Was Bowen really the Spurs best perimeter defender in the 00s or was it Manu all along?

[GSP]

Conventional wisdom and contemporary acclaim and standings say that Bowen was Spurs best perimeter defender through the 00s. He was All Defense damn near every season of the decade and for some bizarre reason routinely finished higher than Timmy in Dpoy voting............he had the rep of a lockdown defender.............but alot of defensive stats seem to paint Manu as their best perimeter defender and 2nd best defender behind Timmy after Drob retired even tho he never made an all defense selection and was seen purely as an offensive player instead of a twoway. What say you?

[kcktiny]

Both were great defenders.

But the 6-7 Bowen almost always guarded the opponents' best player/scorer 1-4. I remember watching him guard PFs the likes of Zach Randolph, Rasheed Wallace, even Dirk Nowitzki.

I don't remember Manu Ginobili guarded opposing PFs too often.

[JimmyFromNz]

What sort of statistics are we considering? I'd guess those that rely heavily on boxscore components of defensive stats could paint that picture given Bruce's value never reflected itself in individual statistics, but I'd be surprised if broader impact based ones did?

Regardless, for me Bowen had better instincts, was stronger, more versatile across assignments and the better decision maker off ball, which led to him drawing the toughest wing assignment night in night out. He was relentless like very few, and there's something intangible there that doesn't come through in numbers - some might say that crossed over into 'dirty'.

[mdonnelly1989]

I don't recall Kobe saying anyone but Bruce was the toughest player he had to score against.

Bruce reminds me a lot of Tony Allen in terms of perimeter lock down defending.

[SHAQ32]

Bowen wasn't a big block or steal guy, could that impact those metrics you're looking at?

[LukaTheGOAT]

I still would go Bruce Bowen.

Bowen had the toughest individual assignment, and his versatility as a defender was a real thing.

2003 NPI D-RAPM

Bruce Bowen: 2.6

Manu Ginobli: 2.5


2004 NPI D-RAPM

Bruce Bown: 3.4

Manu Ginobli: 0.6


2005 NPI D-RAPM

Bruce Bowen: 1.5

Manu Ginobli: 3


2006 NPI D-RAPM

Bruce Bowen: 1.5

Manu Ginobli: 0.5


02-011 D-RAPM

Bruce Bowen: 1.5

Manu: 1.2


Now taking a look at multi-year samples:


97-22 RAPM (Englemann)

Bruce Bowen: 3.6

Manu: 1.1

15-Year Age Adjustment RAPM

Bruce Bowen: 3.23

Manu: 1.9


2006-2019 Raw RAPM

Bruce Bowen: 2.55312940169459

Manu: 2.13938766738209


Bowen typically is better in the sizable multi-year RAPM samples. I don't believe Bowen had an easier defensive role than Manu at all, and I think the value of a lock-down on-ball defender in an era that was big on iso-ball cannot be understated.

[70sFan]

I think Bowen is a little overrated as a shutdown defender, but he's still Spurs best perimeter defender even adjusting for that.

[giberish]

I'd say it's more that Bowen was mildly overrated as a defender (more very good than great) while Manu was also good and often underrated. Bowen was better on defense but it was far closer than many believed. They were often cast as the offense guy and the defense guy leading to the perception that Manu was as limited on defense as Bowen was on offense.

[tsherkin]

I think Bowen is a little overrated as a shutdown defender, but he's still Spurs best perimeter defender even adjusting for that.

TBF, I think almost any defender is overrated as a "shutdown defender." And Bowen had Tim Duncan behind him with strong coaching support crafting a good scheme.

[70sFan]

I think Bowen is a little overrated as a shutdown defender, but he's still Spurs best perimeter defender even adjusting for that.

TBF, I think almost any defender is overrated as a "shutdown defender." And Bowen had Tim Duncan behind him with strong coaching support crafting a good scheme.

I don't think it's true, as long as people realize that the defensive anchors are more important than man defenders. There were quite a few man defenders I'd take easily ahead of Bowen though.

[tsherkin]

I don't think it's true, as long as people realize that the defensive anchors are more important than man defenders. There were quite a few man defenders I'd take easily ahead of Bowen though.

I think "shutdown defender" is just a misnomer, is more my point.

[Dr Positivity]

Bowen is the best man to man defender on wings I've ever seen personally, maybe you could claim his value is not as high as an elite level help defender, but I also think the value of this X factor skill could have value in a playoff series more than regular season stats.

[SK21209]

Its Bowen because of the versatility. He was the primary defender on Nash, Kobe and Nowitzki across various playoff series and had at least some success against all of them.

[r0drig0lac]

yep, Bowen is the choice here

[Doctor MJ]

So I think the big conceptual answer here is that Bowen was the lead perimeter man defender while Ginobili was the gambler.

Who was more valuable on defense overall? These holistic questions are why I like looking at +/- stats. Because of the noise involved they often don't give a definitive answer, but my ape brain lacks the ability to know exactly how much of an edge to give to each guy based on their relative strengths and weaknesses.

Regular season RAPM data is already shown here, but there is a site that's done playoff RAPM for all these years so I'll show that. Note that any particular season will have considerably more noise in it than a regular season study would.

So season by season playoff DRAPM, with championship years in bold:

2003 Playoffs: Ginobili 2.9, Bowen -0.0
2004 Playoffs: Ginobili 0.8, Bowen -0.5
2005 Playoffs: Ginobili 1.1, Bowen -0.7
2006 Playoffs: Ginobili 0.9, Bowen -0.4
2007 Playoffs: Bowen 0.5, Ginobili 0.4
2008 Playoffs: Bowen 1.1, Ginobili 0.9
2009 Playoffs: Bowen 0.1, Ginobili DNP

Naive interpretation would be that Ginobili was the more valuable defender in the playoffs for his first few years but then Bowen took the edge in his last few, but again I'd urge caution there.

I would say though that it's not obvious that Bowen is the more valuable defender in the playoffs to me.

[70sFan]

Bowen is the best man to man defender on wings I've ever seen personally, maybe you could claim his value is not as high as an elite level help defender, but I also think the value of this X factor skill could have value in a playoff series more than regular season stats.

I don't think I agree. There are quite a few man defenders I'd take over Bowen without thinking twice - Cooper, Allen, Holiday, Iguodala to name a few.

[Dr Positivity]

Bowen is the best man to man defender on wings I've ever seen personally, maybe you could claim his value is not as high as an elite level help defender, but I also think the value of this X factor skill could have value in a playoff series more than regular season stats.

I don't think I agree. There are quite a few man defenders I'd take over Bowen without thinking twice - Cooper, Allen, Holiday, Iguodala to name a few.

Bowen vs Allen is probably close and hard to determine. I wouldn't put Holiday in that class, in part because he might be too good on offense to play as hard as them on D. I felt like Bowen understood more than anyone else how to be closest to a player without fouling them, where to put his hands spatially, etc., making him incredible at "bothering players airspace". Visually I can't really imagine a man to man defender against wings impressing me more, but of course, visuals does not always equal impact.