The NBA’s recent statistical revolution has had a profound impact on the way we view and play the game. However, a statistical approach to evaluating a player’s performance is still quite imperfect, especially on the defensive side of the ball. There are many different metrics out there which attempt to accurately portray a player’s aptitude on defense. Certain metrics use shooting data, others use box score numbers, while recent innovations are based around plus-minus figures from lineup data.

However, all of these metrics still fall short. The shooting data used for the DRAYMOND rating doesn’t account for the quality of a player’s opponent. It must be easier to contain Andre Roberson than LeBron James, right? And while basic box score stats are easy to derive and analyze, they don’t tell you much. Stephen Curry led the league in steals in 2016, but I don’t think anybody would argue that he’s an elite perimeter defender. Finally, many plus-minus metrics struggle with attribution and collinearity. Players who play a small role on a good team are often given too much credit because the team happens to be playing well even if they are not the most important cause of that success. This can be partially remedied by looking at long-term data (i.e. multi-year samples) but that isn’t always a convenient possibility.

Of course, while none of these metrics are anywhere close to flawless, they are certainly not useless. However, the lack of an extremely reliable all-in-one defensive stat left me wanting to test a relatively untouched idea just for the sake of experimentation. Could we use individual defensive matchup data to evaluate defensive performance?

The NBA made their defensive matchup data available beginning in 2018. The numbers used Second Spectrum’s player tracking system to determine which defender guarded each offensive player for the majority of each possession. For instance, we could compare James Harden’s performances while guarded by Stephen Curry versus Klay Thompson.

The basis for a defensive metric would be to determine the number of points a defender would have been expected to directly concede over the course of a season based on players they matched up against. In other words, holding Stephen Curry to 20 points over 100 possessions is weighted greater than containing Rajon Rondo to the same output because Curry would be expected to score more points than Rondo. The actual metric looks at more deeper numbers than just points and possessions (how many shots they took, how many of those shots were three-pointers, how many turnovers did they commit compared to their average turnover rate, etc), but the fundamental concept is the same.

Using a Python script to comb through every single matchup in the NBA over the past two years, we can determine how many points a defender saved compared to the expectation in each matchup. Finally, we average this number and scale it to 100 possessions in order to arrive at our result.

Listed below is each qualifying NBA player’s Defensive Points Saved (DPS) over the past two seasons. The number is an estimate of the number of points each player stopped from being scored by their offensive matchup per 100 possessions.

Player Position Possessions DVAL Rudy Gobert C 8838 3.30 Aron Baynes C 4539 2.61 Jrue Holiday SG 11157 2.57 Al Horford C 8431 2.53 Luc Mbah a Moute PF 3120 2.45 Jusuf Nurkic C 8312 2.24 Steven Adams C 10669 2.22 Bruce Brown SG 2911 2.08 Jaylen Brown SG 8092 2.05 Eric Bledsoe PG 9450 2.04 Clint Capela C 8643 1.99 Anthony Davis C 9643 1.98 Thabo Sefolosha SF 2806 1.96 Kyle Anderson SF 6410 1.89 Derrick Favors C 7860 1.87 Ben Simmons PG 11305 1.83 Kyle Lowry PG 9636 1.78 Giannis Antetokounmpo PF 10383 1.71 Brook Lopez C 8532 1.70 Darren Collison PG 8338 1.67 Draymond Green PF 9037 1.65 Al-Farouq Aminu PF 8859 1.59 Semi Ojeleye PF 3504 1.56 Gordon Hayward PF 3904 1.52 Alex Caruso PG 2277 1.52 Jonas Valanciunas C 5765 1.51 LaMarcus Aldridge C 10323 1.51 Marc Gasol C 9536 1.48 Derrick Rose PG 3792 1.44 Kosta Koufos C 3763 1.44 Terry Rozier PG 7585 1.43 Stanley Johnson SF 6279 1.42 Jonathan Isaac PF 5024 1.4 Klay Thompson SG 10564 1.38 Bam Adebayo C 6525 1.36 Hassan Whiteside C 6134 1.35 Myles Turner C 7941 1.34 James Harden PG 10772 1.34 Ekpe Udoh C 2289 1.32 Kawhi Leonard SF 4580 1.26 Paul George SF 11676 1.26 Fred VanVleet PG 6528 1.21 Pascal Siakam PF 8552 1.19 Blake Griffin PF 9183 1.19 DeAndre Jordan C 9157 1.18 George Hill PG 6273 1.18 Marcus Smart SG 7652 1.17 Aaron Gordon PF 9089 1.17 Goran Dragic PG 6751 1.17 Lance Thomas PF 4246 1.16 Andre Iguodala SF 6613 1.16 Thaddeus Young PF 10180 1.13 Rodions Kurucs SF 2800 1.13 Richaun Holmes C 3980 1.13 JaVale McGee C 4870 1.12 Dewayne Dedmon C 6446 1.11 Nikola Vucevic C 8439 1.1 Gary Harris SG 7794 1.10 John Wall PG 5224 1.09 Tyson Chandler C 4216 1.07 Tyler Zeller C 2345 1.06 Kemba Walker PG 11359 1.05 T.J. McConnell PG 6479 1.04 Josh Richardson SG 10359 1.03 Shai Gilgeous-Alexander PG 4558 1.03 Shaun Livingston PG 4287 1.02 Boban Marjanovic C 2126 1.01 Derrick Jones Jr. SF 2818 1.00 Justise Winslow SF 7254 0.99 Avery Bradley SG 6781 0.99 Joel Embiid C 8360 0.98 Dwayne Bacon SG 3020 0.98 Khem Birch C 2464 0.97 Mike Conley PG 5358 0.97 Andrew Wiggins SF 11221 0.96 Pau Gasol C 4340 0.95 Lonzo Ball PG 6693 0.95 Victor Oladipo SG 7405 0.93 Danny Green SG 8068 0.93 Dwight Howard C 5500 0.93 Tyreke Evans SG 5990 0.92 Josh Hart SG 6665 0.92 Ivica Zubac C 3057 0.92 Chris Paul PG 7389 0.91 Seth Curry SG 2786 0.91 Dorian Finney-Smith SF 4944 0.91 Wes Iwundu SF 4535 0.89 Malcolm Brogdon SG 6660 0.88 Robin Lopez C 6699 0.87 Marcin Gortat C 5672 0.87 Cory Joseph PG 8573 0.83 Raymond Felton PG 3380 0.83 Tomas Satoransky PG 7603 0.78 Cody Zeller C 3859 0.74 Rodney McGruder SG 3774 0.72 LeBron James SF 10275 0.72 Jimmy Butler SF 8769 0.70 Shaquille Harrison PG 3710 0.70 James Johnson PF 6178 0.68 Rondae Hollis-Jefferson SF 6450 0.68 Jeff Green PF 8121 0.66 Norman Powell SG 4478 0.66 Delon Wright PG 6323 0.65 Treveon Graham SG 3635 0.65 Omri Casspi SF 2576 0.64 OG Anunoby SF 5831 0.64 Luke Kornet PF 2224 0.62 Michael Kidd-Gilchrist PF 6215 0.61 Harrison Barnes SF 10556 0.61 Donovan Mitchell SG 10485 0.61 Anthony Tolliver PF 5725 0.55 Ish Smith PG 6567 0.55 Danilo Gallinari SF 5620 0.54 Joe Ingles PF 10236 0.53 Domantas Sabonis C 7303 0.50 Jeff Teague PG 7264 0.48 Buddy Hield SG 9552 0.48 Paul Millsap PF 6051 0.46 Patrick Patterson PF 4222 0.44 Sindarius Thornwell SG 3108 0.43 Ersan Ilyasova PF 6145 0.43 Josh Okogie SG 3702 0.42 Eric Gordon SG 8709 0.42 Ricky Rubio PG 8209 0.41 Frank Ntilikina PG 5222 0.4 Brandon Ingram SF 7832 0.39 Bojan Bogdanovic SF 10133 0.38 John Collins PF 7453 0.37 Marvin Williams PF 8455 0.37 Noah Vonleh PF 5266 0.37 Miles Plumlee C 2249 0.36 Dennis Schroder PG 8973 0.36 Tony Parker PG 4179 0.36 T.J. Warren SF 7266 0.33 Jayson Tatum SF 9693 0.33 Allen Crabbe SG 6756 0.33 PJ Tucker PF 10185 0.30 D'Angelo Russell PG 7661 0.29 Kyle Kuzma PF 9907 0.27 Zaza Pachulia C 3781 0.26 Davis Bertans PF 5523 0.26 Russell Westbrook PG 11335 0.26 Maxi Kleber PF 5460 0.26 D.J. Augustin PG 7968 0.25 Robert Covington SF 7589 0.25 Willie Cauley-Stein C 8791 0.25 Justin Holiday SG 9910 0.25 Bradley Beal SG 12151 0.25 Tobias Harris PF 11345 0.25 Nikola Jokic C 9806 0.25 Kyrie Irving PG 8179 0.22 T.J. Leaf PF 2004 0.21 Langston Galloway SG 5178 0.17 Juancho Hernangomez PF 3218 0.17 Jerami Grant PF 8786 0.16 Jose Calderon PG 3094 0.15 Trey Burke PG 3885 0.15 Dion Waiters SG 4047 0.15 Dwyane Wade SG 7026 0.15 Mason Plumlee C 6351 0.13 CJ McCollum SG 10663 0.13 Damian Lillard PG 11135 0.12 Jabari Parker PF 5033 0.12 Larry Nance Jr. C 6438 0.10 Dillon Brooks SF 5186 0.09 Kevon Looney C 5002 0.08 Ryan Arcidiacono PG 4571 0.08 Terrance Ferguson SG 5552 0.07 JJ Redick SG 9358 0.05 Rajon Rondo PG 6492 0.04 Luka Doncic SG 4772 0.04 Courtney Lee SG 5479 0.04 DeMarcus Cousins C 5182 0.03 Nemanja Bjelica PF 6647 0.02 Jahlil Okafor C 2696 0.00 DeMarre Carroll PF 7847 -0.04 Andre Drummond C 10453 -0.04 Nick Young SG 2939 -0.05 Jamal Murray PG 9955 -0.06 Dirk Nowitzki PF 5400 -0.07 J.J. Barea PG 4723 -0.08 Doug McDermott SF 6224 -0.09 Stephen Curry PG 8364 -0.09 Spencer Dinwiddie PG 8566 -0.10 Cameron Payne PG 2649 -0.10 Rudy Gay PF 6105 -0.11 E'Twaun Moore SG 8498 -0.12 Dennis Smith Jr. PG 7156 -0.14 Ryan Anderson PF 4153 -0.14 Tim Hardaway Jr. SG 8001 -0.14 Otto Porter Jr. SF 8298 -0.18 Kentavious Caldwell-Pope SG 9317 -0.20 Royce O'Neale SF 5707 -0.21 Nene Hilario C 2750 -0.21 Pat Connaughton SG 5643 -0.22 Carmelo Anthony PF 5537 -0.22 Jordan Clarkson SG 8242 -0.23 Matthew Dellavedova PG 3003 -0.23 Mike Muscala PF 4943 -0.23 Tyler Johnson PG 7170 -0.24 Shabazz Napier PG 5017 -0.25 Bryn Forbes SG 7653 -0.26 Tyler Ulis PG 3392 -0.26 De'Aaron Fox PG 9551 -0.27 Trey Lyles PF 5004 -0.27 Wilson Chandler PF 7139 -0.28 Dwight Powell C 6736 -0.28 Elfrid Payton PG 6437 -0.30 Evan Fournier SG 8848 -0.30 Nicolas Batum SF 8896 -0.30 Luke Kennard SG 5646 -0.30 Torrey Craig SF 4231 -0.31 Serge Ibaka C 8450 -0.31 Kris Dunn PG 5915 -0.33 Khris Middleton SF 10978 -0.33 James Ennis III SF 5694 -0.34 Chandler Parsons SF 2365 -0.35 C.J. Miles SF 4469 -0.35 DeMar DeRozan SG 10901 -0.36 Jared Dudley PF 3905 -0.36 Reggie Bullock SG 7361 -0.37 Austin Rivers SG 8264 -0.38 Kevin Durant SF 10471 -0.39 Evan Turner PG 7315 -0.39 Damyean Dotson SG 5042 -0.39 Markieff Morris PF 6589 -0.40 Will Barton SG 7674 -0.41 Wesley Johnson SF 4220 -0.41 Sam Dekker PF 3401 -0.42 Dario Saric PF 8910 -0.43 Jalen Brunson PG 3239 -0.44 Kenrich Williams SF 2344 -0.44 Maurice Harkless SF 5410 -0.45 Karl-Anthony Towns C 11033 -0.45 Jaren Jackson Jr. PF 2973 -0.45 Isaiah Canaan PG 2123 -0.46 Tony Snell SF 6832 -0.47 Ante Zizic C 2609 -0.49 Mikal Bridges SF 5057 -0.52 Jerryd Bayless PG 3199 -0.52 Darius Miller SF 7780 -0.53 Frank Mason PG 2831 -0.53 Taj Gibson PF 8937 -0.54 Jerian Grant PG 5220 -0.55 JaMychal Green PF 5812 -0.56 Solomon Hill SF 2295 -0.56 Jeremy Lamb SG 8519 -0.57 Nerlens Noel C 3164 -0.58 Jarrett Allen C 7273 -0.58 Jae Crowder SF 8643 -0.59 Tyus Jones PG 6132 -0.60 Allonzo Trier SG 2917 -0.61 Kenneth Faried C 2458 -0.63 Jonathon Simmons SG 6238 -0.65 Wesley Matthews SF 8529 -0.68 Jonas Jerebko PF 4759 -0.69 Trevor Ariza SF 9393 -0.69 Nikola Mirotic PF 5836 -0.72 Abdel Nader SF 2514 -0.74 Ed Davis C 5897 -0.74 Marcus Morris PF 7146 -0.75 Wayne Ellington SG 6510 -0.76 Patty Mills PG 8046 -0.76 Rodney Hood SG 6972 -0.76 Joe Harris SG 8757 -0.77 Kyle O'Quinn C 3478 -0.78 Yogi Ferrell PG 6762 -0.78 Garrett Temple SG 7257 -0.81 Andrew Harrison PG 2904 -0.81 Corey Brewer SF 3543 -0.81 Kelly Oubre Jr. SF 8596 -0.82 Ian Mahinmi C 3316 -0.83 Patrick Beverley PG 5098 -0.86 Wendell Carter Jr. C 2229 -0.86 Emmanuel Mudiay PG 5773 -0.87 Marco Belinelli SG 7630 -0.92 Lou Williams SG 9584 -0.92 Willy Hernangomez C 2728 -0.93 Tyrone Wallace PG 3183 -0.93 Mike Scott PF 5815 -0.95 Lance Stephenson SG 6087 -0.96 Kent Bazemore SG 7093 -0.97 Deyonta Davis C 2168 -0.98 Jakob Poeltl C 5628 -1.00 Shelvin Mack PG 5168 -1.00 Taurean Prince SF 8310 -1.01 Reggie Jackson PG 6898 -1.02 Julius Randle PF 9218 -1.03 Bogdan Bogdanovic SG 8416 -1.06 Thon Maker C 4401 -1.06 Dragan Bender PF 6067 -1.08 Malik Beasley SG 4981 -1.09 Deandre Ayton C 4548 -1.10 Cristiano Felicio C 3494 -1.11 Patrick McCaw SG 2789 -1.11 Mario Hezonja SF 5792 -1.12 Justin Jackson SF 6411 -1.13 Gerald Green SG 4874 -1.15 Sterling Brown SG 3758 -1.16 Michael Carter-Williams PG 2453 -1.16 Jordan Bell C 3293 -1.17 Marvin Bagley III PF 3351 -1.17 Amir Johnson C 3582 -1.18 Landry Shamet SG 3785 -1.23 Miles Bridges SF 3491 -1.23 Zach LaVine SG 5717 -1.24 DeAndre' Bembry SG 5076 -1.24 Zach Collins C 4745 -1.24 Enes Kanter C 6915 -1.25 Kevin Love PF 4548 -1.27 David Nwaba SG 5281 -1.30 Lauri Markkanen PF 7502 -1.34 Terrence Ross SG 5535 -1.36 Greg Monroe C 3077 -1.42 Devin Booker SG 8574 -1.43 J.R. Smith SG 5001 -1.43 Quincy Acy PF 2941 -1.44 Nik Stauskas SG 3143 -1.45 Montrezl Harrell C 7310 -1.47 Jamal Crawford SG 5819 -1.47 Quinn Cook PG 3598 -1.51 Ian Clark SG 5079 -1.55 Wayne Selden SG 4322 -1.58 Danuel House Jr. SF 2841 -1.61 Cedi Osman SF 6244 -1.63 Kelly Olynyk PF 7104 -1.66 Mitchell Robinson C 2801 -1.68 Kevin Knox PF 4428 -1.68 Salah Mejri C 2245 -1.69 Gorgui Dieng C 4865 -1.69 Cheick Diallo PF 3137 -1.71 Caris LeVert SF 5934 -1.80 Tristan Thompson C 4536 -1.88 Alec Burks SG 4890 -1.90 Alex Len C 6282 -1.91 Iman Shumpert SG 3695 -1.92 Kyle Korver SG 5941 -1.94 John Henson C 4260 -1.96 Trae Young PG 5383 -2.03 Channing Frye C 2090 -2.04 Tyler Dorsey SG 3425 -2.04 Dante Cunningham PF 5148 -2.05 Bismack Biyombo C 4574 -2.07 Kevin Huerter SG 4390 -2.09 Bobby Portis PF 5973 -2.09 Josh Jackson SG 8240 -2.15 Jarell Martin PF 3927 -2.16 Alex Abrines SG 3465 -2.23 Timothe Luwawu-Cabarrot SF 3054 -2.28 Jeremy Lin PG 3140 -2.32 Devin Harris PG 4853 -2.33 Milos Teodosic PG 2651 -2.34 Vince Carter SF 4856 -2.37 Troy Daniels SG 4890 -2.38 Daniel Theis C 3688 -2.42 Collin Sexton PG 5179 -2.42 Frank Kaminsky C 5248 -2.53 Skal Labissiere PF 2854 -2.55 Michael Beasley PF 3813 -2.57 Justin Anderson SF 2074 -2.62 Meyers Leonard C 2290 -2.67 Tim Frazier PG 4012 -2.90 Ben McLemore SG 2506 -3.09 Jodie Meeks SG 2425 -3.16 Marquese Chriss PF 4187 -3.17 De'Anthony Melton PG 2036 -3.27 Ivan Rabb PF 2494 -3.39 Malik Monk SG 4347 -3.55 Antonio Blakeney SG 2317 -4.15

The first thing that pops out is Rudy Gobert at the top of the list by a significant margin. Considering Gobert has won the Defensive Player of the Year award both of the seasons which this data covers, it isn’t surprising to see him at the top. Aron Baynes may be higher than he would be if he had played as many possessions as some of his fellow players, but he is certainly known as an extremely good defensive big man. Finally, Jrue Holiday rounds out the top three with the highest DPS of any non-center. This isn’t surprising either. Holiday has deservedly been named to an All-Defensive team each of the past two years and he is routinely matched up against the opposing team’s best wing players. Among the players he defended most often over the past two seasons were James Harden, Kevin Durant, Paul George, Damian Lillard, Donovan Mitchell, and Jimmy Butler. Not bad.

At the bottom of the table, there are also not many shocking results. The defensive struggles of Antonio Blakeney, Malik Monk, Marquese Chriss, and Collin Sexton are not well-kept secrets. Meyers Leonard’s ranking as the worst defensive center in the NBA probably isn’t a surprise to any fans of the Portland Trail Blazers.

Jahlil Okafor’s two-year DPS is basically exactly zero due to a below-average 2018 season followed by an above-average 2019 season with the Pelicans. Some of the league’s elite scoring point guards (Stephen Curry, Kyrie Irving, Damian Lillard, and Russell Westbrook) are also hovering around average ratings, which make sense. None of them are game-changers on defense, but they also aren’t liabilities like they are sometimes portrayed to be.

Speaking of elite offensive players who are described as below-average defenders, James Harden comes in as the 8th best defensive point guard on the list with a DPS of 1.34. Considering how often people say he “doesn’t play defense,” you’d expect something lower. Instead, this metric backs up the claim that Harden’s defense has become underrated.

Another polarizing player on the defensive side of the ball is LeBron James. A glance at LeBron’s defensive FG% numbers would lead you to believe that he has become heavily underrated in that aspect of the game. However, those numbers may be inflated because of the players he tends to guard. The six players LeBron was matched up with for the most possessions last season were Bojan Bogdanovic, DeMarre Carroll, Dario Saric, Michael Kidd-Gilchrist, and Stanley Johnson. DPS takes this into consideration and gives him a more accurate evaluation as the 13th best defensive small forward in the league. Well, in the regular season, at least. We can’t count out playoff LeBron.

Although many of these results match the eye-test, some of them do not. Is JJ Redick actually a slightly above average defensive player? Is Darren Collison really as good of an individual defender as Draymond Green? And is Joel Embiid legitimately a worse defender than guards like Kemba Walker and TJ McConnell? To be clear, excessive use of the eye-test to judge new metrics isn’t a good idea because the unreliability of the eye-test is the exact reason we need metrics. However, some discrepancies deserve to be pointed out.

So, what’s the problem? Why is individual matchup data sometimes giving us results that don’t make sense? Let’s imagine the following scenario: a defender allows his matchup to blow by him, forcing another defender to provide help and pick him up, which leaves another offensive player open for a three-pointer. Well, the initial defender deserves blame for allowing his matchup to blow by him for what would have been an easy bucket if not for the help defense. So, the NBA’s matchup data notes that the offensive player was credited for an assist during the matchup. However, what if that player gets an assist when it isn’t the defender’s fault? What if the defender’s teammates are playing bad off-ball defense while the primary defender is playing good on-ball defense? In both situations, the result is the same: the offensive player assists a teammate for a bucket. However, the blame on defense switches completely. It’s not easy to capture this with basic matchup data because there’s far too much nuance in basketball.

In conclusion, DPS is like any other defensive metric in the sense that it’s nowhere near an extremely reliable all-in-one stat, but it also doesn’t appear to be entirely useless. Maybe with future improvements in player tracking systems, more reliable metrics can be used to tackle the problem of defensive evaluation in the NBA.