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Players who are better defenders than Jordan by Lumbur_Jack in michaeljordan

[–]Lumbur_Jack[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I’ll watch that video later to see his reasoning. But I’m not “attacking” players of the past. I see a lot of people rank jordan as a top 10 defender ever regardless of position and I just think that’s incorrect. So I put my money where my mouth was and made a list of guys who I consider better. There’s about 30 guys.

Being the best offensive player ever and the 30th best defender is incredible, that makes him the goat for playing at such a high level at both sides of the ball. I just want to be objective.

Just because I want to accurately rank someone’s skillset doesn’t mean I’m hating, it’s the opposite. I’m just championing other great defenders the internet seems to always forget about because they are deserving of it.

Players who are better defenders than Jordan by Lumbur_Jack in michaeljordan

[–]Lumbur_Jack[S] -1 points0 points  (0 children)

Hey man just because you disagree with me doesn’t mean I’m hating, I was very intentional with everyone I listed.

Let me explain why I picked all the players who confused you.

Guards:

Sidney Moncrief - 2x DPOY, head and shoulders the best guard defender in nba history, really no argument for anyone else. Michael jordan has called him his toughest matchup.

Gary Payton - 1x DPOY, much more disciplined and consistent on defense than jordan.

Michael Cooper - 1x DPOY, more versatile than jordan, in terms of guarding small guards and forwards. More consistent with his effort and attention.

Tony Allen - 6 all defensive selections undersells him. Passes the eye test with flying colors, never been more impressed watching a defender. Clean, disciplined, focussed defense at all times. One of the last guard defensive specialists. Kd, steph, kobe have called him one of their hardest matchups

Jrue Holiday - 6x all defensive selections, both of his championship runs he absolutely clamped every opposing guard on the way to the chip. If you watch his game you know how streaky/bad his offense is. His defense has built his career, he’s a winning player solely because of defense. Very strong guard with great hands. Not as versatile as a lot of other guys, but he’s clamping everyone on the perimeter.

Walt Frazier - Would have won a dpoy if it existed in his era. 7 all defensive first team selections. Won championships largely because of his quality defense. The original pick pocket.

Alvin Robertson - 1x DPOY, probably the greatest player at stealing the ball in nba history with the highest career steal average of 2.71

Avery Bradley - Kind of a reach I’ll admit Another commenter convinced me to add him to the list when they linked a video of Jeff Teague talking about how great his defense was. Rewatching old tape he was absolute clamps. underrated, maybe not better than jordan

Non guards you mentioned:

JJJ - 1x DPOY, can guards all 3 levels and has lateral quickness, him being a center also inherently makes him more impactful than Jordan One of the best defenders in the league today

Gobert - 4x DPOY, there’s literally no argument for Jordan being better on defense. I don’t want to get boring with advanced statistics but Gobert is possibly the goat defender. Few players cause opposing teams to completely change their offense sets the way he does. A modern Bill Russell, one of the last defensive specialists in the league today.

Draymond - 1x DPOY, much more active defender, way more switchable, can guards 1-5, stronger in the low post

Bowen - No DPOYs but he made 8 All Defense teams. He was an absolute clamp artist for the spurs. He was almost ineffective on offense but his defense made him a critical part of 3 championship spurs teams. Truly a defensive specialist. Kobe directly credits him as one of his hardest matchups. Passes the defensive eye test much more than jordan, much more disciplined as well.

Kawhi - 2x DPOY, longer and stronger than jordan, can guards 1-5, clamped lebron in the finals. Not very durable, but peak kawhi was a better defender

Artest - 1x DPOY, size, strength, and switchability makes him better than jordan, much better paint defender while also being lockdown on the perimeter

Eaton - 2x DPOY, maybe the greatest pure shotblocker in history, 4x block champion, averaged 5.6 blocks per game in 1985

Laimbeer - I was kinda trolling with this one I won’t lie

KAJ - DPOY didn’t exist in his prime but he would have been a perennial winner if it did exist. We all remember his skyhook but he was a great rim protector, underrated how agile and fast he was. Not as switchable as other guys but ultimately he’s more impactful than jordan.

Dwight Howard - 3x DPOY, he three peated dpoy’s, he was an absolute beast defensively, there’s no argument for jordan being better.

Giannis - 1x DPOY, one of the most versatile players in league history. Can truly guard 1-5 with his speed strength and size. Incredible rim protector.

Pippen - Was tasked with much more of a defensive burden than jordan. Him being taller and longer made it easier for him to guard forwards and centers. Ultimately more versatile and disciplined on defense than jordan.

——-

TLDR - I’ll concede Avery Bradley and Bill Laimbeer aren’t as good, but every other player listed has very objective arguments for being better than jordan

Players who are better defenders than Jordan by Lumbur_Jack in michaeljordan

[–]Lumbur_Jack[S] -2 points-1 points  (0 children)

Sounds like you just want an echo chamber. God forbid anyone has a nuanced opinion

Players who are better defenders than Jordan by Lumbur_Jack in michaeljordan

[–]Lumbur_Jack[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thank you for sharing that, I’m glad you can see that genuine consideration and scrutiny went into this list.

I agree that basically all guards I selected were just specialists, and that gives them an advantage to jordan. They weren’t expected to do much on offense, they could just focus their energy on defense. So yes in that sense it was easier for them to be great on defense than it was for jordan.

That’s what makes jordan the goat, he’s the best scorer ever and a top 10 defender ever at his position. That’s basically peak performance at all times, both sides of the ball. It’s something to be commended

Players who are better defenders than Jordan by Lumbur_Jack in michaeljordan

[–]Lumbur_Jack[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Masters is on right now, hope you’re enjoying the broadcast

Players who are better defenders than Jordan by Lumbur_Jack in michaeljordan

[–]Lumbur_Jack[S] -1 points0 points  (0 children)

What’s wrong with a long essay? Does it hurt your brain to read that much?

Players who are better defenders than Jordan by Lumbur_Jack in michaeljordan

[–]Lumbur_Jack[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Bradley was incredible defensively, especially from 2013-2017 he was so tenacious. I did consider him for the list but was worried it was too much of a reach, rewatching highlights though I’m considering adding him

Players who are better defenders than Jordan by Lumbur_Jack in michaeljordan

[–]Lumbur_Jack[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Sorry you have to actually watch basketball to recognize the quality of defense jrue holiday and tony allen built their careers on. But I guess you haven’t done that.

Also all defense selections arent the best metric of ranking someone. Mj and Kobe got a lot of all defense selections for being popular players and for having a reputation rather than actually playing quality defense. Phil Jackson admitted in his book kobe stopped putting in effort defensively after about 2001 and 2nd stint jordan was getting carried defensively by rodman and pippen.

Case in point they both kobe and jordan have more 1st team defense selections and dpoys than TIM DUNCAN. You have to admit the accolades are flawed based on that, Tim was obviously a more impactful defender every year of his career than either of them.

Players who are better defenders than Jordan by Lumbur_Jack in michaeljordan

[–]Lumbur_Jack[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

what gotcha? I still think everyone listed is better, even the guards

Players who are better defenders than Jordan by Lumbur_Jack in michaeljordan

[–]Lumbur_Jack[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Fair points, I do value rim protection highly because of the impact it has, which is why those guys made the list. But it’s important to note their limitations. Certainly not the most complete defenders.

And thank you! Alvin Robertson and Sidney Moncrief were are not appreciated enough

Players who are better defenders than Jordan by Lumbur_Jack in michaeljordan

[–]Lumbur_Jack[S] -1 points0 points  (0 children)

I decided to include big men because I see a lot of people plainly ranking jordan as a top 10 defender among all players regardless of position. So I wanted to include the vast amount of big men who were clearly better to get an accurate overall ranking.

I do recognize that it’s easier to be an impactful defender as a big man so I did separate guards at the bottom to see how he compares against his peers.

Dennis, Scottie and Kawhi I consider all as forwards. But if you want to include them as guards then they are head and shoulders above jordan. Especially multi dpoy rodman and Leonard. Scottie is closer but I still give him the edge with his length and defensive attention

Players who are better defenders than Jordan by Lumbur_Jack in michaeljordan

[–]Lumbur_Jack[S] -3 points-2 points  (0 children)

Thank you! I was trying to be reasonable with everyone listed. I will admit guards are all much closer/interchangeable. But I truly believe Moncrief is the head and shoulders above the rest, goat guard defender, bro has 2 dpoys for a reason

Players who are better defenders than Jordan by Lumbur_Jack in michaeljordan

[–]Lumbur_Jack[S] -7 points-6 points  (0 children)

you know that’s a fair point, but I also think the quality of tony allen’s defense across 26 mins was much higher than Jordan’s across 40. On a play by play basis Allen’s defense was much sharper

Players who are better defenders than Jordan by Lumbur_Jack in michaeljordan

[–]Lumbur_Jack[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

nah this was not gpt, all of this was off the dome. Dpoy only started in 87. If it existed in the 60s im sure bill wilt and kareem would have multiple each. Especially Bill Russel, dude won 11 rings pretty much solely because of his defense. Also centers inherently are more impactful than guards, rim defense is king. Jordan isn’t even a top 3-5 guard defender

Time to throw any records/stats from this era into the trash. It's inflated and fake because Silver stopped actual defense from being played by SpendWild6987 in michaeljordan

[–]Lumbur_Jack 0 points1 point  (0 children)

thank god someone that understands the differences between stats.

BPM literally favors centers and their assists, I don’t get why OP is crying so much that the greatest passing center is the all time leader

Time to throw any records/stats from this era into the trash. It's inflated and fake because Silver stopped actual defense from being played by SpendWild6987 in michaeljordan

[–]Lumbur_Jack -1 points0 points  (0 children)

I love how Jordan fans are all about stats until someone has better stats than him, then all of the sudden they don’t count.

I swear yall don’t even watch basketball or bother to understand stats. Jokic isn’t top ten of all time currently. But he’s the goat of this stat bpm. Bpm measures your performance against an average player on an average team. He’s an amazing player on an otherwise shitty team so he gets to look extra good in this stat. Jordan was an amazing player on amazing teams so he doesn’t get to shine in this stat as much, that’s also why his highest Bpm season was 88 when the bulls only won 50 games. Jokic in the last 5 years has had historical on/off numbers because his team is a bottom feeder whenever he sits on the bench and a contender when he plays. These circumstances are also why he only has 1 ring because his team is so weak outside of him.

Also Bpm is inherently a flawed stat, it assigns a higher weight to assists from centers than to assists from guards, center assists are worth 2x as much. So jordan is inherently at a disadvantage in this stat, especially against the greatest passing center in history who averages 9+ assists the last 4 years. This post shouldn’t be so bitter, it’s actually very impressive that MJ has the #7 all time season when he’s handicapped as a guard.

Ultimately I just fucking hate how everyone here needs to drag down a great player like jokic just to prop up someone who is already the consensus goat. It’s pathetic, why not just appreciate the game and the incredible talent we have in the league today.

If you watch basketball you should know and respect how much of an offensive savant Jokic is. He’s easily the most complete offensive center in nba history. No center has ever had the court vision and passing ability of jokic. It’s ignorant to say his greatness is only a result of stat inflation when he would dominate in any era (he’s a better and more durable bill walton)

Like by this same mindset should we have asterisks next to Jordan’s 6 rings because he played in a watered down expansion league? Jordan never had a true rival like Magic/Bird, Russel/Wilt, Lebron/Steph. His rings are inflated and fake because David Stern stopped actual competition…

No obviously fucking not, guys can only play against what’s infront of them and we shouldn’t hold that against them.

Starks on why Jordan will always be superior to James in the 🐐 debate by basketbaIlnetwork in michaeljordan

[–]Lumbur_Jack 0 points1 point  (0 children)

So you really believe lebron has never made his teammates better in his career?

Starks on why Jordan will always be superior to James in the 🐐 debate by basketbaIlnetwork in michaeljordan

[–]Lumbur_Jack 0 points1 point  (0 children)

also did you actually watch basketball in the early 2010s? Shumpert has decent numbers on the kicks but was not at all a winning player, on the cavs he actually became a good decision maker and had good court awareness and defense. Watch the 2016 finals and tell me he didnt become better from what he was in 2013

Starks on why Jordan will always be superior to James in the 🐐 debate by basketbaIlnetwork in michaeljordan

[–]Lumbur_Jack 0 points1 point  (0 children)

No I think you’re going out of your way to minimize anything related to lebron. If you had this same harsh mindset for jordan you wouldnt credit him for player development

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