The profoundness of this thread makes my head hurt. "He is." "Millsap sucks." "[insert comment about Yi here]"
Milsap is a good player. He is also short for a PF. Last night the difference of the game was the bigs from LA who could stand on their tippy toes and outrebound Utah's bigs.
Yup, he does. That's why I like him a lot more than a comparably productive player, David Lee. His career D-Rtg (defensive rating, or approximately how many points he gives up per 100 possessions) is 103, which is very good. DPOY candidates are generally at 100 or just under. Millsap is very good, and I was really hoping Pritchard's "toxic" offer had worked.
Hmmm an amazing coincidence Utah lost by 12? Darren Williams was -11. I guess he doesn't defend at all either....
Millsap is an example of a player that made himself good. If he weren't a Jizz, I'd actually root for him.
DRtg is a very team reliant stat, however. Boozer's Rtg was 102, and I've never seen anybody confuse him for a good defender. Okur was 104, same thing. Not saying he is a bad defender, I just don't think showing his DRtg shows him as a good one.
Yeah, it is team dependent to an extent, but it's still one of the better defensive metrics available, IMO, and I used it in order to give something more objective than my own observation, which also leads me to believe he's at least a solid defender. There are some likely outliers, just as there with PER or various other measures, but I think it largely gives a good approximation in at least broad strokes. I wouldn't rank players' defense precisely using D-Rtg, but I'd be inclined to think that a player who posted a D-Rtg below 105 was at least decent/good unless it totally contradicted what I saw from the player myself.
