Any list of all time defenders has to start with Bill Russell. The rest of the top ten: 2) Hakeem Olajuwon 3) Gary Payton 4) D. Mutoumbo 5) Walt Frazier 6) M Jordan 7) Dennis Johnson 8) Pippen 9) Ben Wallace 10) Dwight Howard.
All I know, put Gasol, Noah and Lebron or any random bad defensive team and Gasol and Noah would make that defensive better faster. If you want to take the argument that centers are more valuable to a defense and that Lebron is more versatile then you can't discount Tony Allen who had guarded KD effectively in the playoffs multiple years. Either way, you need to make up your mind which way you want to argue this. Lebron is far from the best defender in THIS nba.
All the elite centers of the day had worse stats when they faced Olajuwon. Please tell me how Olajuwon is overrated defensively. I want to here this.
I probably misspoke on this. I think help defenders that are flashy and block shots seem to trump positional (mostly stationary) defenders. A good example of this is the case of Charles Oakley over say Serge Ibaka. Serge is a rim protector but Oakley is a defensive anchor. There is a subtlety to great positional defenders that many fans don't see and can't evaluate properly and even if they COULD see it, they would still favor the more athletic player and discount the positional defender as being: "limited." Olajuwon is of course a great rim protector and he is one of the top defenders who ever played the game because of his athletic ability, but there is a reason that the rockets were never a great defensive team in the vain of the Spurs, becuase Hakeem relied on himself (or tried to do it all himself), Timmy communicated more and got his teammates in position to play great defense. If I had a choice I'd choose Timmy because he knew how to anchor an entire defense. Whereas dream didn't know this, dream functioned as more of the eraser. Still Hakeem was a great individual defender, for what it is worth.
I have to shake my head at the lack of centers on this list. Are you really telling me, for example, that if you start a team today to create the best defense possible, David Robinson won't make top-10? That you'd start with Gary Payton or Dennis Rodman over him? And it's not just DRob. Mourning, Wallace, guys who anchor some of the best defenses year in and year out, and I'm sure some guys back in the 80s too that I don't really know about. It's pretty amazing how little the media care about paint defense when NBA GMs consistently pay premium for it. Maybe this is just a case of me overrating Mutumbo, but having watched both Hakeem and Deke in their primes, I've always thought Deke was better over a longer stretch of time on defense. Of the players listed, I honestly would've ranked Mutumbo 2.
Dream was so good defensively that he allowed two to three of his teammates to leak out offensively for the fastbreak. Guys like Drexler, Kenny Smith, etc. could let their men go by them and leak out for Hakeem to alter/block the shot, get back to his own man when needed, get the rebound AND make the outlet pass. Those team defense guys you mentioned can talk and get everyone on the same page, but needed their teammates to help to get the defensive board and recover onto their men to secure the defensive possession, but are unable to turn singlehandedly turn defense into offense. And, this is coming from someone who lived in Winston-Salem before, home of the Demon Deacons, and a big Duncan fan.
I think Olajuwon was a great positional defender, though relatively less great because he was a bit undersized. The reason the Rockets weren't great defensive teams were the rest of the players.
Deke couldn't defend Dream Dream could defend everyone <iframe width="420" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/mUtJmDgIFI8" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> http://www.basketball-reference.com/boxscores/199402220HOU.html
I don't believe he really knows much about Houston Rockets basketball http://www.basketball-reference.com/boxscores/199402220HOU.html <PRE> Basi Starters MP FG FGA FG% 3P 3PA 3P% FT FTA FT% ORB DRB TRB AST STL BLK TOV PF PTS Dikembe Mutombo 42:00 5 9 .556 0 0 5 5 1.000 1 9 10 0 1 2 2 2 15 Reggie Williams 39:00 6 16 .375 0 5 .000 3 3 1.000 3 7 10 5 3 0 2 3 15 Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf 36:00 5 13 .385 0 2 .000 2 2 1.000 0 3 3 6 1 0 2 1 12 Bryant Stith 35:00 4 12 .333 1 1 1.000 2 2 1.000 5 0 5 5 2 0 2 3 11 LaPhonso Ellis 28:00 9 11 .818 0 0 1 2 .500 4 2 6 1 0 0 1 5 19 Reserves MP FG FGA FG% 3P 3PA 3P% FT FTA FT% ORB DRB TRB AST STL BLK TOV PF PTS Robert Pack 19:00 1 6 .167 1 1 1.000 2 2 1.000 0 1 1 4 1 0 3 2 5 Bison Dele 16:00 3 5 .600 0 0 0 0 1 3 4 1 1 1 1 3 6 Rodney Rogers 14:00 4 8 .500 1 2 .500 3 4 .750 1 1 2 1 1 3 2 3 12 Tom Hammonds 11:00 1 3 .333 0 0 0 0 0 1 1 2 0 0 0 1 2 Team Totals 240 38 83 .458 3 11 .273 18 20 .900 15 27 42 25 10 6 15 23 97 </PRE> <PRE> Basi Starters MP FG FGA FG% 3P 3PA 3P% FT FTA FT% ORB DRB TRB AST STL BLK TOV PF PTS Hakeem Olajuwon 46:00 15 28 .536 0 0 3 4 .750 6 7 13 3 1 5 4 3 33 Vernon Maxwell 40:00 5 13 .385 2 5 .400 1 2 .500 1 1 2 8 2 2 5 3 13 Robert Horry 35:00 6 16 .375 0 1 .000 6 8 .750 4 5 9 5 1 1 2 4 18 Otis Thorpe 34:00 7 9 .778 0 0 0 0 5 6 11 3 1 1 2 5 14 Kenny Smith 21:00 1 5 .200 1 5 .200 2 2 1.000 0 1 1 1 1 0 0 1 5 Reserves MP FG FGA FG% 3P 3PA 3P% FT FTA FT% ORB DRB TRB AST STL BLK TOV PF PTS Scott Brooks 30:00 3 6 .500 1 1 1.000 3 5 .600 0 2 2 4 0 0 0 3 10 Carl Herrera 15:00 0 3 .000 0 0 0 0 1 1 2 0 0 0 0 0 0 Mario Elie 10:00 0 1 .000 0 0 0 0 0 1 1 2 0 0 2 1 0 Matt Bullard 8:00 2 3 .667 1 2 .500 0 0 0 1 1 3 0 0 0 0 5 Eric Riley 1:00 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 Team Totals 240 39 84 .464 5 14 .357 15 21 .714 17 25 42 29 6 9 15 20 98 </PRE>
1. Bostjan Nochbar 2. Ming Yao 3. Steven Novak 4. Chuck Wagon 5. The Mooch 6. Royce White 7. Matt Bullard 8. Scott Padgett 9. Nana Papa Yaw Mensah-Bonsu 10. David Andersen
No you didnt. If you had actually watched that series you would have noticed that Hakeem held Ewing to: 36% shooting for the entire series. Rockets didnt need to cover Ewing with anyone else. Hakeem was all was needed to shut Ewing down. Not as a help defender, but man to man, position defense. Knicks had to try to use Ewing, Mason, Smith, and Oakley to guard Hakeem....with plenty of Ewing as a help side defender. None of that worked of course. Hakeem still shot over 50% for the series. Again, worth repeating....Hakeem held a top 50 all time NBA player to a 36% shooting for the entire 7 game series. So there goes your Hakeem not a good positional defender argument down the drain. This is not the first time you have tried to pretend you knew those Rockets team. You have been exposed earlier as well. You will have to up your game if you are going to fake knowing about the championship Rockets teams on this forum.
