Who is a better defender Jordan or Kawhi?

[No-more-rings]

We can parse out the reasons for it, but Kawhi defended at a level for entire seasons that Jordan never approached. We don't make excuses why other players didn't score like him, so we shouldn't look for excuses for Mike for why he didn't defend as well.

Mike was an incredible basketball player, a good defender almost his entire career, and a great one when he was motivated to be. But we are collectively guilty of turning him more into myth than man and it does him a disservice. He deserves an honest appraisal.

I agree with this, but as to your 2nd paragraph, people do the exact same thing with Lebron.

[Wigginstime]

This is a weird comparison.

Kawhi's value is in his extreme wingspan (7'3") allowing him to challenge larger players. He got his defensive reputation based on his defense as a Spur against Lebron.

I was most impressed with his defense against Giannis. Most people didn't realize that after the initial 2 losses, Kawhi guarded Giannis over three times as much as any other Raptors player.

Bucks offense when everyone else guarded Giannis: 110.7
Bucks offense when Kawhi guarded Giannis: 88.0

Jordan was a perimeter player. Its hard to compare Jordan to Kawhi when they were completely different types of defenders.

Pippen got the "Kawhi" type of defensive assignments on the Bulls. Pippen and Kawhi are much better comparisons given both players had 7'3" wingspans.

Personally i always felt Kawhi was overrated when guarding guards. I was shocked when he was used against westbrook in that spurs series. Just seemed like a waste to me given Kawhi is super elite at guarding forwards.

[Colbinii]

Kawhi for small stretches of his career but Jordan has more career value on that end.

Small stretches? Kawhi was an elite defender from 2013-2016. 4 years is not small stretches.

40% is smaller than larger.

Since the semantics demon is here, ill change smaller to some so No More Rings can live a happy, semantic free lifestyle.

[Djoker]

someone here once showed a chart that compared how much better kawhi defense got (dont remember if using defensive plus minus data or team defensive rating) the more steals he had

and did the same for jordan comparing his team defense in games with 2, 3, 4, 5 steals and how much better defense got with each steal

and it said that kawhi defensive impact had a much clearer improvement witj each steal compared to jordan smaller improvement in games with many steals

it was fascnating way to look at data and put common empirical beliefs to test, anyone remembers somethinfh like that? i was a lurker then and didnt save it

also to adress djoker point, prime pre injury kawhi was the first option in the 2016 spurs and also their best defender and that team was all timer great on a defense as great or better as any bulls team defense

for comparision the best defensive player in jordan bulls was probably pippen with jordan arguably 3rd after grant/rodman

I remember that study comparing the effects of steals on defensive impact. However the impact of steals on offensive impact should have also been assessed because Jordan turned a lot of those steals into fast break baskets. Kawhi wasn't nearly the same threat on the break. It's possible that Jordan's steals led to a bigger shift in net rating than Kawhi's steals.

Besides I'm not sure Kawhi was the most impactful defender on those Spurs team ahead of Duncan. And Jordan/PIppen/Rodman are all fairly close in DRAPM, DRPM, DPIPM etc. that I've seen.

[falcolombardi]

someone here once showed a chart that compared how much better kawhi defense got (dont remember if using defensive plus minus data or team defensive rating) the more steals he had

and did the same for jordan comparing his team defense in games with 2, 3, 4, 5 steals and how much better defense got with each steal

and it said that kawhi defensive impact had a much clearer improvement witj each steal compared to jordan smaller improvement in games with many steals

it was fascnating way to look at data and put common empirical beliefs to test, anyone remembers somethinfh like that? i was a lurker then and didnt save it

also to adress djoker point, prime pre injury kawhi was the first option in the 2016 spurs and also their best defender and that team was all timer great on a defense as great or better as any bulls team defense

for comparision the best defensive player in jordan bulls was probably pippen with jordan arguably 3rd after grant/rodman

I remember that study comparing the effects of steals on defensive impact. However the impact of steals on offensive impact should have also been assessed because Jordan turned a lot of those steals into fast break baskets. Kawhi wasn't nearly the same threat on the break. It's possible that Jordan's steals led to a bigger shift in net rating than Kawhi's steals.

Besides I'm not sure Kawhi was the most impactful defender on those Spurs team ahead of Duncan. And Jordan/PIppen/Rodman are all fairly close in DRAPM, DRPM, DPIPM etc. that I've seen.

that sounds like double counting offense: jordan superior fastbreak game after a steal is already accounted for in offensive metrics. box score and team offensive results, and the defensive value of the steal is already accounted for too in defensive plus minus metrics

[OdomFan]

Jordan was pretty damn scary on the defensive end of the floor using his quickness, basketball IQ and leaping ability to his advantage just as he did on offense. I'd say he's the better defender between the two. With that said, Leonard is a damn good defender too.

[Djoker]

someone here once showed a chart that compared how much better kawhi defense got (dont remember if using defensive plus minus data or team defensive rating) the more steals he had

and did the same for jordan comparing his team defense in games with 2, 3, 4, 5 steals and how much better defense got with each steal

and it said that kawhi defensive impact had a much clearer improvement witj each steal compared to jordan smaller improvement in games with many steals

it was fascnating way to look at data and put common empirical beliefs to test, anyone remembers somethinfh like that? i was a lurker then and didnt save it

also to adress djoker point, prime pre injury kawhi was the first option in the 2016 spurs and also their best defender and that team was all timer great on a defense as great or better as any bulls team defense

for comparision the best defensive player in jordan bulls was probably pippen with jordan arguably 3rd after grant/rodman

I remember that study comparing the effects of steals on defensive impact. However the impact of steals on offensive impact should have also been assessed because Jordan turned a lot of those steals into fast break baskets. Kawhi wasn't nearly the same threat on the break. It's possible that Jordan's steals led to a bigger shift in net rating than Kawhi's steals.

Besides I'm not sure Kawhi was the most impactful defender on those Spurs team ahead of Duncan. And Jordan/PIppen/Rodman are all fairly close in DRAPM, DRPM, DPIPM etc. that I've seen.

that sounds like double counting offense: jordan superior fastbreak game after a steal is already accounted for in offensive metrics. box score and team offensive results, and the defensive value of the steal is already accounted for too in defensive plus minus metrics

It's not double counting. Your post was quoting a study looking at the effect of steals on defense? My point was that we should also be looking at the effect of steals on offense because my guess Jordan's Bulls did much better on offense in games he got more steals.

[falcolombardi]

I remember that study comparing the effects of steals on defensive impact. However the impact of steals on offensive impact should have also been assessed because Jordan turned a lot of those steals into fast break baskets. Kawhi wasn't nearly the same threat on the break. It's possible that Jordan's steals led to a bigger shift in net rating than Kawhi's steals.

Besides I'm not sure Kawhi was the most impactful defender on those Spurs team ahead of Duncan. And Jordan/PIppen/Rodman are all fairly close in DRAPM, DRPM, DPIPM etc. that I've seen.

that sounds like double counting offense: jordan superior fastbreak game after a steal is already accounted for in offensive metrics. box score and team offensive results, and the defensive value of the steal is already accounted for too in defensive plus minus metrics

It's not double counting. Your post was quoting a study looking at the effect of steals on defense? My point was that we should also be looking at the effect of steals on offense because my guess Jordan's Bulls did much better on offense in games he got more steals.

getting a steal is part of defense. getting fastbreaks after steals is part of offense

and this thread is comparing defense so i dont get why you argue for jordan fastbreak game as part of his defensive impact

[Djoker]

that sounds like double counting offense: jordan superior fastbreak game after a steal is already accounted for in offensive metrics. box score and team offensive results, and the defensive value of the steal is already accounted for too in defensive plus minus metrics

It's not double counting. Your post was quoting a study looking at the effect of steals on defense? My point was that we should also be looking at the effect of steals on offense because my guess Jordan's Bulls did much better on offense in games he got more steals.

getting a steal is part of defense. getting fastbreaks after steals is part of offense

and this thread is comparing defense so i dont get why you argue for jordan fastbreak game as part of his defensive impact

I just commented on that particular study; that it should have looked at the impact of steals on both defense and offense.

But yes this is a defensive comparison thread. Let's collectively drop it.

[Dupp]

I agree with peak kawhi, career MJ.

However once kawhi took on a sizeable offensive load his defense wasn’t as good as Jordan’s. One could assume, (and it’s only an assumption it can’t be proved) that if Jordan was playing in the role kawhi was early in his career he might of peaked higher defensively.


It’s not apples and oranges because Jordan came into the league amd was soon elite at both ends and the load of doing so is something kawhi could never do.