I readily admit that Lebron is a good (even great) defender. I never disputed that fact. I was just saying that he did not always take the opponent's best wing player on defense. Shane always does. Had the Cavs asked Lebron to focus predominantly on defense and less on offense, then sure, Lebron could probably be the best defensive wing in the league, hands down. But the fact is that he does not (nor should he, since he's such a great offensive force). Battier does concentrate predominantly on defense, and it shows on the court. I'm not saying that Battier is light years ahead of Lebron. I'm just saying that Battier gets the edge over him in my book, since Battier exclusively takes the tough cover. Rick Adelman has never had to switch Battier off a top offensive opponent in order for him to "save his energy for offense". The Cavs often did that with Lebron. And that was the right choice for the Cavs. It is what it is. Also, Alvin Choo, you raise a pretty good point about Bowen's ability to guard opposing PGs, although I think that Battier would have had no problem guarding Jason Kidd in the 2003 NBA Finals.
Carl Herrera was right when he said that Shane had great defensive court vision. I actually think that's his greatest attribute, if not the only thing he's really great at. It seems like he's a bit overrated in other aspects of his game, atleast on this board. I don't think his anticipation and lateral movement is even close to Bowen and Artest of a few years ago. Battier's man defense is extremely overrated. He hardly ever anticipates a move and beats his man to the position, forcing him to make a bad play. Which is understandable, he isn't really quick enough to do that. Shane reacts to movement. He backpedals - cutting off the drive and shading him towards the center. Generally he concedes the mid-range shot, something he readily admits to (conceding anything is a big no no for most great man defenders). Battier is, however, one of the most defensively intelligent players i've ever seen. But, I think his style of defense depends heavily on his teammates being able to help when necessary. I don't think he would look nearly as good on a poor defensive team. For instance, if you switch out Marion for Battier on those Suns teams I think their defensive efficiency gets slightly worse. Yes, I feel Battier is the better overall defender but Marion is the better rebounder and man defender. Shane would be shading his man towards Amare who isn't a competent low post defender. Marion had the lateral quickness to stay with his man more often without having to give up lower percentage shots or funnel his man to the center. I think Bima Thug made the comparison to KG, an excellent comparison. Both are guys who I think are elite overall defenders but in a 1on1 situation they can easily be exploited. They are great at knowing where to be and how to react but they lack the physical tools (strength with KG, and athleticism with Battier) to stop someone.
Great post. You did a much better job articulating the point I had hoped to make. For Shane, its about limiting the damage as effectively as possible. The intelligence and discipline that takes is great in its own right and puts him in the top 98th percentile in the league. But for the truly elite of the elite, the objective and the outcome is making sure there isn't any damage at all. Shane Battier is Greg Maddux. He'll paint the plate and get you to hit it directly at his fielders, but the best you can hope for with the bases loaded and no outs is to limit the damage to one run. He can't come in and throw heat for three successive K's like Ron Artest in 2003 could.
Not a bad list overall, but I think Kelly's Bulls' fandom got to him putting Hinrich on the list. Hinrich is the best in the league at fighting through picks, and that's huge, but after that, his defense isn't spectacular. My list would be similar, here it is: 1. Duncan 2. Battier 3. Garnett 4. Ben Wallace 5. Mutombo 6. Bowen 7. Artest 8. Kobe Bryant 9. Kidd 10. Mourning (I'd like to put Gary Payton on the list, but I honestly don't remember how good he was in 1999-2000. Payton from 1995 would be 2nd on my list.)
i think it's conclusive that battier is NOT the 2nd best defender of the past decade. duncan/kg/wallace are EASILY the top 3 (they have the most accolades, plus have led some of the best defensive teams in league history). after that, it's then really your choice. kobe has been a terrible defender the past 4-5 years since shaq left. i haven't seen him "slowed down" anybody and the lakers haven't been one of the elite defensive teams for a long time. jkidd should be hiher than kobe on your list b/c he was a BEAST in new jersey, and still to now guards some of the elite scorers, which kobe rarely does. it's like lookin back 10 years from now and saying chris paul is one of the best 10 defenders of the decade, which is laughable (and yet he has made 1st team defense) battier should belong in the 5-6 area w/ bowen/artest.
I would say that Lebron is lightyears away from being the defensive player that battier is. Lebron is a straight up highlight defender and thats it. If Lebron didnt get his blocks from behind (normally they are actually goaltending as the ball has already touched the backboard) on break-aways, no one would say he's a good defensive player. He is a straight up gambling defender, who if you watch enough cavs games, which i do because i live in Ohio, you will see that his man gets alot of open shots because he goes for a steal or a highlight block. He is a terrible team defender, and vastly over rated on the defensive end.
Decided to give my take on the Top 10 Rocket defenders, and yes, I was bored. 1. Deke May be overrating him out of respect and just the sheer joy of being able to watch him play, as he didn't log that many minutes as a Rocket and had been out of his prime for a long while. His biggest weakness, more so than P&R was letting stronger players muscle him up and get deep post position. We even saw Greg Oden able to score on him 1-on-1 several times in Game 1. But his help defense was still superb, as he'd almost completely shut down any one attacking the rim. 2. Battier His defense has been discussed ad naseum, but I'll discuss it some more. He certainly shouldn't be ranked ahead of Deke, Duncan, and other bigs as big men simply impact the game more. But he is a damn good defender and for the most part I don't think he's overrated. The people who think so seem to be uneducated about the NBA. Most players have their jobs because of their offense, especially wings and PG's. There isn't this horde of great swingmen defenders that Battier has to compare against to be considered the best. Also, people act like he didn't do a great job against Kobe despite the fact that on mostly single coverage from Battier (allowing the Rockets to pay more attention to Gaso), Kobe put up averages of 27.8 PPG, 45.3 FG%, 3.7 APG. The FG%, and APG are well below his season averages of 46.7%, 4.9 APG. He increased his PPG for what should be an obvious reason, he shot more. He's the star, and it's the playoffs. This is Kobe Bryant we're talking about, so I'm not sure what people needed to see to say Battier played him well. Shane kept him away from the rim, off the FT line, limited his passing lanes, and made him exert a ton of energy in making ridiculous shots-so much so that the Rockets were often able to expose Kobe on D since he had to rest at that end. Kobe has had his share of terrible playoff series, but he's quite a lot better than the younger version of himself playing next to Shaq, and the more recent ones come from great team defenses, such as Detroit & Boston. I don't think Kobe's played so poorly against primarily single coverage since his prime. I don't know if anyone remembers this from Game 6, but late in the 1st quarter when Shane was taken out of the game, Kobe actually walked up to Phil and asked to go in the game during his usual rest time (Phil turned him down). That shows a lot of respect for what Battier was doing out there. Shane also plays very good help defense, and in past seasons was unrivaled at transition D (his injury this season coupled with LeBron's emergence knocked him off). You also know he's not going to take a night off, and play 100% on D every game. 3. Yao I kind of wanted to put him at #1, but I can't ignore the abillity to expose him when you have a shooter at the 5 spot, something that really hurt us against Utah. But if you doubt Yao's ability to change games defensively when he's able to stay in the paint, look at how much the Rockets improved defensively in his rookie year. They went from dead last in the league to 13th defensively. The addition of James Posey and a healthy Francis playing all year certainly helped, but Yao has to be given much of the credit for the turnaround. His sheer size makes it difficult for anyone to finish unless they have a lot of momentum and can speed their way past him. 4. Cato He was always pretty solid, but I'm ranking him here because of the outstanding season he had in '03-04 starting at PF next to Yao. This included back to back games against San Antonio where he held Duncan to 8/21 for 22 points, then 2/10 for 8 points. He always held his ground and forced tough shots in the paint, and provied excellent weakside help for Yao. 5. Artest It's become cool to hate on Artest now that he's a Laker, but there was nothing wrong with his defense last season. Sure he got burned by Roy and Kobe, but those guys don't have the reputations they do because they suck. Like I said earlier, there's not this great group of defenders shutting down stars on a nightly basis. He's not the stopper he once was, but he still provides a great level of toughness and intensity, and did a good job helping on dribble penetration. He himself is much easier to take off the dribble now, but he does a good job of recovering and still contesting. And who can forget the stellar job he did on LeBron? 6. Hayes Now this is a guy who's defense is becoming a bit overrated. First of all, he's so poor at offense that he can't be on the floor that much, which does lower his value. It's also easier for your man to score if he doesn't have to even regard you when you're on offense. He is a very good 1-on-1 defender, in the high or low post, doesn't give up ground and still makes a tough contest despite his height. But his help defense underneath is limited to charges, which is OK in short bursts, but is easy to exploit if he's out there all game. The blocked shot is a much bigger threat to slashers and cutters. 7. Lowry I know he's only had a cup of tea with the Rockets, but the guy is so promising as a defender I just couldn't leave him off. He's one of the strongest players at the postion, and has the IQ and lateral quickness to stick with anyone and take away passing opportunities. If he can procure a starting spot, I could see him getting All-Defensive team respect. 8. Jim Jackson At this point in the list I'm dipping more torwards solid than good, but JJ had length and gave good effort at the defensive end, something he was never known for earlier in his career. Got to love JVG. 9. Cat Known as an offensive guy, but he always gave decent performances on D. His stats against top wings like Kobe, T-Mac, Carter, Iverson are respectable. Granted, Kobe & Iverson both dropped 50+ on him, but it wasn't from lack of effort. 10. Hakeem Can't say my memory is too crystal clear going back this far, but he still blocked some shots, and he's Hakeem, so I don't want to leave him off the list. HM's: Scola- His interior defense is shaky, but other than KG I can't think of another big who defends the P&R any better Alston- albiet usually outplayed by his opponent, he never was burned that badly by star PG's, and came up with many clutch steals Bob Sura- tough SOB Francis- Never gave much effort at D, but his athleticism made him servicable Posey- Not here for long, and not as good as he was with Miami or Boston Wesley- Ridicously undersized, but did a fair job against dribble penetration
Justafriend, I like how you put the all time shot blocker as number 10 on your list, but the runner up in shots blocked is number 1. Hmmm...
Battier is #1, Hayes should be in there, Mutombo should be higher, Artest is not a rocket and the rest is a non-issue.
the last decade would have to include hakeem, the latter end of his career, but he was a defensive monster nonetheless
KD got a big plus in my book for dissing Camby. I love it when people point out that averaging a bunch of blocks and rebounds does NOT make you a good defensive player. imo camby is one of the most overrated defensive players in the league today. to the guy who made the list of best rockets defenders, hakeem is #1. period. i dont care what any of those other guys did, nobody on your list is anywhere near the defensive presence that hakeem was. he blocked shots like deke, stole the ball like artest, had strength and length in the post, contested strong side and weak side, was quick enough to guard the pick and roll, and rebounded well too. even as great defensively as deke is/was, he never had the complete defensive skillset that hakeem did. also def agree with those discussing battier's merits as a team defender vs. 1 on 1 defender. although i think you guys sell him short in his man defense, i would say its less of a strong point for him as he has aged and lost quickness/explosiveness (well, whatever explosiveness he ever had, heh). his real value is in his understanding of what it is that the other team/player is trying to do, and how to most effectively neutralize that. duncan does the same thing, and imo duncan is #1 despite a little less in terms of physical skillset than KG. great topic tho, and overall i think KD's top 10 is hard to disagree with (especially if we only consider players with a "name"), even if I would have the players in a different order.
Not bad, justafriend. At least you spelled everybody's name right. You are seriously underestimating Hakeem Olajuwon defensively. Hakeem was technically undersized as a center (he was listed as 7', but he was probably 6'10"), but he was one of those rare big man defenders whom you could make a case for being able to guard every position on the floor. The Dream was Kevin Garnett before Kevin Garnett. Sometimes people were tempted to challenge Olajuwon because he really wasn't as big a guy as may have appeared to be to the rest of us. but that just gave him the chance to block as many shots as he did. Kelvin Cato on his best day wasn't as good defensively as Hakeem was on his worst day. As a big man, almost more importantly than challenging shots is securing defensive rebounds to finish possessions. Hakeem could block shots and change shots, scare people out of shots, and when all else failed and somebody got a shot off anyway, he got the rebound. Swap Hakeem with Cato in you're list, and then you'd only have to move Hakeem ahead of Yao Ming and Shane Battier, and I wouldn't be as mad. Cuttino Mobley was an excellent defender, too. If you're rating Kyle Lowry higher than him, that's a boo-boo, too. Top five Rockets defenders (last 10 years) for me: 1) Hakeem Olajuwon. 2) Dikembe Mutumbo 3) Yao Ming 4) Chuck Hayes 5) Shane Battier 6) Cuttino Mobley/Ron Artest 7) Kelvin Cato 8) Jim Jackson 9) David Wesley 10) James Posey Ask me why later, if you're interested.....
I'll be honest, I was very young and didn't see much of the 99-00 & 00-01 seasons, didn't become an every game watcher until 01-02. But I really doubt he was that great at defense in the later stages of his career. If we're talking all-time Rockets defenders, Hakeem isn't #1, he's 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5. But this is a guy that was in his late 30's and struggled with injury. I also think Toronto fans wouldn't have whined nearly as much about Hakeem if he was still such a great defender, or that he would've been beat out of the starting lineup by Keon Clark. But hey, I could easily be wrong since I watched so few of the games. And Cuttino was far from excellent, he's given up more than his fair share of 50+ point games. He's not nearly as gifted as Lowry on the defensive end, but I can see that most wouldn't include someone who only played half a season.
IMO this is one of the biggest misconceptions on this forum, and one that I see thrown around a lot. You're waaaaaaaay overstating how much time Battier spent guarding better offensive players compared to Lebron. You think West and Pavlovic spent more time guarding the opponent's best wing than Artest did? Hell, wasn't it Artest, and not Battier, who usually guarded Lebron when we played the Cavs? I actually came across this article just the other day, and I think it's appropriate for this discussion (scroll about a quarter of the way down the page to get to the part about the Cavs). Hmm. How does the statement in bold make any kind of sense if Lebron doesn't usually guard the opponent's best wing? I mean, Brown literally says they had "no one" when Lebron went out. Why no mention of West or Pavlovic? Could you imagine Adelman saying something like "When Battier went out, we had no one to guard Lebron, Paul Pierce, or some of those guys [Rashard Lewis, Hedu Turkoglu, Mickael Pietrus] with Orlando."? I couldn't, because the Cavs were much more dependent on Lebron to guard the opponents best wing than we were dependent on Battier.
