In my opinion its easily Matthews. Just yesterday for example, the defense he was putting on Parker was great. He hardly goes for pump fakes, closes out on 3 point shooters well, has great footwork sticking with his man and his ball denial is top notch. For everything great that Matthews is doing on offense, I think his defense is getting overlooked around these parts.
Matthews. In fact, I'd dare say that Matthews is the 2nd most "all-around" talented player on the team behind only Aldridge.
Matthews and then Camby. Nobody else is above average in the defense department aside from those two.
Basically how I feel too. Camby is much more of a help defender too, man-to-man defense he's a little shaky. Batum has his moments, but is starting to look much more average.
Batum. But Matthews has impressed me. They form the nucleus of what could be a very nice defensive team. Especially when we get Oden back.
lol basically. I still have a lot of hope for Batum and he's shown glimpses, but as of late his defense hasn't been that good.
Yet, Batum still has the better Drtg when compared to Matthews. Did you start this thread just so you could bash others who disagreed with your opinion. Matthews has been good, Batum slightly better, IMO. Aldridge has done OK as well, as has Camby.
Basketball also existed before the last few weeks, which apparently some people aren't aware of. Dwayne Wade, earlier this season, went through a stretch where he struggled. Probably only people without Comcast still viewed him as a premier player in basketball.
I don't go off of Drtg. I go with my eyes. Drtg says nothing about which player was guarding the hardest player on the floor to guard at the time. Part of the calculation is based off of the average of the other 4 players on the court at at the time. According to Drtg, Roy isn't much worse than either of these guy, at 110, but we all know better.
I think Batum is the better defender based on natural talent, but I think Matthews is currently a better defender based on effort. The key is, Batum's better when he wants to be.