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So I was going to start taking another deep dive into Penny Hardaway's impact footprint and film. I've hard drastically different things about his defensive quality and wanted to hear some thoughts before I continued.

On one side i've heard that he was a flat out bad, clearly negative impact defender in Orlando mainly due to his off ball defense, and that he became an actually very solid - maybe even good defender in Phoenix, improving in all aspects.

One the other side i've heard people say that he was always decent and that his defensive woes were more due to situation than some lack of ability.(I haven't heard anyone call him always very bad throughout his career)

Alot of the one number metrics we have seem to view Penny as always being at least a slight positive to neutral-ish in defensive impact but I don't like putting *too* much stake into them because how inaccurately they usually portray defensive value(the metrics being Backpicks DBPM, DBPM 2.0, Backpicks DAPM/g, DPIPM)

For anyone that's studied Penny, where would you land on this? If the first, what are some of the biggest improvements you've noticed from Penny as a defender from Orlando to Phoenix? Was it mainly motor/effort based? What are some of the biggest things you all notice on film holding Penny back from being a neutral - positive impact defender despite his tools, if you evaluate him as worse? Thanks

No claims to being a film study guy here ...

1) It depends where you draw the lines. Solid defensive rebounder for a 1 could be an asset (depending on impact on team D) and should help defensive box measures.

2) Not a huge passer for a 1. WIll use per 100pos so not affected by own usage - 7.8 for career, 9.6 for first three years (or 9.3 for first 4, though moving towards being a 2 at that point). My impression is things like (Reference) BPM (possibly other box-derived "PM"s, don't know) quite likes passing for defense so ... versus other pgs that might (I'd suggest artificially) deflate him by that type measure versus other points.

3) Based on impact ... at apex ('96) a league leading on-off suggests he was solid enough for it not to be an impediment to a huge net impact. Noisy measure, small sample, some people still come out as Nash, Curry as significantly bad defenders despite very positive net impact ...

4) From the time scouting reports ... Barry Biibles after '94, '95 and '96 (grading between D, C, B, A, AA, AAA so 6 main points with + and - (though + and - rarely/never used on higher grades - defensive rebounding a separate category) he was graded AA, B-, B. Post '94 asserts [perhaps surprisingly given his size] that he "has the lateral quicks to keep up with the league's quicksters, the Kenny Andersons, the Kevin Johnsons" also praises his willingness on D and liking to pressure the ball 94 feet. He didn't play the full year at the 1 though with Skiles starting for something like the first half of the year (46 Skiles starts).
Second year much lower on his lateral quickness versus "a Sam Cassell, a Muggsy Bogues, a Mark Price" saying at his size it's hard to get low and "cover the darts" it also runs counter the previous year in now suggesting that with Hardaway "Orlando rarely extends their D when Hardaway is on the floor".
96 has less mentions his on ball D has "improved, [but] it's still not at a level you can win championships with", notes Shaw as a better pg defender. Suggests "Hardaway "is more effective defending 2s."

What you believe, value in the above, how you aggregate parts with one another and your prior knowledge will vary.