It's not just the Carmelo signing, although God knows that doesn't help. It just seems to me that Olshey doesn't give a shit about defense. But then I got to thinking: maybe that's a Blazer tradition. While other teams can have two way superstars (Jordan, Olajuwon, LeBron, Kobe, Duncan, Antetokounmpo et. al.) none of our great players is known for his defense. Who are the best individual defenders in Blazer history? I'm struggling. I guess Buck Williams? Greg Anthony? Our best current defender is probably Nurk, although Collins was looking promising.
Bill Walton by far. Then Buck, Bowie, Luke, Clyde, Kersey, Sheed, etc. Porter was probably an underrated defender. Pippen while on the team.
Pippen, no doubt, although he wasn't close to Bulls Pippen. Have to take the oldies' words on Walton and Maurice Lucas. Never thought of Clyde as much of a defender, except steals and the occasional chase-down block. Brian Grant and Rasheed both deserve mention, I guess.
He gave people a lot of trouble at the rim. He had never had a defensive rating above 97 and averaged 2.3 blocks over 7 years. I would call that pretty substantial. Same number of blocks as Marc Gasol, but Gasol's lowest defensive rating (on a good defensive team) was 98. Agreed he didn't cover the perimeter at all.
like people have said, Walton leads the pack. Larry Steele was good, and Buck was really good. Others who haven't been mentioned: Lionel Hollins, TR Dunn, Stacy Augmon, Aaron Mckie, Darnell Valentine also: Blazers had Don Buse for half a season and he was named to the all-NBA defense 1st team 6 times, including 5 straight seasons.
I'm putting Al Farouq Aminu on the list....he's a super underrated defender that was also a defensive floor general for us....we miss him this season
Pippen belongs on the list because there actually isn't a ton of competition, but while he was both an incredible individual and team defender in Chicago, he was really only a great team defender in Portland and more along the lines of pretty good on the ball.
