Great Defenders Who Never Made an All-Defensive Team

Everyone (myself included) complains when Kobe get named first team all-defense every year, but I thought it would be interesting to name some guys who were great defenders but never got recognized for it by being selected to an all-defensive team. Here are some guys who came to mind for me:

Shawn Marion - Can guard 4 positions. Averaged over 2 steals and a block per game from 2001-08. Piled up defensive win shares. For his career, when he's on the court his teams have allowed an opponent ORting of 104.8 and when he's off the court opponents have had a 107.2 ORtng.

Vernon Maxwell - It's been well-documented how much trouble he gave MJ. The best wing defender on some great defensive teams. It helped that he had Dream to cover for his mistakes, but Max was still a great defender in his own right.

Chuck Hayes - We all know how good Chuck is. Great help defender, immovable post defender, and quick enough to check wings. For his career, opposing team ORtg when he's on the floor: 103.1. Off the floor? 107.4. It's a travesty that he didn't make an all-defensive team in 2010 or 2011.

Michael Cage - Eff that guy and his stupid greasy jheri curl. He could defend though.

EDIT: Marc Gasol too, but I think he'll make it this year.

You could probably add Yao to the list, but I don't know if he was really a great defender, per se. That said, he made a huge impact on defense just because of his sheer size.

Who would you guys add?

 

Both have made multiple all-defensive teams.

 

Do you think he was actually a skilled defender? Yao was huge, which meant he had a major impact when it came to protecting the rim, but he was also a liability in pick and rolls and transition defense. Jefferson ate his lunch routinely. So did Carlos Boozer. So did basically any center with a face-up game.

Shawn Bradley also had drastic on/off court splits with regards to opponents ORtg and scores very well in advanced metrics in terms of defense. Most people wouldn't consider him an elite defender either. But really tall guys generally have a huge impact on defense just by being really tall.

I kind of look at Yao's D the same way I view Dwight Howard's offense. There's no denying its effectiveness or impact, but there were still some glaring flaws that would prevent me from calling him a great defensive center. Ultimately it's a matter of semantics.

 

It's not about shutting down every player, he generally had issues with ANY center who had a good offensive game beyond 10 feet.

Pretty much all shotblocking bigs have an effect on the game. Would you consider Yao a great defensive center, the way you would Mourning, Mutombo, Dream, Robinson, Ben Wallace, Howard etc.? I wouldn't. He probably wasn't better defensively than a very old Deke during the latter's first couple years here.

To make a baseball analogy, an above average center fielder is almost always going to be more valuable defensively than the best defensive first baseman in the game. Yao had a big impact on defense because he was a huge center. I'm not disparaging Yao and I'm not denying the effect that 7-footers have on defense. But when you compare him to his peers, that is, others big men who blocked shots, I don't think he particularly stood out as a defender.