One_and_Done wrote:ReggiesKnicks wrote:KD should definitely start getting love, but I'm not so sure how he stacks up against Dirk/Kobe as offensive wings/bigs.
He's better than both of them on both ends of the floor.
I don't buy this at all. Dirk got a bad reputation for defense early in his career, but he turned into a very solid defender over time. He was extremely positionally aware and he used his size to box out and rebounded tremendously well for a power forward. If you look at the chart that trelos posted, Dirk had 4 of the 6 best seasons of all the players left for how well he affected the team's defensive rebounding.
Meanwhile, here's his defensive on/off for the 3 years surrounding his peak season:
2010: -5.5 (92nd percentile)
2011: -8.2 (96th percentile)
2012: -5.8 (89th percentile)
Tyson Chandler's typically given the lion's share of the credit for the Mavs' defense in 2011 and rightfully so, but as you can see, Dirk was showing very strong impact signals as well. Furthermore, the Mavs' defensive quality didn't actually fluctuate much whether Chandler was there or not, going from 12th the year before he arrived to 8th the season they played with him to 8th the year after he left.
KD's peak season is a little more controversial than Dirk's with 2014 and 2017 both having strong cases so let's look at his defensive on/off numbers from 2013 all the way to 2018:
2013: +1.9 (32nd percentile)
2014: +3.7 (21st percentile)
2015: -4.0 (82nd percentile)
2016: -3.1 (79th percentile)
2017: -2.0 (69th percentile)
2018: +7.4 (6th percentile)
These numbers are much more all over the map and it's hard to even say whether he has a positive impact. The 6 seasons surrounding his peaks average out to +0.7 while the 2 peak seasons average out to +0.9. Even in his best individual year, he doesn't approach the impact Dirk shows surrounding the 2011 season.
What happens if we perform the same analysis on the offensive side of the ball? First here's Dirk:
2010: +5.2 (89th percentile)
2011: +8.7 (96th percentile)
2012: +8.0 (93rd percentile)
And now Durant over the same 6 year span from before:
2013: +7.7 (93rd percentile)
2014: +9.5 (99th percentile)
2015: +7.9 (93rd percentile)
2016: +8.1 (96th percentile)
2017: +7.2 (92nd percentile)
2018: +9.0 (96th percentile)
This is much more inconclusive and it's hard to find a real edge either way. KD has an edge averaging all 6 seasons while Dirk has an edge averaging the actual peak seasons only, but either way it's close enough that it's hard to say anything definitive other than that they were both very good offensive players.
I've often though KD's defense was quite overrated at times as while he had all the tools to be an elite wing defender, most of the time he'd just tend to guard one of the weaker players on the other team over taking much responsibility. Now in Phoenix, or even Brooklyn when everyone was injured, he'd take on more responsibility by necessity and all of a sudden all those defensive tools would get put to use and become legitimate weapons. But during his peak years in Golden State and Oklahoma City, I don't know that he was really doing enough to provide a lot of value. Meanwhile, Dirk by nature of his position was usually in the paint using his big frame to block off driving lanes and always being in excellent position to prevent second shots. I'd say that during their peak years, Dirk was significantly more valuable on the defensive end.
