Ranking the Best Defensive Point Guards in the NBA

refuse to click on it because its Bleacher

 

Any article which lists Rondo as #1 and Rubio #33 as the best defensive PG, I take it with a grain of salt. Maybe the guy took the stats from two years ago.

It's Bleacher Report. Some bball novice must've come up with a system that can actually tabulate the defensive impact and submitted to a BR columnist for publication.

You did the right thing!

 

Jeremy should be top 5 IMO

 

Ha! That's funny..

 

What? No Patrick Beverley?

 

I remember Derek Fisher going off on Rubio.

 

What's there to read?

When the house doesn't look straight, then the foundation must be off! Why should I need to spend time investigating what went wrong with the foundation?

 

I'm not sold on the methodology, but if you read the description of the stats used to come up with the new ranking stats, the writer clearly understands each of the component stats. That's a pretty good sign that this is more than just the usual Bleacher Report drivel.

At the very least, I'd encourage some folks to read the first part of the article. Maybe you don't care what the rankings are, but the stat descriptions are spot-on, particularly the weaknesses of each. It's a nice primer.

 

After reading the actual rankings I'd say this guy does a better job than most of the crap being spouted by the talking heads on ESPN. He's clearly at least done the research, both on the numbers and in actually watching the players. For example, he doesn't take for granted that Rondo is bailed out by Garnett, and actually counted the number of plays where that happened during his "scouted" games.

The stat normalization and adjustments bother me, but at least he puts the raw numbers there so you can look at them yourselves. Honestly, for Bleacher Report, this is pretty good stuff. It's not Jack Slack (combat sports) level, but it's a good read.

 

I think Lin is actually an above average defensive PG. The problem is the pace we play at and even if you put Derek Rose in this system his defensive stats would go way down.

The Rockets need a more balanced attack. The high tempo game is great against a few teams. But, the key to winning championships is playing smart offense. You work that 24 second clock on offense and make the opposing team guard you. When you do this, it becomes much easier to play good defense late in the game because you still have energy.

If you simply run and gun all night long, you're going to receive the same treatment from the opposing team and if the opposing team knows how to play defense, then you're ****ed. Which is why Mike D'Antoni and Don Nelson type coaches do not win in the NBA. Smart offense absorbs the shot clock, they don't shoot the ball early and let the opposing team have an easy fast break.

 

The day I will actually go through a BR slideshow is never. That website is horrible for sports fans.

 

Here in lies the fundamental flaw

 

This report and xRAPM both rank LIN at 10, but this one sync with xRAPM very poorly.

 

I will say this about Rondo:

1. Rondo had the talent to be #1 IF he wanted to. More times than not, he gave little effort or just plain lazy. How do I know he was lazy? He played at elite level in defense in post seasons OR when the Celtics were televised lived on national TV.

2. Rondo, purposely or not, often let his man past him and tried to poke the ball out from behind. This happened a lot and it's NOT fundamental defense. It's lazy and gambling defense, just racking up his steal stats.

3. Rondo cheated the passing lanes by often turned his back to his man when the ball was not in their hands, trying to jump the lanes and steal the ball. If he missed, wide open shots for his man. If not, he racked up another steal. He did this way too often than it should.

Most diehard Celtics fans will agree that Rondo shouldn't rank top 3 defensively. I don't think his performance last season deserved to be even in top 10.

 

Rubio is a top 5 PG defender. He may have been off a little bit coming back from significant injury but if you study the totality of his game from his rookie season he's a top 5 pg defender. I have no doubt that his defense will once again elevate this season as he moves away from his injury. He has great defensive length, he bodies up very well, and he's one of the smartest defensive players in the league.

 

He said Rose ball watches and gets beaten off the dribble all the time yet had him as the highest basketball intelligence, i couldn't really figure it out because ball watching even your own man is about the lowest defensive BBIQ ability around.

 

Yeah I'm not sold on the scouting, but to be perfectly honest I haven't taken the time to watch ~1-2 hours of footage on every single point guard in the NBA just to compare them, so I'm not going to say I know all of Rose's tendencies any more than the writer. At the very least it looks like he's done the work, which as I said is more than you could argue for a lot of supposed "experts" out there.

For one, a lot of people disagree on the fundamental nature of basketball defense, particularly at the NBA level. Like, some people seem to think it's "bad" defense to give up the drive as long as you funnel your man into the waiting big man, because they think you're just letting yourself get beat and relying on your teammate to bail you out. Well, if you're a guard in the NBA, some would argue that you're going to get beat anyway, so you are better off focusing on not letting your man get the open 3 and making him run into some bodies in order to get the easy shot at the rim. Trying to do more than that just asks to give your guy a charge or an And-1. It wouldn't be fair under the latter assumption to penalize your guards for doing exactly what they should be doing and relying on their taller teammates to defend the paint.

As I said, the good part is in the beginning, when he explains and breaks down the issues with each of the stats he uses. If that article was only used as a primer on available advanced defensive stats, I'd say that would make it a decent read in and of itself.

 

In my honest opinion, and I don't care what you guys say. Derrick is the most overrated and overhyped PG.