Sometimes, everyone can agree about a player's defensive prowess.
Take, for instance, Bruce Bowen, the Spurs' former perimeter stopper extraordinaire. The media long praised Bowen's ability to lock down opposing scorers, and NBA head coaches voted him to the league's All-Defensive Team eight times. Also, the numbers backed up Bowen's skills; in 2003-04, adjusted plus/minus data estimates that Bowen alone decreased opponents' offensive efficiency by 2.6 points per 100 possessions, and in 2006-07 the Spurs' defense was a staggering 9.6 points better per 100 possessions with Bowen on the floor. In Bowen's case, data confirmed what the eye test initially led us to believe.
Unfortunately, however, that's not always the case. Every now and then, a player with the raw physical tools to be an expert defender simply doesn't translate that talent into tangible on-court results. Now, I'm not going to pretend current defensive metrics are perfect measures of ability at that end -- it's still difficult to reliably separate a player's performance from the effects of coaching and/or his teammates -- but if a player has a good defensive reputation, you'd expect it to at least show up somewhere in the adjusted plus/minus or counterpart defense statistics.
With that in mind, here are five players whose advanced defensive statistics don't match their reputations as elite defenders.
Kobe Bryant | Los Angeles Lakers
Bryant
There was a time when Bryant was a legitimately outstanding defender, anchoring the Lakers' first Phil Jackson-coached dynasty as a true two-way terror. In the 1999-2000 regular season and the 2001 playoffs, the Lakers had a pair of the best team defensive showings ever with Bryant as their top wing defender. In the 2004 playoffs, L.A.'s defense was 12 points better per 100 possessions when Kobe was on the court. During that time, Bryant racked up five consecutive (and well-deserved) All-Defense nods, three of which placed him on the first team.
But from that point on, there hasn't been a lot of evidence suggesting that Bryant has even been a good defender, much less one of the NBA's best.
In 2004-05, Kobe logged 40.7 minutes per game for one of the 40 worst defensive teams in league history, with the Lakers' defense somehow getting 2.4 points worse when he was on the floor. That touched off an eight-year stretch over which Bryant still garnered seven All-Defense selections despite the Lakers being little more than an average defensive team -- and actually playing one point per 100 possessions worse defensively with Bryant in the game.
While not exactly on the same level as Derek Jeter's host of ill-gotten Gold Gloves, Bryant's annual All-Defense recognition seems more and more like a legacy pick with each passing year. Adjusted plus/minus suggests he's no more than an average defender at this stage of his career, and at age 34 his best defensive days are likely in the rearview mirror. Bryant ranks among the NBA's all-time great players, and is still one of its best offensive threats, but his defensive impact has been overstated for years.
Joakim Noah | Chicago Bulls
Noah
Noah is known around the league as a high-energy, defense-first big man, but you wouldn't know it from his plus/minus numbers. For three years running (2009-10 to 2011-12), the Bulls have been better defensively when Noah isn't in the game, and not by just a little, either -- their defense was 4.4 points per 100 possessions better when Noah was on the bench. For point of reference, 4.4 points of defensive rating was the difference between the Golden State Warriors and an average defense last season.
Noah's defensive proponents could counter that Chicago's bench was a defensive juggernaut over the same time period, which would naturally depress Noah's on-court/off-court defensive plus/minus. They'd be right, except that Noah rates as a below-average defender even after adjusting for the players he shared the floor with (teammates and opponents).
Further, 82games.com's counterpart defensive numbers show that opposing bigs posted a 16.8 PER (average is 15.0) when matched up against Noah over the past three seasons. With numbers like that, it might be time to update our view of Noah as a first-class defender.
Rajon Rondo | Boston Celtics
Rondo
Rondo is known for his long arms and massive hands, both of which have helped him pile up 843 career steals going into the 2012-13 season (which ranks second only to Chris Paul over the same six-year period). While those steals-related stats are impressive, there's evidence that Rondo's overall defensive impact hasn't lived up to his All-Defense reputation for several years.
Rondo's career counterpart PER of 15.6 doesn't tell the tale of an elite on-ball defender, and plus/minus data show a decline in performance within the team concept as well. Over Rondo's first four NBA seasons, the Celtics were 2.2 points of defensive rating better with him on the floor, including an incredible 8.3-point difference during Rondo's rookie season of 2006-07. Since the start of the 2010-11 season, however, that number has been flipped; over the past two seasons, Boston was actually 2.1 points per 100 possessions better when Rondo wasn't in the game.
The emergence of backup point guard Avery Bradley -- who posted a young-Rondo-esque minus-4.4 on/off defensive differential last year -- is certainly a mitigating circumstance, but like Noah, Rondo's plus/minus numbers aren't impressive even after accounting for the "good defensive backup" factor. According to regularized adjusted plus/minus, Rondo ranked tied for No. 46 among guards last season (in terms of defense), a far fall from the second-place ranking he held early in his career.
Arron Afflalo | Orlando Magic
Afflalo
Afflalo has never garnered All-Defense honors, and his best finish in defensive player of the year voting was a tie for 17th in 2009-10. Regardless, he carries a reputation as a hard-nosed defensive 2-guard. (It's likely a relic of his outstanding effort in his rookie season of 2007-08, when Detroit was four points of defensive rating better with him in the game and he held opposing shooting guards to an 11.2 PER.)
At any rate, Afflalo hasn't done much statistically since that rookie performance -- his teams are collectively 1.4 points per 100 possessions worse defensively with Afflalo in the game since 2008-09, and his counterparts' numbers are ordinary (14.9 PER) over that same span. Plus, his defensive adjusted plus/minus dipped below average for the first time in 2009-10 and has declined every season since.
Afflalo's prestige as a wing stopper helped secure him a five-year, $43 million free-agent contract last season, but like the other names on this list, it's difficult to find proof that backs up his image as a strong defender.
Tayshaun Prince | Detroit Pistons
Prince
Prince originally earned his great defensive reputation as the perimeter stopper for the Ben Wallace-era Pistons, the 2003-04 version of which featured the 10th most efficient defense in NBA history. While some of those accolades merely stemmed from isolated plays like his jaw-dropping block of Reggie Miller in Game 2 of the 2004 Eastern Conference finals, they were mostly earned. In 2005-06, his second All-Defense season, Detroit's defense was 7.1 points per 100 possessions better with Prince on the floor, and adjusted plus/minus shows that by 2007-08 Prince had rounded into a defender worth a Bowen-esque 2.1 points of defensive efficiency all by himself.
Recently, though, Prince hasn't given many indicators that he's still in that same class defensively. From 2008-09 to 2011-12, Detroit had the league's eighth-worst defense, and over that span the Pistons have been 3.4 points of defensive efficiency worse with Prince in the game, culminating with an ugly plus-7.4 on/off differential last season.
After accounting for the quality of his teammates and opponents, adjusted plus/minus shows that Prince's defense cost the Pistons 1.6 points of efficiency when he was on the floor last season, a stunning decline from where he was five years ago. Now on the wrong side of 30, Prince is another player whose once-deserved defensive reputation needs downgrading.
