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In my opinion the 80's was definitely the golden age of perimeter defense in the NBA. Who gets your vote for the best of that era? I'm going with Dennis Johnson.

From better to worse,

Cooper - The best one here by a margin, IMO.
Johnson - Most I've seen of him is post-prime, but a very good man defender. Nothing spectacular pops to mind off-ball.
Moncrief - Pretty speedy, good on passing lanes. Very good by offensive star standards.
Jordan - Unremarkable until the very late 80s. I like him more in the 90s.
Dumars - haven't ever seen his defensive play match his reputation. Seems like an Avery Bradley-esque guy to me.
Robertson - lol, no.

AStark1991 wrote:In my opinion the 80's was definitely the golden age of perimeter defense in the NBA.

I heavily disagree, in fact I'd lean towards the opposite being true. Quite an underwhelming decade for perimeter defenders. A good number of random non all-D guards such as Luguentz Dort would be infinitely better than basically everybody in this list.

I would say it's between Cooper, DJ, and Moncrief. All were better at man defense than off ball and all were good both at contesting jumpers and not getting beat to the rim. Cooper had the best leaping ability and was the quickest, DJ the strongest and an overall better athlete even than Cooper, Moncrief the best positioning and highest BBIQ as well as a great leaper himself with freakishly long arms. All three were generally focused in on the defensive end consistently even with Moncrief's offensive responsibiilties. On the other side of the equation, Cooper played lesser minutes, DJ had a couple of years, especially in Phoenix, where he seemed to have gotten Starbury complex and his defense suffered, Moncrief had the knee issues when he came into the NBA and his prime is far shorter.

Peak: Moncrief/DJ/Cooper in terms of defensive impact.
Career: DJ/Moncreif/Cooper.
Per minute, Cooper might be on top for me but his impact is limited by PT.

Jordan for a game here or there would take over games even more than the top 3 but he wouldn't consistently put in the effort the top 3 did. Dumars put in the effort but didn't have the physical abilities of the top 3 and his really poor stock numbers show his lesser impact off ball. Alvin was a gambler who had strength and quickness if not great length, but he often seemed more focused on getting the highlight steal or big play than on staying in front of his man.

Dumars - haven't ever seen his defensive play match his reputation

You had to have actually watched him play to say this with any conviction.

Dumars was a great shot defender, and limited opposing player touches by hounding opponents. Few steals and few defensive rebounds so not overall as great a defending SG as a few others, but up there because of his ability to take players out of their team's offense. Like a Bruce Bowen but at SG.

From 1987-88 to 1991-92 Detroit was the 2nd best team in the league defensively (103.2 pts/100poss allowed), only Utah was better, and the Pistons over those 5 seasons allowed the 2nd lowest 2pt FG% at just 46.5% (again only Utah was better) despite being one of the league's worst shot blocking teams.

Dumars played the most minutes for them over those 5 seasons, was a key reason why that defensive 2pt FG% allowed as so low. Almost always guarded the opponents' best guard so Isiah Thomas didn't have to.

Robertson - lol, no.

Watch him play a lot did ya'?

Alvin Robertson may very well be the greatest SG defender there ever was. Another player that hounded opposing SGs with in-your-face-defense, reduced their touches, but also forced turnovers at a very high rate while also being a very good defensive rebounder for an SG. Was a DPOY and also all-defensive team 6 times (twice all-defensive 1st team) and the only reason he wasn't all-defensive 1st team 6 times was because either Jordan or Moncrief was named ahead of him 4 times.

But let me guess why you made such an inane statement. Some flawed plus/minus calculation that you take as fact despite not having watched players actually play? If so go read the "Talent vs. specialty, beat this talent defensive team defensively" thread.

A good number of random non all-D guards such as Luguentz Dort would be infinitely better than basically everybody in this list.

Infinitely better?

In 5 previous seasons Dort wasn't named to an all-defensive team even once, and only came close last season (likely will be named this season). Alvin Robertson was named to the all-defensive team 4 of his first 5 seasons. Sidney Moncrief was named DPOY 2 seasons in a row, his 4th and 5th seasons in the league.

Maybe you should go watch some Bucks games with Moncrief or Spurs/Bucks games with Robertson and get educated before making such an absurd statement.

Alvin was a gambler who had strength and quickness if not great length, but he often seemed more focused on getting the highlight steal or big play than on staying in front of his man.

False.

Robertson was a great on-ball and shot defender, one of the best ever. The epitome of a lockdown defender. Could bully and body with anyone, and many chose not to even go at him. Go watch him play.

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/3uMsFBvdyI0

https://www.espn.com/blog/truehoop/post/_/id/5945/your-nightmare-defender-alvin-robertson-edition

All 6 of these guys are outstanding defensive guards and from personal experience, I mainly saw them v. the Bullets. For prime Alvin Robertson, that would be Jeff Malone for Washington. Robertson could body Malone and Malone didn't have the handles to break him down but we would run Malone off screens against Robertson with pretty good success. The over gambling was also a thing; you could get Alvin frustrated and he would start getting physical or going for steals and we'd get some easy points. Can't speak to more than what I saw or heard and didn't look up his stats before replying so not speaking to numbers though I'd love to see the head to heads if I still had access to them.