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Over the weeks leading up to the season Mountain West Wire will be looking at the best players at different aspects of the game. As basketball has become more and more positionless it’s more about being the best at specific skills than it is being the best at a certain position. The series will look at the best scorers, rebounders, passers, shooters, perimeter defenders, and interior defenders.
For past articles, check here:
Individual perimeter defense is the hardest thing to gauge in basketball. To start, there are no publicly available stats measuring perimeter defense specifically. Steals or steal percentage are often used, but can be misleading. Sometimes the players with the most steals actually hurt the team defensively, because they play themselves out of position to try and get steals. So steals alone aren’t a good barometer. Opponent field goal percentage isn’t great on it’s own either, because it can be influenced by teammates, and because the best defense results in no shots being taken at all. There is no stat that measures an opponent passing the ball away because they can’t shake the defender.
Which leads to the next difficulty. Defense as a whole is a team concept. A high level player can score 1v1 against any defender. It takes a team to slow down the best players. So even when watching film it can be hard to know if a player did what they were supposed to do or not, especially when they’re guarding off the ball.
With all that in mind, it’s time to try and narrow down the best perimeter defenders in the conference
5. Tru Washington, New Mexico – Washington is an example of how a player can sometimes get too aggressive and hurt the defense overall. His steal rate of 4.3% ranked 16th in the nation last season. His ball pressure and disruption are elite in that regard. However, of all players on this list, he leads the group in fouls committed per 40 minutes (4.0), and is average to below average in points allowed per possession in the relevant play types, showing that his aggression has a cost. As a junior he should get better at playing good team defense while maintaining his aggression.
4. Tre Coleman, Nevada – Coleman is the opposite of Washington. He had a more modest steal rate of 2.5% last season, still top 500 in the nation. In doing so he recorded better marks in terms of points allowed per possession, and committed less fouls per 40 minutes. He is more in the mold of a lockdown defender. He doesn’t produce as many highlights, but opponents score less points when Coleman is guarding them. When it comes down to good defense, highlights are less important than preventing points from being scored, so Coleman gets the slight edge.
3. Drake Allen, Utah State – Allen is the best point of attack defender on this list. Last season he finished in the 66th percentile in points allowed per possession in pick and roll situations. That is above average to start, and having big men like Aubin Gateretse and Isaac Johnson protecting the rim behind him should only help those numbers. His steal rate of 3.1% shows he can be highly disruptive as well. As an off ball defender he was less efficient, but not enough to be a negative. He just thrives at the point of attack.
2. Miles Byrd, San Diego State – Byrd had limited minutes as a sophomore, but still shined on the defensive end. He had the 9th best defensive PIPM in the conference, and the 5th best among returning players. What sets him apart is his ability to be disruptive without hurting the team’s defense. Byrd had one of the highest steal rate in the conference last season at 3.6%, and it seemed at least once every game he was picking someone’s pocket or jumping a passing lane and taking it the other way for a layup. Add to that his 94th percentile spot up defense and his 85th percentile off screen defense that shows opponents don’t score on him easily despite his aggression. As an added bonus. Byrd had a block rate of 5.3% last season, which is exceptionally high for a perimeter defender.
Byrd misses the top spot for two reasons. One is the small sample size. It’s possible, although unlikely, that his numbers are boosted by luck in fewer opportunities. The other is his opponents points per possession in pick and roll situations was well below average. Both of those questions should be answered this season.
1. Nique Clifford, Colorado State – Clifford had the best Defensive PIPM of any Mountain West player last season. While some of that is influenced by his elite rebounding, it is still impressive that it bested rim protecting big men who usually lead in the metric. Clifford is a balanced defender. His steal rate of 2.6 is well above average, and in conference play he had the 5th best steal rate last season. He rates average or better in opponent points per possession in the play types relevant to his position, highlighted by allowing 0.879 points per possession in spot up situations, which ranks in the 60th percentile.
