#9 Best Defensive Shooting Guard of all time - The ten best defenders in each position project

[Gibson22]

We vote for the #9 best defensive shooting guard of all time.


1. Jason Kidd
2.Walt Frazier
3. Gary Payton
4. Dennis Johnson
5. Jerry West
6. John Stockton
7. Chris Paul
8. Mookie Blaylock
9. Nate McMillan
10. Mo Cheeks

Shooting Guards:

1. Michael Jordan
2. Sidney Moncrief
3. Tony Allen
4. Michael Cooper
5. Alvin Robertson
6. Eddie Jones
7. Jerry Sloan
8. Joe Dumars

And this is where it started
Idea



these are the candidates



Bill Sharman (Washington Capitols, 1951/1961, All-Def teams didn’t exist)

Tom Gola (Philadelphia Warriors, San Francisco Warriors, Knicks, 1956/1966 All-Def teams didn’t exist)

Don Chaney (Celtics, Lakers, St.Louis Spirits, 1969/1980, X5 All-Defensive)

Lionel Hollins (Blazers, 76ers, San Diego Clippers, Pistons, Rockets, 1976/1985, X2 All-Defensive)

Eddie Johnson (Hawks, Cavs, Supersonics, 1978/1987, X2 All-Defensive)

T.R. Dunn (Portland, Denver, Phoenix, 1978/1991, X3 All-Defensive)

Fat Lever (Blazers, Nuggets, Mavs, 1983/1994, X1 All-Defensive)

Dan Majerle (Suns, Cavs, Heat, 1989/2002, X2 All-Defensive)

John Starks (Warriors, Knicks, Bulls, Jazz, 1989/2002, X1 All-Defensive)

Vernon Maxwell (Spurs, Rockets, 76ers, Magic, Hornets, Kings, SuperSonics, Mavs, 1989/2001)

Mitch Richmond (Warriors, Kings, Wizards, Lakers, 1989/2002)

Jaren Jackson Sr (Nets, Warriors, Clippers, Blazers, 76ers, Rockets, Bullets, Spurs, Magic, 1990/2002)

Nick Anderson (Magic, Kings, Grizzlies, 1990/2002)

Bobby Phills (Cavs, Hornets, 1992/2000, X1 All-Defensive)

Stacey Augmon (Hawks, Pistons, Blazers, Hornets, Magic, 1992/2006)

Latrell Sprewell (Warriors, Knicks, Timberwolves, 1993/2005, X1 All-Defensive)

Doug Christie (Lakers, Knicks, Raptors, Kings, Magic, Mavs, Clippers, 1993/2007, X4 All-Defensive)

Aaron Mckie (Blazers, Pistons, 76ers, Lakers, 1995/2007)

Kobe Bryant (Lakers, 1997/2016, X12 All-Defensive)

Raja Bell (76ers, Mavs, Jazz, Suns, Hornets, Warrios, 2001-2012, X2 All-Defensive)

Manu Ginobili (Spurs, 2003/2018)

Wade (Heat, Bulls, Cavs, 2004/2018, X3 All-Defensive)

Thabo Sefolosha (Bulls, OKC, Atlanta, Utah, 2007/2018, X1 All-Defensive)

Danny Green (Cavs, Spurs, 2010/2018, X1 All-Defensive)

Avery Bradley (Celtics, Pistons, Clippers, 2011/2018, X2 All-Defensive)

Jimmy Butler (Bulls, Timberwolves, 2012/2018, X4 All-Defensive)

Klay Thompson (Warriors, 2012/2018, X1 All-Defensive)

Victor Oladipo (Orlando, Okc, Indiana, 2014/2018, X1 All-Defensive)

Marcus smart (Boston Celtics, 2015/2018)

Andre Roberson (OKC, 2015/2018, X1 All-Defensive)

Spoiler:

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[Gibson22]

Rules of the project:
1) As you can see, this is a project about the ten best defenders in each position. In this ranking, like in any ranking of this genre, we consider the entire career or the players. Now, if you tend to give more importance to peak, prime, longevity, level of defense in higher level teams, or any other type of criteria, you can obviously do it.
The point of the thread is not "Who are the ten best players at defending ROLE X (in this case, at defending PGs)", the point is "Who are the ten players considered as ROLE X who are the best at defense"? Now, if you view the fact that a certain player considered in a certain role in certain seasons defended more ROLE Y players as a minus in this ranking, I don't know how that makes sense, but nobody can decide for you.

2) For the players whose role is not certain, we settle it before moving on with the next position. We did it before the PGs rankings, we will do for every other position.

3) You have 48 hours since the start of the thread to express your vote (preferably bolded), at the end of the 48 hours, the player who has more votes wins. Anybody can vote. If at the end of the 48 hours two or more players have the same amount of votes, we proceed with a run-off. The run-off will last for 15 hours. Anybody BUT the members who already voted for one of the partecipants in the run-off can express his vote in the run-off. If, at the end of the 15 hours, there still are tied candidates, the first player to have other 3 votes will win the run-off. Late votes were never counted and will never be.

If you need any other claryification, just tell me.

Thank you guys for your partecipation

[iggymcfrack]

Voting Thabo Sefolosha.

Has a huge lead in cumulative value above replacement despite having weak enough offensive value that he logs a lot less minutes than the other contenders. Also has the best peak DRAPM season with a +4.4 in 2013. He’s absolutely a massively impactful defender with better longevity and peak than the other contenders.

[trex_8063]

So I've wanted to look at some means of cumulative defensive value above replacement level for various players, sort of like what Bounce_9 had posted about here:

Spoiler:

I've done a quick calculation for this run-off. I've used the defensive component of the three most important statistical plus/minus I know (PIPM, BPM, Estimated Impact). This approach allows to compare them in a fair way, which is impossible using purest plus/minus derivates like RAPM, because they are not computable for Robertson.
I blended these three stats with a weighted average. I found the coefficients in a retrodiction test some time ago and they are about equal to each other for the defensive side (not for offense though) so it's basically a arithmetic average. Then I multiplied the result by the total possessions to make the final result cumulative of all the regular seasons values.
Eddie Jones:
1995 - 80.7, 1996 - 103.1, 1997 - 150.5, 1998 - 115.7, 1999 - 104.8, 2000 - 155, 2001 - 114.9, 2002 - 177.4, 2003 - 79.4, 2004 - 78.4, 2005 - 141.6, 2006 - 125.0, 2007 - 53.4, 2008 - 40.0 - FINAL SCORE: 1520.1
Alvin Robertson:
1985 - 73.5, 1986 - 254.5, 1987 - 178.2, 1988 - 167.3, 1989 - 148.4, 1990 - 178.9, 1991 - 193.3, 1992 - 132.2, 1993 - 116.4, 1996 - 103.8 - FINAL SCORE - 1546.6

So, despite this being a cumulative calculation, Robertson comes up slightly ahead of Jones. He also has 4 seasons with better value than Jones' best. I obviously know that boxscore derivated numbers aren't enough to make a final judgement, primarily because they rely too much on steals and blocks (in which Alvin easily trumps Eddie). Fwiw, I've read (though I don't remember where) that a steal is worth about 1.4 points. So averaging 4.8 steals x100poss like Robertson did in his DPOY season provides your team about 7 points per game. As for gambling issues, they made me question if he was good enough to be #5, but ultimately it's a problem which can dammed with a good big men, while having a disruptive force on the perimeter is something that every coach would be glad to have. Consider this post my argument for Robertson, since I have already voted for him.

btw Bounce_9, is there any chance you'd be willing to compile and present this same data for several of the other candidates [as well as #1-4 already voted in]? I think it would be relevant to the discussion. I'd like to see these same figures for Jordan, Moncrief, Cooper, Allen, as well as Dumars, Doug Christie, Stacey Augmon, Kobe, Wade, maybe Danny Green and Andre Roberson, too.
EDIT: Jimmy Butler, too, if you're willing.

Ok, so I've compiled the data for all the players you mentioned. In the previous post I forgot to say that this is basically Total Defensive Value Over Replacement player so there is a replacement level which I set at -1.5.
I'm gonna present the data for overall career, best 5 years (prime) and peak. If you, or others, have any question about a particular year(s) of any player, just let me know.

OVERALL CAREER DEFENSIVE VALUE:
#1 Jordan 2009.6
#2 Robertson 1546.6
#3 Jones 1520.1
#4 Wade 1297.1
#5 Christie 1180.8
#6 Allen 1000.3
#7 Bryant 993.6
#8 Moncrief 897.7
#9 Cooper 874.2
#10 Green 870.3
#11 Augmon 799.2
#12 Butler 752.8
#13 Roberson 498.8
#14 Dumars 415.8

5 YEARS PRIME:
#1 Jordan 990.3
#2 Robertson 972.2
#3 Christie 817.2
#4 Jones 749.6
#5 Wade 704.1
#6 Butler 665.4
#7 Green 640.1
#8 Moncrief 628.2
#9 Bryant 558.8
#10 Cooper 523.5
#11 Roberson 498.8
#12 Allen 467.0
#13 Augmon 459.2
#14 Dumars 352.4

PEAK:
#1 Robertson 254.5 (1986)
#2 Jordan 240.7 (1988)
#3 Christie 216.4 (2003)
#4 Roberson 191.2 (2017)
#5 Jones 177.4 (2002)
#6 Green 173.4 (2016)
#7 Butler 173.0 (2014)
#8 Wade 166.0 (2009)
#9 Moncrief 158.0 (1982)
#10 Cooper 144.4 (1981)
#11 Augmon 142.1 (1994)
#12 Bryant 134.2 (2000)
#13 Allen 118.4 (2009)
#14 Dumars 85.0 (1988)

Now I really don't have the time to comment on the data, I will do it tomorrow, as well as voting.

.....but with [primarily] utilizing impact metrics which do NOT incorporate box inputs. So I used DRAPM (PI, where available) for '97-'18, and utilized the rs APM (or pseudo-APM) that colts18 had provided for '94-'96 and made "educated guesses" at the defensive split for players who were active in that span (yes, that's a little "noisy" for those years, but better than nothing).
And then, just so I could be more complete on guys like Joe Dumars (and to lesser degree Stacey Augmon), and so I could be inclusive of Don Chaney, I utilized shutupandjam's estimated impact defensive splits [one of the metric Bounce_9 used] for years '93 and prior. Yes, I realize that violates the premise of using something which does NOT utilize box inputs for those individuals, as well as makes it NOT quite an apples to apples comparison with those players.

I thought -1.5 is fair overall representation of a replacement-level player in the used impact metrics, and assumed that roughly half of that is coming on the defensive end (i.e. -0.75 DRAPM assumed for replacement level). So for each year of a player's career, I took the difference from replacement-level and multiplied by the minutes played.
Below are the results.....EDIT: Have updated the following to pro-rate '99 and '12 to full-length season; also put in Best 5-Year Averages, and included Jaren Jackson Sr..

CAREER Defensive Value Above Replacement
Thabo Sefolosha - 48,079.9
Stacey Augmon - 37,174.1
Danny Green - 36,398.0
Doug Christie - 31,679.9
Jimmy Butler - 30,554.5
Dwyane Wade - 28,893.7
Joe Dumars - 22,297.4
Jaren Jackson Sr. - 21,926.65
*Don Chaney (*'76 not included)- 21,792.2
Andre Roberson - 19,433.8
Kobe Bryant - 12,440.5

Best Single Year Defensive Value Above Replacement
Thabo Sefolosha ('13) - 11,479.35
Doug Christie ('03) - 11,246.5
Jaren Jackson Sr. ('98) - 9,349.2
Danny Green ('16) - 7,918.1
Stacey Augmon ('94) - 7,085.6
Jimmy Butler ('18) - 6,643.5
Dwyane Wade ('06) - 6,507.0
Kobe Bryant ('10) - 5,811.75
Andre Roberson ('17) - 5,702.4
Don Chaney ('73) - 4,354.0
Joe Dumars ('91) - 3,807.5

AVERAGE Defensive Value Above Replacement (per season)
Jimmy Butler - 4,364.9
Danny Green - 4,044.2
Thabo Sefolosha - 4,006.7
Andre Roberson - 3,886.8
Doug Christie - 2,640.0
Stacey Augmon - 2,476.3
Don Chaney - 1,981.1
Dwyane Wade - 1,926.2
Jaren Jackson Sr. - 1,827.2
Joe Dumars - 1,592.7
Kobe Bryant - 622.0

Avg Season of Best 5-Years Value Above Replacement
Danny Green - 6,303.7
Doug Christie - 6,217.4
Thabo Sefolosha - 6,177.2
Jimmy Butler - 5,722.0
Dwyane Wade - 4,664.2
Jaren Jackson Sr. - 4,426.7
Kobe Bryant - 4,137.7
Stacey Augmon - 4,028.5
Andre Roberson - 3,886.8
Don Chaney - 3,442.2
Joe Dumars - 3,063.45


Based on the above, Thabo Sefolosha and Danny Green are two guys I'm considering much more seriously than I was before looking at it this way.

[trex_8063]

Tentative Vote: Danny Green

As shown in prior post, he's behind Thabo, Doug Christie, and Jaren Jackson in peak-season impact above replacement; in cumulative career impact above replacement he's comfortably ahead of Christie, but still behind Thabo, and barely behind Augmon. However, that's on just nine seasons for Green vs Thabo's 12 and Augmon's 14; as noted in avg per season impact, he comes out marginally ahead of Thabo (and WELL ahead of Christie, Augmon, and Jackson).
This is because those peak years for Thabo, Christie, and Jackson are clear outliers; Danny Green's (which came in third) was not. In fact, if we were to look at the top 10 single seasons among all these guys, the list would look like this:

Thabo Sefolosha ('13) - 11,479.35
Doug Christie ('03) - 11,246.5
Jaren Jackson Sr. ('98) - 9,349.2
Danny Green ('16) - 7,918.1
Danny Green ('14) - 7,891.8
Doug Christie ('02) - 7,134.9
Stacey Augmon ('94) - 7,085.6
Jimmy Butler ('18) - 6,643.5
Dwyane Wade ('06) - 6,507.0
Danny Green ('15) - 6,496.7

^^^Green holds three of the top 10 spots (including 2 of the top 5). Doug Christie is the only other guy to hold more than one spot above, though his next best year is <3,900. For that matter, we have to go <4,100 to find Augmon's next best season, and down to around the 5,100 range to find the second-best season for DWade. Danny Green, otoh, has a fourth-best season that is >5,800. This is why Green comes out best in Best 5-Year avg.

He also holds up nice in counting stats and box-derived advanced metrics: career avg of 2.0 steals, 1.7 blocks, 5.8 DRebs per 100 possessions, with a career -4.8 rDRTG and +2.1 DBPM. In both '14 and '15, the defensive split of Green's Estimated Impact came out slightly ahead of '13 Sefolosha's.
And cecilthesheep did an excellent scouting report on Danny Green at the end of the last thread.

It's kinda splittin' hairs in my mind to pick between Green or Sefolosha (or even Chaney or Butler); so I reserve the right to switch my vote depending on which way the wind blows.

[penbeast0]

To be fair to Christie, while his best season is an outlier, his second best is very close to Green's best.

[Samurai]

My vote is for Don Chaney. Made the all-defensive second team five teams. Excellent man-defender who proudly wore the label of being a "lockdown" defender, although most fans today only remember him as the answer to a trivia question ("who is the only player to play with both Bill Russell and Larry Bird?").

What kind of player was he? Consider that when he left the Celtics, the fans gave him a huge man-sized trophy, which totally surprised him. Why? According to a Boston sports writer, the fans gave it to him because Chaney exemplified the "blood and guts" of sports - no excuses, no crying towels, and definitely no flopping. He was the epitome of a tough, hard-nosed defender.

[trex_8063]

To be fair to Christie, while his best season is an outlier, his second best is very close to Green's best.

Yeah, Christie's a reasonable pick too. I'd be content with any one of Green, Sefolosha, Chaney, Butler, or Christie. Augmon arguably wouldn't be unreasonable either. It's a shame four of those names [at least] will have to be left off the list. Fantastic defenders all.

[cecilthesheep]

Voting for Danny Green again. To me it's pretty much between him and Chaney for this spot, and while I was blown away by what I watched of Chaney as far as tipping passes and creating havoc as a help defender and in lanes, I don't think he was quite the lockdown man defender that Danny is. Beyond Danny's advantage in advanced stats, the following head-to-head matchups (and some others) are part of what made the difference to me:

Durant 2010-18 overall: 28.2p/7.6r/4.3a/3.2t/62.5 TS%
against Green (17 games): 24.5p/8.4r/4.3a/3.5t/57.6 TS%
(I know Durant plays SF, but whenever the Spurs played him, he was primarily Danny's assignment)

CJ McCollum 2014-18 overall: 17.0p/3.0r/2.9a/1.8t/55.2 TS%
against Green (13 games): 14.3p/2.8r/1.7a/1.5t/48.9 TS%

Devin Booker 2015-18 overall: 20.0p/3.3r/3.5a/2.9t/54.4 TS%
against Green (8 games): 15.0p/3.0r/3.1a/2.4t/50.0 TS%

Klay Thompson 2012-18 overall: 19.2p/3.4r/2.3a/1.7t/57.5 TS%
against Green (22 games): 16.9p/3.3r/2.4a/2.0t/53.7 TS%

and I'll throw this in with a quick edit:
Jimmy Butler 2013-18 overall: 17.9p/5.2r/3.7a/1.6t/57.5 TS%
against Green (10 games): 14.1p/4.5r/2.9a/1.8t/53.7 TS%

Now, I know that to an extent this is colored by the Spurs playing good defense in general, but that is still a remarkably consistent impact against primary defensive assignments. The only guys I looked at who weren't significantly hobbled by Green were James Harden and Dwyane Wade.

In general, it squares with what I see on the court out of Danny. He's one of the best players in the league at contesting shots and getting clean blocks, as well as sticking with his man and pushing him towards the help if he does get a step. Chaney was better at playing passing lanes and getting tips/causing chaos, but Danny isn't bad at that either, and in the end I think Danny's advantage as a man defender is big enough to make the difference here. I'm also swayed by how the Spurs defense didn't fall apart two years ago after Kawhi quit, but HAS fallen apart this year now that Danny is gone, as compared to the Celtics defense post-Chaney which kept humming along just fine.

[Dr Positivity]

Vote Danny Green

He has some of the best impact stats supporting him and I just like his style of defense, lots of little things on help defense, transiton D, his hands being in the right place etc. that don't get as much attention as man to man D like Patrick Beverley.

[Lost92Bricks]

Doug Christie

When people think of that Kings team they think of their offense, but they were an elite defensive team and he was their best defender.

[cecilthesheep]

Doug Christie

When people think of that Kings team they think of their offense, but they were an elite defensive team and he was their best defender.

I went and looked at the Kings' defensive ratings from the early 2000s, and I noticed something bizarre:

2000-01: 99.6 DRtg, ranked 7th in the league
2001-02: 101.1 DRtg, 6th
2002-03: 99.1 DRtg, 2nd
2003-04: 104.9 DRtg, 21st
2004-05: 108.2 DRtg, 23rd

Does anyone who was paying more attention to Kings basketball at that time know what the hell happened to their defense in 2003-04? Personnel appears largely similar for all five of these years. Rick Adelman was the coach the whole time. Bibby didn't arrive until 01-02, and Divac left after 03-04.

[penbeast0]

I am impressed with the Danny Green arguments, I looked up some games and he really did play good transition defense. I think I will change my vote to Danny Green although I will be back on the Chaney bandwagon for #10 unless someone convinces me differently.

[70sFan]

What do you think about Don Chaney? He's extremely impressive every time I see him play. What he did against players like Oscar or Frazier is worth considering. In my honest opinion, he's better man defender than Sloan, though Jerry was more impressive in help defense aspect. I would have him around Danny Green level in terms of defensive impact, what do you think?

[No-more-rings]

I’m not a part of this project but i do believe Wade belongs at least in the top 10. I think from 05-2013(pre-injury) he was consistently one of the best gaurd defenders in the league.

[Gibson22]

I’m not a part of this project but i do believe Wade belongs at least in the top 10. I think from 05-2013(pre-injury) he was consistently one of the best gaurd defenders in the league.

Well you can be a part of the project if you want

[Gibson22]

Would you guys say danny green is a better defender than Jimmy Butler?

[No-more-rings]

Would you guys say danny green is a better defender than Jimmy Butler?

I would guess longevity is part of it and probably because people don’t look at him as a sg. Bballef lists him as a sg in most seasons but he definitely is built more like a small forward.

[bledredwine]

This is Jimmy Butler for me.

[cecilthesheep]

Would you guys say danny green is a better defender than Jimmy Butler?

Yes. Butler's effort definitely waxes and wanes sometimes from what I've seen. And I don't think he's necessarily that much better even when he's locked in. It's close - I think Butler is an entirely defensible choice - but Green maintains a comparable level of defense with a higher consistency in my opinion.