Since the NBA officially announced the top 50 players in league history in 1996, the discussion of historical status has become a hot topic among the media and fans.
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In the subsequent 25 years, many players have performed at a historical level, but most of them have gained the right to be discussed after posting outstanding statistics on the offensive end.
Defense has always been an unattractive part of basketball. Especially in modern basketball, offense has become a prominent skill and is the easiest for all players to show in statistics. The value of defense seems tasteless and bleak. In the 2020-21 season, the offensive efficiency of 7 teams broke the historical record. This was only broken by the Mavericks (116.7) last season.
However, in this atmosphere, there are still players who insist on showing their defensive value. One of them is this year's Player of the Year Rudy Gobert. He continues to show everyone in the game how defensive experts can affect the game, including the Western Conference No. 1 player of the year. In the second round against the Clippers, he blocked Marcus Morris' three-point shot and helped the Jazz win the final victory.
After winning the Defensive Player of the Year award this season, Rudy Gobert also joined Dwight Howard, Ben Wallace and Dikembe Mutombo as members of the three-time DPOY club. Both Benfrog and Mutombo won the award four times in their careers and eventually entered the DPOY club. Hall of Fame, this is also the goal that the French giant tower strives for.
Three DPOYs gave Gobert the capital to compete with his great predecessors, but just as the selection of the top 50 players is not only determined by MVP votes in each season, the historical defensive status is not determined by the number of DPOYs.
However, defense is the most difficult indicator to measure with numbers. Offense has quantitative indicators such as points, assists, and shooting percentage. However, in addition to blocking and interceptions, intangible defensive elements such as screening, blocking, interference, and intimidation are very important. It is difficult to use quantitative data to see its value.
Although indicators such as BPM (box plus/minus) are increasingly used, their developers admit that it is difficult to accurately measure a player's impact on the defensive end.
"Box Plus/Minus is great for evaluating offense, but defensive numbers are less accurate and should not be used as evidence of a player's defensive effectiveness," Daniel Myers wrote in Basketball Reference. "Existing defensive data Most of them can only be used as a reference, and it is difficult to accurately identify the player's true defensive skills."
Based on this premise, let's look at Gobert's defensive performance in 2020-21 from the data side.
IT'S OFFICIAL: Rudy Gobert has set records in 5 different metrics for defensive impact.
Greatest. Defensive. Szn. Of. All. Time. pic.twitter.com/ca5IkHPjhk— Jake Lee (@JakeRexLee) May 17, 2021
The advanced data in the above picture were only collected in the past 20 years, but they are enough to prove Gobert's influence on the defensive end. Especially when Gobert ranks first in every data, it can probably prove his dominance on the defensive end.
"I think advanced data is more credible than basic data." Gobert said in an interview. "Although the measurement items of these data are different, they have their intersection. When they are combined, they can evaluate the player's performance. Impact on the field.”
The 2020-21 season is currently Gobert's peak, especially when you take the league's offensive trends into account, which makes Gobert's performance even more outstanding. Of course, Gobert's defense has been strong for a while. He won his first Defensive Player of the Year award as early as 2018.
Gobert was selected by the Jazz with the 27th overall pick in the 2013 draft. At that time, the Jazz had a poor record (25 wins and 57 losses). Although Gobert had shown defensive potential and the Jazz had no record pressure, Gobert spent most of his time on development. After training in the league, it wasn't until Enes Kanter was traded to the Thunder in the 2014-15 season that he got a lot of playing time.
Since then, Gobert's name has always been on the list of top defenders, and the Jazz have become a famous defensive lion with him as the core. In the past seven seasons, the Jazz's defensive efficiency, opponents' Both true shooting percentage and defensive rebounding rate rank first in the league, and these three values have also improved significantly when Gobert is on the court.
Although the NBA's game style has shifted to fast pace, three-pointers, passing and no point shooting, Gobert's old-school defensive influence is still the stabilizing force that maintains the Jazz.
Gobert has his share of intimidation in the paint, especially since many of his intangible effects won't be reflected in the actual numbers and may not show up in the advanced numbers. Many defenders or forwards often turn around and walk away when they see Gobert when they cut into the penalty area. This is an immeasurable value. Of course, it's impossible to count how many defensive instructions Gobert gave when the ball passed half court.
As the foundation of the Jazz's overall defense, Gobert has done countless things that are invisible to the data, but these are invisibly important indicators that affect victory or defeat.
However, we can still get a glimpse of Gobert's defensive impact by observing the Jazz's defense in each round. Even if there is no perfect indicator to measure defense, the expert media who voted for Gobert obviously also understand the power of the French giant tower, which will make him He has three DPOY honors.
Gobert's hot pot blocking resistance may not be as good as Mutombo's, but today's competition is not dominated by the inside at that time. Some people think that Howard and Wallace are obviously stronger rebounders, but when we compare the defensive data of Gobert and the other three peak five seasons, we actually can't see much difference:
And again, Gobert is in an NBA that is disadvantageous to long men and defensive specialists, and his data should be given more meaning. Especially this season, Gobert's past weakness of being caught by forwards and guards has been significantly improved. He defended the outside many times in the first two rounds, and his performance in rotating with forwards and guards prevented him from becoming a target. , can continue to stay on the court at critical moments.
Of course there is still debate about the various types of defensive specialists.
The classic rim-protecting center is the favorite for Defensive Player of the Year, but more and more versatile wings in multiple positions such as Kawhi Leonard and Draymond Green are worthy of being included in the discussion, as are Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant in the past. And defender defensive experts such as Gary Payton, Tony Allen and Jrue Holiday are also increasingly recognized.
And don’t forget that there are many historical beasts. The best defensive player was only established in 1982-83, and the blocking statistics were only started in the 1973-74 season. Bill Russell, Wilt Chamberlain, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Nate Thurmond and other great players If there were statistics, there would definitely be dizzying and terrifying data.
In today's NBA, where offense is king and speed is second, Gobert's three DPOY wins have established him as the league's No. 1 defender. However, if it is included in the discussion of historical status, it still remains to be seen whether he is one of the best defenders. Discuss. Not to mention the number of championships, which is most often used to measure historical status. I am afraid that he still needs to create more famous defensive scenes to be more impressive to the world.
Of course, most discussions of historical status are quite subjective, especially defenses with few reference indicators. Gobert's three best defensive players have already won the ticket to be included in the discussion, but more are needed to impress. actions and achievements to accumulate advantages.
