HALLELUKA: Luka Clinches All-NBA 1st team. 4th in 5 years

[dirkfansince1998]

One is not a dominant defender, unless one can take away the ball from opponent and create momentum. This is done through rebounding, steals, and blocks. Some of the best ever defenders are the best because they excelled in rebounding, blocks and steals. Luka is an outstanding defender in all three categories, especially when you normalize this against the position he plays and compare him to other PGs of the game, and against the offensive load he takes which naturally makes it hard to come back as fast on posessions as players that just stand behind the 3 point line. Closing down the lanes and contending shots is equally imnortant, but not the entire part of being a great defender. If you look closely, Luka has been very good and improved at the later part as well. Its laughable that people called him bad defender previously. Just taking one or two plays from a game where he didnt do well, out of context, and concluding from that, is not the proper way to analyse a defending contribution, its rater the combined effect of a player on the defense.

Isn´t it the opposite. If you just focus on steals, blocks and rebounds. You look at a couple of plays per game. But what about all the other possessions that will never show up in the boxscore.
Some of the worst defenders have lead the league in steals or rebounds. Even blocks. Mavs should know because they continue to sign bigmen that fit into this category (DAJ, McGee).