I think a lot of Demar critics still cling to a view of Demar that was shaped by his first few years in the league, when he was a fairly poor defender. If you take a look at his game and his stats, his defense has clearly improved. The guy fights much harder and goes all out on closeouts, something he was more lackadaisical about before.
I wanted to give some context to his defensive improvement, so I picked 15 shooting guards, most of whom have been named in this thread, as well as Jimmy Butler as a control, to illustrate how Demar ranks among other SGs in terms of defense.
I took four sources of defensive info. For individual impact, I used Synergy overall and espn DRPM. For team impact, I used individual drtg (which is affected by your teammates) and on/off net opponent ortg. I ranked these players on individual and team d and then produced the overall rankings.
These are the results:
Jimmy Butler 1
Dwyane Wade 2
Klay Thompson 3
Manu Ginobili 4
Bradley Beal 5-t
Lance Stephenson5-t
Demar Derozan 7
Gerald Henderson 8
James Harden 9
Dion Waiters 10
Jamal Crawford 11
Wesley Matthews 12
Monta Ellis 13
Arron Afflalo 14
Eric Gordon 15
I think this passes the sniff test for these players too.
Just to give you some idea of the full breadth of where these guys stand, here is their rank among SGs who have played 1000 minutes per ESPN DRPM
Butler 6th of 57
Wade 10
Stephenson 14
Ginobili 16
Beal 19
Thompson 20
Derozan 21
Henderson 25
Matthews 26
Waiters 33
Ellis 34
Crawford 42
Harden 46
Afflalo 47
Gordon 55th of 57
There are mitigating factors for everything. Some might argue that Derozan benefited from Ross taking the tougher defensive assignment, but so does Ariza for Beal, Iguodala for Thompson, George for Stephenson. The other plus in favor of Demar is that he shoulders an offensive burden much higher than most of the guys above him. His usage (for better and worse) is considerably higher than the other SGs, simply because oftentimes we need him to soak up possessions.
In any case, I thought this would be a good indication of how far Demar's defense has come.
PS. Interesting fun facts: of the 15 guards, Demar ranked 1st in isolation defense, 5th in defending P&R ball handler, and 6th in spot-up situations. He was 14th in post-up situations.
Opposing offenses (Ortg) improved by a whopping 7.1 when Monta Ellis was on the floor. +6.1 for Eric Gordon, and +5.9 for Arron Afflalo. Opposing offenses improved by 1.5 when Demar was on the floor, so he was a slight negative, but still contributed to a fairly solid defense.
I wanted to give some context to his defensive improvement, so I picked 15 shooting guards, most of whom have been named in this thread, as well as Jimmy Butler as a control, to illustrate how Demar ranks among other SGs in terms of defense.
I took four sources of defensive info. For individual impact, I used Synergy overall and espn DRPM. For team impact, I used individual drtg (which is affected by your teammates) and on/off net opponent ortg. I ranked these players on individual and team d and then produced the overall rankings.
These are the results:
Jimmy Butler 1
Dwyane Wade 2
Klay Thompson 3
Manu Ginobili 4
Bradley Beal 5-t
Lance Stephenson5-t
Demar Derozan 7
Gerald Henderson 8
James Harden 9
Dion Waiters 10
Jamal Crawford 11
Wesley Matthews 12
Monta Ellis 13
Arron Afflalo 14
Eric Gordon 15
I think this passes the sniff test for these players too.
Just to give you some idea of the full breadth of where these guys stand, here is their rank among SGs who have played 1000 minutes per ESPN DRPM
Butler 6th of 57
Wade 10
Stephenson 14
Ginobili 16
Beal 19
Thompson 20
Derozan 21
Henderson 25
Matthews 26
Waiters 33
Ellis 34
Crawford 42
Harden 46
Afflalo 47
Gordon 55th of 57
There are mitigating factors for everything. Some might argue that Derozan benefited from Ross taking the tougher defensive assignment, but so does Ariza for Beal, Iguodala for Thompson, George for Stephenson. The other plus in favor of Demar is that he shoulders an offensive burden much higher than most of the guys above him. His usage (for better and worse) is considerably higher than the other SGs, simply because oftentimes we need him to soak up possessions.
In any case, I thought this would be a good indication of how far Demar's defense has come.
PS. Interesting fun facts: of the 15 guards, Demar ranked 1st in isolation defense, 5th in defending P&R ball handler, and 6th in spot-up situations. He was 14th in post-up situations.
Opposing offenses (Ortg) improved by a whopping 7.1 when Monta Ellis was on the floor. +6.1 for Eric Gordon, and +5.9 for Arron Afflalo. Opposing offenses improved by 1.5 when Demar was on the floor, so he was a slight negative, but still contributed to a fairly solid defense.
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