Why are Steph and even Luka in consideration for being some of the best basketball players ever when they don’t play defense? In my eyes the top 10 should be the best players on both sides of the ball, not just one. Can Steph really be considered a top 5 player all time without ever being an above average defender?
First of all, Steph can defend. He’s not elite, but he’s not a minus either, at least hasn’t been for years now. Far better than a Trae Young or Jordan Poole lol.
In his last championship year 2022 he was 4th in net rating with the same defensive rating as Tatum at 103.4(!) and was better than Rudy Gobert’s. No DRTG isn’t a perfect stat, and Steph’s rating is probably boosted by the team defense designed to carefully “curate” who he has to defend, but go ahead and find me a well known bad defender with a 103 rating for a season. For comparison, Lillard was 114, who certain types of fans love compare Steph to, but this just one good example for how theyre not even in the same league.
So I would argue his generational offensive contribution combined with being at least a wash on D allows him to be in a top 10 convo. You can argue he shouldn’t be up there for other reasons(?) but I wouldn’t disqualify him for defense alone. If anything I would argue his biggest weakness is dumbass turnovers at the worst times.
I’m sorry but Steph is 100% a minus defensively lol. He had a really incredible defensive run in 2022 that made people start saying “he can defend guys!” and it was true, he was really great that season, but really since then he’s been pretty bad defensively. That being said, guard defense is incredibly overrated especially when they’re producing like Steph does on the other end.
You know he’s 36 right? It’s expected that he would have a defensive drop off.
He’s been average to slightly above average defensively throughout his prime years, especially considering the offensive load he’s expected to carry.
I know. He’s a 36 year old 6’2 point guard, which is a big part of the reason he’s a bad defender now. We agree lol