The Give and Go: Best Defenders

Credit:  AP Photo/Nell Redmond

The Give and Go is a quick back and forth between Paul Mitchell and Chris St. Jean about a relevant subject in the NBA at that moment.

Chris:  Alright Mitchell, recently Michael Kidd-Gilchrist proclaimed that he wants to be the best defender to ever play the game. That’s a lofty goal, but it may not be as far fetched as it seems.  I noticed his name come up in this John Schumann tweet:

Largest on-off-court NetRtg differential, led by a couple of MVP candidates: pic.twitter.com/0UoI2n2Tt4
— John Schuhmann (@johnschuhmann) March 12, 2015

The Hornets’ Defensive Rating drops by 8.4 points per 100 possessions when Kidd-Gilchrist is on the floor compared to when he’s off which Schumann has ranked as the third best defensive impact by that metric.  He’s been great this season, so it’s not all that surprising, but he’s only 21, so how good can he be defensively in three years?

Who do you think is the best defender in the NBA?  Who do you think are regarded as the best defenders of all time?  And do you think Kidd-Gilchrist can achieve his lofty goal?

Paul: All-time territory is a different topic altogether but there’s no question that Michael Kidd-Gilchrist is already in the conversation for best perimeter defenders in the league. Individual defensive metrics are still far from perfect and all-encompassing, but MKG ranks 14th among players (to appear in at least 40 games) in defensive rating, behind established defenders like Andrew Bogut, Tony Allen, Draymond Green, Jared Dudley, Steph Curry, and Nick Calathes (wait, what?).

Kidd-Gilchrist clearly passes the eye test as a defender, as a former #2 overall pick who definitely wasn’t drafted because of his jump shot or for his offensive contributions. The jumper is looking better and producing tangible results, keeping him on the court in late-game situations for the Charlotte Hornets, and his size and willingness to play physically allows him to guard almost every position; although I’m a bit surprised he’s averaging just 0.6 blocks and steals per game.

The issue is that the field is kiiiiiinda stacked. I’m optimistic that in the next couple of seasons we’ll see an increase in national love (i.e. Defensive Player of the Year award voting) for the wing defenders, given the value that teams place on “3-and-D” and two-way players. And even though the job might be technically impossible in today’s NBA, there’s getting to be a considerable amount of point guard defenders too, along with all of the rim-protecting bigs who always dominate the DPOY ballots.

I’m not quite ready to put Kidd-Gilchrist above some of the more-established guys, like Tony Allen or Kawhi Leonard or some of the previous award-winners (Marc Gasol, Joakim Noah). His ability to guard wing-scorers might put him ahead of on-ball-pests like Avery Bradley or Patrick Beverley, although given the importance of point guards in NBA offenses and some of the scoring threats from the position, it’s really tough to differentiate between the different defensive roles.

To put it into historical context is even more difficult. At least when comparing offensive players from different generations there are numbers to bolster or refute every argument, but with defense, statisticians didn’t even track blocks or steals in the box scores until the ABA started doing it in the late-’60’s/early-’70’s. The only way to compare the impact of ball-hounds like Marcus Smart or Clyde Frazier, or lockdown wings like MKG to all-timers like Scottie Pippen, or bigs like the GOAT, Bill Russell, to current paint protectors like Rudy Gobert, is anecdotally. But good luck getting an honest and unbiased assessment from first-hand witnesses of all-time legends towards today’s All Stars, without the “all they do is travel and dunk!” argument clouding the discussion.

So how do you evaluate and rank defenders, or at least the different defender archetypes? Then how do you place that within a historical frame of reference? Can we at least agree that MKG is among the upper-echelon of impact defensive players, and that the list is getting pretty deep?

Chris:

I totally agree that MKG is on the brink of Tony Allen-esque defensive play and that the list is getting deep and continues to get deeper. One of the things that stood out to me about this rookie class was how many of these impact players flipped the rookie stereotype on its head and were ready to contribute defensively right away as the offense developed.  In the past, the more traditional route for NBA rookies was that their defensive liabilities kept them from seeing enough minutes to have an impact at all.

This year’s rookie class is almost the inverse of that.  Andrew Wiggins, Marcus Smart, Dante Exum, Elfrid Payton, and Aaron Gordon are all top ten picks that are were billed (correctly) as players that would immediately affect the game with their defense and may struggle offensively.  Throw Nerlens Noel in from last year and he fits that mold as well.

And next year’s class has a number of possible middle to late lottery guys with the same type of defensive-first pedigree including Stanley Johnson, Willy Cauley-Stein, Justise Winslow, Kelly Oubre, Rondae Hollis-Jefferson, Myles Turner, and even Kris Dunn.

That’s a bit of a strange trend in the NBA but it may also be due to defense being valued more by NBA front offices as ways of manufacturing offense has been ‘unlocked’ over the last 5-10 years.  Much of that ‘unlocking’ of offense may have to do with the statistical revolution in professional sports and we may see that same type of thing happen as we become better at measuring defense.

Just before the MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference, Kirk Goldsberry wrote his Department of Defense column based on the research paper by Alexander Franks and Andrew Miller that attempted to develop ways of measuring defense.  The tidbits that Goldsberry dropped were simultaneously unsurprising and mind-blowing.

Chris Paul’s defensive shot chart was a vast wasteland of poor shooting and it made me recalibrate the defensive impact he has at the most difficult position in the NBA to play.  In two to three years, I’m sure we’ll be using defensive shot charts in our everyday writing and it helps illustrate an aggregate of great defensive possessions that until then my mind couldn’t compute.

The few shot charts that were included illustrated the following:

• Chris Paul is way better defensively than he gets credit for and he generally gets credit for being a good defensive player.
• Harden was a terrible defensive player last season (I know, revelatory.)
• Kawhi’s defensive impact is highly influenced by the Spurs defensive system that is essentially geared to taking away 3-point field goals.
• Duncan is effective basically anywhere inside the three point line.
• Hibbert is an exceptional rim protector but as soon as you pull him out into some space his strengths become liabilities.
• And despite what NBA players may think of Dwight Howard, they are literally afraid to enter the paint when he’s in the game.

Also of note from that column, Nick Calathes was the third best backcourt defender in the NBA based on Franks’ and Miller’s points against metric.  Wait.  Nick Calathes again?  

After all of that Mitchell, I think it’s clear:  Nick Calathes is obviously the best defender in the NBA. There’s your target MKG.