilchrist)
1.81 (Covington)
1.76 (Dray)
LARAPM 2018
2.04 (Gobert)
1.8 (Dejountay)
LARAPM 2019
2.18 (Giannis)
1.71 (Bledsoe)
1.71 (Lopez)
1.69 (Turner)
1.61 (Gobert)
LARAPM 2020
3.19 (Giannis)
2.07 (Matthews)
2.04 (Middleton)
1.93 (Lopez)
1.8 (Marc)
LARAPM 2021
2.11 (BaldEagleOfTruthCaruso)
1.87 (Gobert)
1.66 (Conley)
LARAPM 2022
1.98 (Horford)
1.41 (Draymond)
1.38 (Lonzo)
Added more for giannis since I think a collinearnity issue is something talked about with RAPM stuff, so that’s something worth mentioning here with it being maybe similar to the Warriors RAPM stuff on offense being too dominant during the Curry era to properly assess impact
In any case, the only other high minutes guy in the 2020 squad with a def net rtg of more than -3 is Matthews at -6.2 (99.9 on court def rtg). Then it’s DiVincenzo at -2.7 (101.7) and lopez at -2.3 (102.1). Meanwhile the entire starting lineup outside of giannis is a near neutral or has a positive (bad) def net rtg, George hill has a -6.4 net rtg with an on court rtg of 101.6, but played less than a quarter of the minutes (and it was a trade). Others that ranked well basically played less than 509 minutes, and the starters were all essentially neutrals.
LEBRON data ranks 2020 Giannis as 6th and 2019 Giannis as 30th over the past 15 years, caveat that I don’t think it’s adjusted for standard deviations per season (I think it’s the raw values) and more importantly it tends to overrate bigs, and Giannis doesn’t block as many shots as some others do.
Beyond that, the bucks defense despite Giannis playing limited minutes was genuinely ATG, both first place defence a, 2020 in particular in the games Giannis played was a -8.1 rel DRTG defense, which I think might be the best non Celtics mark ever (slightly worse than 08) although I might be mistake I think it outdoes any of the Spurs marks
(Caveat that a -8 defense wi a 110 avg off rtg isn’t a higher percentage drop relative to the league than a -7 vs a 70 average or something which makes more sense to use honestly, at the same time the current era is one where players rest guys and Bud REALLY rests giannis a lot to be safe so maybe it evens out in terms of pure level of play)
Now if Giannis had a problem defending in the playoffs I get it, but their playoff defense in 2019, 2021, and 2022 was the best in the nba
2019 -7.1 playoff league avg def rtg
2020 -2.8 playoff league avg def rtg
2021 -6.7 playoff league avg def rtg
2022 -7.4 playoff league avg def rtg
They had a problem with dropping too much esp in 2020 iirc (I think they adjusted after giannis got hurt lol) I don’t really blame giannis for coaching incompetence tho, they actually varied their pick and roll coverage more
More importantly to me though, this does make it seem like they were coasting in the RS, I mean at the end of the day 2021 and 2022 bucks were far from a decent defense despite their RS numbers
(From here onward I’m using NBA.com data, just because it didn’t have league averages before but that’s not that important here)
As for his RS defense vs playoff defense
2021 RS
Giannis def net rtg -3.4 (107.4 on court)
2021 playoffs
Giannis def net rtg -5.6 (103.7 on court)
(Second best high minutes guy is Lopez, -0.4 and 105.4, I don’t know if I’m tripping but EVERY rotation player outside of that is a negative in defense in raw impact lol).
Checking it more so, it looks like some of it comes from the heat series, which they just blew them tf out and munched on them in garbage time, altho even taking that out, giannis is now has a def net rtg of -7.5 and an on court def rtg of 105.6, and PJ is next best at -3.2 with an on court of 105.8. Unless I’m tripping everyone other rotation guy is still a negative in defense though
Looking at the teams results they played against a first ranked offense in the nets (before someone says they Kyrie got hurt or harden missed the first part of the series, they were the first ranked offense witth harden and Durant missing more than half the season and Kyrie missing a third), the 18th offense in the heat, the 9th ranked offense in the hawks and the 7th ranked offense in the Suns).
2021
Vs the heat (110.6)
95.4 def rtg
Giannis 95.4 def rtg on-court (+5.4)
Vs the nets (117.3)
107.3 def rtg
Giannis 103.2 def rtg on-court (-11.7)
Vs hawks (114.3)
109.1 def rtg
(107.7 in the games giannis played)
(111.7 in the games giannis missed)
Giannis 106.2 def rtg on-court (-3.6)
Vs Suns (116.3)
112.1 def rtg
Giannis 108.0 def rtg on court (-12.4)
2022
Vs bulls (112.7)
94.4 def rtg
Giannis 91.3 def rtg on court (-4.3)
Vs Celtics (113.6)
108.8 def rtg
Giannis 104.2 def rtg on court (-15.1)
Some of this is mildly misleading, the Suns finished the season strong on offense as did the heat, and the hawks. The nets actually stayed like that consistently, the Celtics had the best offense over the second half of the year while the bulls were pretty poor as the season ended, but let’s just take it at face value
But viewing it as where teams were in terms of their level of play going into the playoffs would make the defense look even more favorable
Nevertheless, the bucks defense over these 6 series was very consistently elite, and as a whole on average probably on the ATG scale, so with giannis impact data looking like it’s the one that looks different I do think it’s fair to say the change was at least partially from him. His tracking data doesn’t change all too much but it’s still similar to his 2019 data if not better I think, although I’d have to check again but it definately wasn’t substantially worse
It’s hard to get definitive proof that he’s a better playoff defender than RS defender. I DONT think he’s quite as good as he was in the 2020 RS at least on a per minute basis (other than the finals lol) but at the same time by all metrics relative to era on a per minute basis that might’ve been one of the most dominant defensive regular seasons since play by play data has been announced, in fact impact stuff it does probably come out to first relative to his peers from the 1999-2021 span, so that’s not saying much
Otoh, I do think that the bucks being a decent RS defense while pretty obviously being a super elite defense in the playoffs, with the main person whose impact data gets better both years is giannis, is pretty significant.
Even this year, only the Warriors did better against the Celtics, and that’s with Tatum forgetting how to play basketball (and this is pretty much entirely due to their defense in the non-giannis minutes, they were a 104.2 offense with giannis in the court which should coincide with their starters, a 119.3 offense with him off the court. For comparison the offense with dray or Wiggins was 103.2 and 103.4).
As a whole, the bucks with giannis on the floor have been a hyper elite defense in 6 series in a row now, and taking the series as a whole (also keep in mind the Celtics and Suns had great second halves of the year and were the best offenses in the league those years from the midway point onwards after a sluggish start, although the Celtics playoff offense was a bit weird to me with Tatum being so inconsistent)
I don’t think it’s outlandish to say Giannis is as good as his 2020 RS in the playoffs, although maybe I wouldn’t go that far, tracking data isn’t full proof at all but it was utterly absurd in 2020 (and as a small note it was suuuper similar to 2016 playoff bron!
)
In terms of like, his defensive attributes I don’t understand why this would be an outlandish take either
Giannis is a high IQ defender, rarely makes mistakes, has an absurd motor, and is a guy that can legitimately guard 1-5, 6ft11 with a freakishly long wingspan (that 7ft3 was measured when he was 6ft8.5, hes now at the point that he can casually grab the rim tiptoing now, 7ft6 is probably a safe bet)
Can cover stupid ground, like his max vert might not be absurd but I’ve never seen someone jump as far as he does, which might be more important for his defensive role in 2020 and 2021 where he was breaking up actions as a helpside defender (he’s probably the only guy ever other than wilt that dunks from the ft line because it’s comfortable that way lmao)
We tend to either underestimate the defensive IQ of current defenders or overestimate past defenders, sure Garnett and Duncan have a higher defensive Iq than giannis and guys like AD or Embiid but it’s not as if it’s comparing Magnus Carlson to like a kid playing chess for the first time lol, and draymonds smarter than all of them anyway.
Like generally the elite defenders are elite mentally as well, guys like giannis despite being freakishly athletic aren’t an exception to that, even if he’s not as cerebral as let’s say a draymond green is
https://www.reddit.com/r/MkeBucks/comments/9pq5vv/giannis_casually_grabbing_the_rim_with_his_feet/)
Overall, I think he’s an elite DPOY type defender. He’s shown the ability as a very deserved DPOY and especially 2020 he’s shown ATG defensive ability. His physical profile and motor and overall defensive IQ are in line with that as are his results, and I believe his playoff defense shows that
Like the Gap between him and garnett to me for example is probably mainly that Garnett is better at pick and roll coverages
I can fully understand not being as high on him defensively as I am but him being top 2 in player of the year voting only once and falling out of the top 3 is wild to me. At the very least he’s an ATG defender
I feel offensively there’s not really much to say, his impact data looks a bit worse because of the Miami series (the offense wasn’t bad or anything, but they killed them in garbage time and it’s hard to take much negative in a series that was such an utter sweep like that)
Beyond that if we’re evaluating him as a player by virtue of being a Greek Freak Giannis is kind of an amazing off ball big, from the virtue of setting good screens being stupidly athletic and being an incredible finisher, so he’s highly portable in an off ball role, although jrue isn’t the type that maximizes him in that role so it’s hard even though jrue is great.
Beyond that, imagining Giannis’s defensive impact in a role where he doesn’t have to do as much offensively would be insane considering his defensive impact already is where it’s at when he puts his mind to it, and he’s a good passer off the short roll too
Giannis honestly works REALLY well as a pick and roll partner, and it would probably give him the energy to be a historic level defender as well
On a side note: holding 2021 giannis’s injury against him when he then had potentially one of the absolute greatest finals performances ever on one leg on an injury that took him out of the first few days of training camp 3 months later is MAD corny lmao, that made it 10x more legendary and the fact that they might not win if someone hit the reset button doesn’t matter much to me since 1. He came back stupidly early and killed the city of Phoenix 2. In real life they actually won which really is all that matters vs whatever hypothetical scenario we draw up where him getting hurt leads to them losing.
I’m not 100% on him here, but I do think that his defense seems to be viewed as “oh it’s quite good” sometimes, he’s a legitimate DPOY type player that has shown the ability at least to match absolutely top of the line ATG defensive peaks, and may do so in the playoffs.
Giannis had one of the absolute best two way playoff performances ever
Admittedly, it’s a bit lame that I don’t have like much video watching for this cuz I just don’t have any time, so that’s a bit annoying, either way though giannis for me on defense is a guy that doesn’t play a role that impacts every shot or anything but his motor makes him impact the shots he can to the point that the defense actively does things so he can’t help because he’s such an absurd deterrent
04 KG
- extremely portable, absurd impact data, would be utterly dominant today, but his playoff scoring is an issue for me
Just bumping some of the previous arguments since they'll be relevant again this thread. In short: Curry >> Magic in scoring, Curry's not as far back in playmaking as Magic is in scoring, and Magic's not ahead of Curry defensively. And again, 17 Curry has the small advantage in (limited sample of) pure plus-minus stats, the clear advantage in the Box-plus minus stats, and the universal advantage in the postseason stats.