A 5 man starting line up of: C - Olajuwon PF - Garnett SF - Leonard SG - Jordan PG - Robertson That is the best 5 I personally have seen. Tim Duncan is the hardest to keep out of my starting 5 as he is one of the 3-4 best defenders I have ever seen. Others hard to keep off were Moncrief, Payton, Cheeks... Jabbar, Pippen, Cooper, Malone, Christie, Ewing and an engaged LeBron James and Chris Bosh and Roy Tarpley. Easy to keep off? Kobe Bryant (he was a good defender for about 18 months).... David Robinson (never showed up defensively in pressure spots) and Magic Johnson.
For Rodman, I think his only competition would be Duncan, but I count Duncan as a center. I don't think Garnett was as good overall, but I think KG was overrated then and still is, so call me biased if you want to. Just remember, Bulls' Rodman guarded young Shaq and more than held his own. Individual defense was not the best aspect of his defense, anyway, even though he was great at it. And, if you consider rebounding a part of defense, then he pulls so much ahead of literally everyone. I consider rebounding a third part of basketball, I haven't seen him as a Piston in his athletic prime, and I still think he was the greatest power forward defender. For Pippen, Bulls' Pippen, I just don't see a comp. Kawhi is the closest, perhaps for his consistency, but he doesn't play as big and he definitely wasn't the athlete Pippen was in his prime. Next closest is LeBron. Even Laker LeBron does some things that make me as a hater appreciate him. Specifically the way he plays transition defense and I'm not talking about his overrated chase down blocks. He literally defends two on one breaks by himself. Not sure if he intimidates or if his defensive IQ is just that high that he causes players to make mistakes on what should be a successful break. He had a year in Miami where he played epic defense. My guess is he stopped playing that type of defense because he didn't win DPoY. Anyway, you could tell that Pippen watched Jordan closely, learned a lot from him, and was gifted enough physically and athletically to apply what he learned exceptionally well. Then there's Jordan, for as great as Rodman and Pippen were, Jordan was clearly better. His defensive footwork was as good as his offensive footwork. I have seen random games from his DPoY award year (years?) and it was just incredible the way he racked up steals and blocks and lost so few of his gambles. Wade was once compared to him defensively when Wade was blocking shots left and right, but again, no comparison. For me, you ain't scoring in any era against Payton, Jordan, Pippen, Rodman, and Hakeem. Payton, Jordan, and Dream were very similar in footwork and hands. Pippen and Rodman were very unselfish and self-sacrificing defensively for as skilled as they were and for the amount of prim a Donna in them.
