Damn impressive though a small sample size. Two in the top 10. That is a good back court. I don't know if missing these games will hurt his all nba chances, assuming he still is red hot upon return.
I think it's an artifact of sample size and noise because no fucking way is CJ the best defender on Portland's roster or the 26th best defender in the league in fact, it might be an artifact of a crappy stat because something is wrong with the webpages at ESPN. After you go to "all" and see that list you made, look what happens when you sort by position (Remember that CJ is first, and listed as a SG, and Dame is 9th, and listed as a PG): PG's: hmmm....where is Dame? and SG's: and now, where is CJ? neither one appears in the other three position lists either. In fact, it's hard to find any Blazer in lists sorted by position other than Blievens. I wouldn't trust RPM right now. Either ESPN is doing a piss-poor job of data organizing or the stat is deeply flawed this year
CJ was doing an awesome job at forcing his player to use the pick and staying connected to limit the options of the offense. He was really working hard, and it showed. He may well have been the most consistently good team defender on the Blazers while he was healthy.
if CJ was the best defender on the Blazers it would show up in more gauges than just DRPM. so let's test that theory: defensive rating (last column): now that reflects reality a lot better than CJ being the best defender, IMO defensive winshares (last column) It's a cumulative stat so more minutes matter: DBPM: there really shouldn't be that big a gap between DBPM and DRPM finally, how about the opposing team's offensive rating on/off which is effectively the defensive rating for Portland: again, that more closely matches the eye test than CJ's DRPM number. I mean, if that number is valid, that means CJ is a better defender than Anthony Davis, Lebron, Aaron Baynes, Jae Crowder, Nurkic, Embiid, Chris Paul, Steven Adams, Marcus Smart, Nicolas Batum , Derrick Favors, Jrue Holiday, Jayson Tatum, Paul George, Kyle Lowry, Kevin Durant, Giannis, Avery Bradley, and of course RoCo & Jones. Doesn't seem to match reality again, those DRPM numbers sure seem to defy logic and rather look like artifacts of sample size, noise, and some very likely rotation anomalies.
Their data appears to be totally messed up. If you look at the full list of PGs and SGs, neither Dame or CJ is listed at all.
Missing players / players listed at weird positions has been a thing for a while. Even worse since they changed their formula last year. A lot of DRPM oddities as well. EPM and Raptor both have CJ as a slight negative on defensive fwiw. 4th best defender on the team after Nurk, DJ, and RoCo (in that order)
But I didn't say CJ was a better defender than any of those guys. Just acknowledged his consistently high effort on defense this season. I can't think of another guy on this team who had elevated their defensive effort like that this season.
