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Who is the best defender on your favorite team? We can try for a 30 team consensus.

Boston -- Porzingis, Derrick White
Charlotte -- Okogie, Diabate
Mobley
Dallas -- Anthony Davis
Denver -- Watson

Golden State -- Draymond Green
Houston -- Amen Thompson
LA Lakers -- Vanderbilt
Memphis -- Jaren Jackson Jr.
Minnesota -- Rudy Gobert

New Orleans -- Herb Jones
New York -- Anunoby
OKC -- Holmgren, Caruso
San Antonio -- Wembanyama
Toronto -- Poetl

Washington -- Coulibaly

For Washington, despite Sarr's shotblocking exploits, his inability to play competent man defense against bigs drops him behind out best defender, Bilal Coulibaly. Coulibaly generally takes on the opponents best wing scorer and while not consistent yet, has some excellent games (and some stinkers).

Draymond Green, for the last decade and running

Probably Porzingis.

Probably recently acquired Josh Okogie.

Behind that, stats say it’s two-way center Moussa Diabaté, which I don’t fully buy, but at his best you get a twitchy switchable guy who can switch onto guards, protect the rim, and grab rebounds like Rodman. In reality he’s probably just a rich man’s Wenyen Gabriel playing on a bad team but the flashes have been good and his on-off is ridiculous.

Southwest

Pelicans: Herb Jones
Spurs: Victor Wembanyama
Mavericks: Anthony Davis
Rockets: Amen Thompson (#s seem to favor Eason, maybe he's the better answer)
Grizzlies: Jaren Jackson Jr

Admittedly, I haven't seen much of him this year [he's missed like half the season], but I'm curious about two people both saying Porzingis for Boston.
Is it the block/DReb numbers?

I otherwise note Boston defense was trucking along just fine [basically never outside the top 4 or 5 in the league] the entire time he was out, noting also his on/off figures posit their defense doing -4.5 better WITHOUT him (better overall record without him, too); to be fair, I haven't looked at his most common line-ups, nor have I looked at the SRS of his with/without.
Not to mention he plays 7.4 fewer mpg [when he does play] than Tatum, 4.7 fewer than White, slightly less than Jrue.

Personally, I speculate that one of the latter three might be the most important defender on the team (though obviously it's very much an ensemble effort).

Minny: Rudy Gobert

Lakers: ??? Would have said AD, but he's no longer a member of the team, so don't know who to pick (I suspect their defense is going to hurt down the stretch, though). Austin Reaves, maybe???

OKC: I have no idea! I'd love to hear the thoughts of those who have seen more of them than me. Seems like their perimeter core (Shai, Dort, J.Williams, and Caruso when he can play) are the big engine of their elite defense; though Hartenstein and Holmgren [when healthy] are no joke, especially as a tandem.

DEN: ??? idk......could it be Gordon [when he's around]? Peyton Watson? Braun? Could it even be Jokic???


Sorry; more questions than answers (which is probably not what you wanted, pen).

trex_8063 wrote:Minny: Rudy Gobert

Lakers: ??? Would have said AD, but he's no longer a member of the team, so don't know who to pick (I suspect their defense is going to hurt down the stretch, though). Austin Reaves, maybe???

OKC: I have no idea! I'd love to hear the thoughts of those who have seen more of them than me. Seems like their perimeter core (Shai, Dort, J.Williams, and Caruso when he can play) are the big engine of their elite defense; though Hartenstein and Holmgren [when healthy] are no joke, especially as a tandem.

DEN: ??? idk......could it be Gordon [when he's around]? Peyton Watson? Braun? Could it even be Jokic???


Sorry; more questions than answers (which is probably not what you wanted, pen).

My instinct for those 3 would be Vanderbilt, Holmgren, and Watson. OKC is stupidly stacked defensively though, Caruso is unreal and Hartenstein's been great over the last two years.

Charlottes is Moussa Diabate and I’d be surprised if you could find anyone who would disagree

trex_8063 wrote:Admittedly, I haven't seen much of him this year [he's missed like half the season], but I'm curious about two people both saying Porzingis for Boston.
Is it the block/DReb numbers?

I otherwise note Boston defense was trucking along just fine [basically never outside the top 4 or 5 in the league] the entire time he was out, noting also his on/off figures posit their defense doing -4.5 better WITHOUT him (better overall record without him, too); to be fair, I haven't looked at his most common line-ups, nor have I looked at the SRS of his with/without.
Not to mention he plays 7.4 fewer mpg [when he does play] than Tatum, 4.7 fewer than White, slightly less than Jrue.

Personally, I speculate that one of the latter three might be the most important defender on the team (though obviously it's very much an ensemble effort).

Other than my vote for Coulibaly in post two, the first post is just tallying opinions, not giving my own.

penbeast0 wrote:

trex_8063 wrote:Admittedly, I haven't seen much of him this year [he's missed like half the season], but I'm curious about two people both saying Porzingis for Boston.
Is it the block/DReb numbers?

I otherwise note Boston defense was trucking along just fine [basically never outside the top 4 or 5 in the league] the entire time he was out, noting also his on/off figures posit their defense doing -4.5 better WITHOUT him (better overall record without him, too); to be fair, I haven't looked at his most common line-ups, nor have I looked at the SRS of his with/without.
Not to mention he plays 7.4 fewer mpg [when he does play] than Tatum, 4.7 fewer than White, slightly less than Jrue.

Personally, I speculate that one of the latter three might be the most important defender on the team (though obviously it's very much an ensemble effort).

Other than my vote for Coulibaly in post two, the first post is just tallying opinions, not giving my own.

I see. Well, I'm going to pitch out a couple names for some teams I sort of follow, just to shake up your consensus .....


OKC: Alex Caruso
Boston: Derrick White
Cleveland: Evan Mobley
NYK: OG Anunoby
Toronto: either Scottie Barnes or Jakob Poeltl.......I'll go Barnes, but willing to be convinced.
GSW: well, obviously Draymond (I guess I'll just strengthen the consensus for that one); though Looney and Wiggins have been solid.
SAS: Wembanyama (sucks to hear he's out the rest of the year)

The Raptors are like 4-38 without Poeltl the last two seasons so I think it's him.

Dr Positivity wrote:The Raptors are like 4-38 without Poeltl the last two seasons so I think it's him.

Fair point, though the devil is often in the details.

For example, they're 16-29 with him this year [on pace for about 29.2 wins], while being just 1-9 in 10 games without him [on pace for 8.2 wins]. However, they were facing the gauntlet in those 10 games: OKC [twice], Memphis [twice], Houston [twice], then CLE, NYK, Philly, and Brooklyn once each. That's a bad-ass opponent in 8 of 10 contests.

Additionally, Poeltl usually wasn't the only key personnel missing in those games. Within those same 10 games:

RJ Barrett missed 6 of the same 10 games.
Immanuel Quickley missed 6 of the same 10 games.
Davion Mitchell missed 3 of the same 10 games (BEFORE he was traded).
Chris Boucher missed 2 of the same 10 games.
Kelly Olynyk missed 1 of them before he was traded.


I don't know about last year, but jsia.

That said, you've convinced me to switch my answer to Poeltl.

Portland pretty close between Avdija and Camara