) > Career Player Efficiency Rating. Compare player statistics for: Michael Jordan career vs. LeBron James career. P Jordan habitually was knocked to the floor by the team he loathed most, the Detroit Pistons, who punctured his title dreams for three consecutive seasons with a physical, defensive-oriented style. S In that series, Detroit averaged just 0.79 points per play with Jordan as the primary defender, and shot just 35%, according to research by ESPN Stats & Information. F Get the latest news, stats, videos, highlights and more about guard Michael Jordan on ESPN. ] He would, of course, bounce back to dominate in 1996. Michael could take that initial bump. 2 Seconds earlier, John Stockton had dumped the ball into Karl Malone in the post. He averaged 30.1 points, 6.2 rebounds, 5.3 assists and 2.3 steals in 1,072 regular-season games. m All-NBA 2nd Team. The Pittsburgh Steelers follow the script: The Steelers take Joey Porter Jr. to open up Day 2 of the 2023 NFL Draft. F Defensive Player of the Year. Round 7, Pick 225: Jovaughn Gwyn, G, South Carolina. F ( The Falcons certainly kept true to their . D F Hollinger responded via a post on ESPN's TrueHoop blog: Berri leads off with a huge misunderstanding of PERthat the credits and debits it gives for making and missing shots equate to a break-even shooting mark of 30.4% on 2-point shots. "And he was very smart in how he used them. Only 31 times has a player posted a season efficiency rating over 30.0 (with more than 15 games played in that season), with the highest score being 32.85 (Nikola Joki). Michael Jordan doubles Karl Malone in the post and comes up with a steal before sinking an iconic game-winning shot to capture the 1998 NBA championship. + Pippen was an absolute menace on the defensive end and is the first ever true 3 & D player. 2 Dennis Johnson sat an entire college season on the bench, but he put in hard work to reach greatness as a pro. The player with the highest grade at the end will be crowned the best defender in NBA history. This is enough to consider him in this debate. G In a scene authors Rodrigo Corral, Alex French and Howie Kahn detail in their 2017 book, "Sneakers," Falk, after exchanging pleasantries, looked to Strasser and said, "Rob, I've got an idea.I want to marry Michael to your airbag technology." Dennis Rodman couldn't do many things right, but for everything bad that he did on and off the court, he was an unquestionable success rebounding and defending. Pippen, however, only scored under 100 four times in seventeen seasons. Jordan's defensive acumen was apparent in real time; he was selected first team All-Defense on nine occasions, tied with Gary Payton, Kevin Garnett and Kobe Bryant for most ever. This category isnt measured by a single NBA stat, but is too important to be left out of this discussion. 2 Kevin Garnett is the best defender in NBA history. L [ Full disclosure: FiveThirtyEight and ESPN are both owned by The Walt Disney Company. Although he was never a block champion, he still ranks 5th all time in blocks recorded. Sports may be shut down, but Michael Jordan is as relevant as hes been in a long time. Known as "The Glove," Payton got that nickname after playing superb defense on Suns PG Kevin Johnson. It is also adjusted for the team's pace. m Michael Jordan and Gary Payton both won defensive player of the year in their career, and were defensive anchors for their respective teams. P No one ever, as an individual defensive stopper, did a better job guarding Michael. He didn't care.". B P ( A He was all-defensive first team nine times and the NBA scoring leader 10 times. P O 23 never took a play off on either end. PER extends this critique of counting statistics to basketball, noting that a player's opportunities to accumulate statistics are dependent upon the number of minutes played as well as the pace of the game. e Through analytics and video breakdown technology, players are now under a microscope with very little wiggle room to excuse them from being below average defenders. This 69-point, 18-rebound effort against the Cleveland Cavaliers from 1990. He was one of the most feared lockdown defenders to ever step on a NBA hardwood. An unknown player for the youth generations of basketball, Sidney Moncrief was one of the most complete players during the 80's, who also marked that era of competitive NBA hoops with his phenomenal defense. E Let me also mention that Jordan's scoring average is 5.1 points more than Bryant. People were wondering, 'Why is Jordan guarding the backup point guard on this team?' This stat illustrates Garnetts excellence on the defensive end. The fact that he is also a two-time defensive player of the year and the all-time blocks leader just speaks to his presence on the defensive end. The formula is: u This final step takes away the advantage held by players whose teams play a fastbreak style (and therefore have more possessions and more opportunities to do things on offense), and then sets the league average to 15.00. Overall advanced defensive statistics Defensive rating essentially measures how many baskets a player gives up per 100 possessions. Michael Jordan (18) ( And for me, that was tough, because I was always going right.". Few have dominated in the paint with their defense like the great Tim Duncan, who maximized his talent by playing perfect fundamentally and more to the ground, which is different than most big men. He was one of the top man-to-man defenders that the game has ever seen. Jordan was also named to the NBAs All-Defensive Team nine times, winning Defensive Player of the Year in 1988. n The two hit the links for 36 holes the morning of Team USA's first game against Cuba. But the numbers tell us that Jordan was uniquely great, both in terms of what he did and how he did it. He could run over to play help defense and still catch up to his man. R Career PER Michael Jordan vs. LeBron James, Players from different NBA generations and Career PER, "NBA & ABA Career Leaders and Records for Player Efficiency Rating", 2012-13 Hollinger NBA Player Statistics - All Players, Jordan proclaims he could beat LeBron in prime. c I couldn't believe how much energy he had. "Our rotations got so crazy that our guard, David Wesley, was guarding [7-foot center] Luc Longley under the basket -- and they still wouldn't throw him the ball," Cowens says now. T Return to Top; Players. Hollinger freely admits that two of the defensive statistics it incorporatesblocks and steals (which was not tracked as an official stat until 1973)can produce a distorted picture of a player's value and that PER is not a reliable measure of a player's defensive acumen. Hollinger has set up PER so that the league average, every season, is 15.00, which produces sort of a handy reference guide:[2]. All columns may be sorted by clicking the column name. Welcome back to the "Greatest Ever" series, as we continue with the rankings of the game's finest man-to-man defenders in NBA History. Payton and Jordan share the record for the most All-First Defensive Team selections (nine) too, which is an incredible achievement. GOAT (13) All rights reserved. T An exasperated Jordan, who missed 16 of his 23 shots in that game, waved off his teammates and guarded Walker for the final minutes. R ) S This required Jordan to track Mason defensively in transition. To end up with a league-average PER of 15.00, the actual break-even mark in this case is 48.5%, which is exactly what the league average is on 2-point shots this season. Michael Jordan and Gary Payton both won defensive player of the year in their career, and were defensive anchors for their respective teams. And when we crunched the historical numbers for our RAPTOR player ratings (which go back to 1976-77), we found that Jordan is also the modern leader in RAPTOR plus/minus,3 in addition to having the best mix of career and peak value. No . P S The game is different now than when it was played in the 1980s or even before that". B This is especially true for players such as Bruce Bowen and Trenton Hassell who are defensive specialists but don't get many blocks or steals. + MICHAEL JORDAN HYPERBOLE is at an all-time high as "The Last Dance" nears its conclusion, and one favorite mantra is that No. F In addition to being omnipresent in the old YouTube clips weve all been watching, MJ will also take center stage in a 10-part ESPN documentary, The Last Dance, which premieres Sunday.1 The film covers the 1997-98 season, Jordans final year in Chicago, as well as Jordans cultural significance and that of the Bulls dynasty as a whole. ] m Jordan is a 9-time NBA All-Defensive . Duncan is the epitome of defensive excellence. It's a shame he played in Milwaukee and did not have a great team around him. Jordan was the engine that powered the offensive success of the Bulls dynasty. He led the league in steals and was 14th in blocks -- the only guard in the top 40 that . "In many ways, he knew the game on that side of the ball better. Watch our How-To Videos to Become a Stathead, Subscribe to Stathead and get access to more data than you can imagine.