Minister of Defense: the defense model
Who actually defends? Steals and blocks matter, but so do fouls, impact stats and the team around a player. This page scores every qualified season since 1973-74 and shows the players who earn Clamps, Lockdown and Minister of Defense.
How the score works
Each player’s steal and block rates are compared with the average qualified guard, wing or big that season. Bigs are rewarded mostly for blocks and guards mostly for steals. A big does not lose points for few steals, or a guard for few blocks.
Fewer fouls per 75 possessions helps a little, because a defender who stays on the floor without fouling is doing something right.
Defensive box plus-minus, defensive win shares per 48 minutes and defensive rebound percentage are all included, each as a small piece, so no single number decides a season.
Players on elite team defenses get modest credit, scaled by how much they play. It is split among the rotation, with the biggest share going to the players who play the most.
Each season is then ranked against every qualified season at the same position, so a guard is compared with guards and a big with bigs. That rank is the Defense score, from 0 to 100. A season qualifies with at least 40 games and 1,600 minutes, prorated in short seasons. The scores stretch from the 1970s to 2025-26.
normDefense puts the same ranking on a bell curve, with an average of 50. The top end becomes harder to reach, so 65 is about the 84th percentile, 80 is about the 98th, and 85 is roughly the top 1% of a position. Most of the elite seasons on this page score in the 80s and 90s.
Steals, blocks and the other play-by-play inputs were not recorded before 1973-74, and the box-score data is thinner before 1997, so earlier seasons are less certain. A defender’s positioning, communication and ability to guard the best player on the floor leave little trace in the numbers. The score also cannot see what a player prevented by being in the right place.
For that reason the tiers are chosen by hand with the scores as a guide, not computed from them. Defenders who are known for scheme and positioning, such as Bruce Bowen and Tayshaun Prince, can sit higher than the score alone would put them. No ranking is claimed within each tier.
The tiers
Bronze is still excellent. Gold is all-time. Each player is listed once, at his highest tier. A * marks a player added by hand.
Guards
- Ben Simmons
- Chauncey Billups
- Clyde Drexler
- Dan Majerle
- Doc Rivers
- Don Chaney
- Gus Williams
- John Wall
- Kirk Hinrich
- Kyle Lowry
- Matisse Thybulle
- Mike Conley
- Paul Pressey
- Ronnie Brewer
- Thabo Sefolosha
- Alvin Robertson
- Cason Wallace
- Danny Green
- Darwin Cook
- Derrick White
- Dwyane Wade
- Eddie Jones
- Eric Bledsoe
- Jerry West
- John Stockton
- Kobe Bryant
- Manu Ginóbili
- Nate McMillan
- Rajon Rondo
- Shai Gilgeous-Alexander
- Alex Caruso
- Chris Paul
- Doug Christie
- Fat Lever
- Gary Payton
- Jason Kidd
- Jrue Holiday
- Marcus Smart
- Maurice Cheeks
- Michael Jordan
- Michael Ray Richardson
- Mookie Blaylock
- Ron Harper
- Tony Allen
- Walt Frazier
Wings
- Chris Morris
- Derrick McKey
- James Posey
- Kent Bazemore
- Luol Deng
- Nicolas Batum
- Paul Pierce
- Scottie Barnes
- Tayshaun Prince
- Thaddeus Young
- Trevor Ariza
- George Lynch
- Grant Hill
- Greg Ballard
- Herbert Jones
- Jayson Tatum
- Jerome Kersey
- Jimmy Butler
- Kevin Durant
- Larry Bird
- OG Anunoby
- Robert Covington
- Shane Battier
- Amen Thompson
- Andre Iguodala
- Andrei Kirilenko
- Ausar Thompson
- Bruce Bowen
- Gerald Wallace
- Josh Smith
- Julius Erving
- Kawhi Leonard
- LeBron James
- Metta World Peace
- Paul George
- Scottie Pippen
- Shawn Marion
Bigs
- Bam Adebayo
- Bill Laimbeer
- DeAndre Jordan
- Elton Brand
- Evan Mobley
- George Johnson
- Joel Embiid
- Larry Nance
- Marc Gasol
- Rasheed Wallace
- Robert Parish
- Serge Ibaka
- Theo Ratliff
- Yao Ming
- Al Horford
- Andrew Bogut
- Anthony Davis
- Bobby Jones
- Brook Lopez
- Caldwell Jones
- Giannis Antetokounmpo
- Joakim Noah
- Kareem Abdul-Jabbar
- Marcus Camby
- Mark Eaton
- Patrick Ewing
- Shaquille O'Neal
- Alonzo Mourning
- Ben Wallace
- Bill Russell
- Bill Walton
- David Robinson
- Dikembe Mutombo
- Draymond Green
- Dwight Howard
- Hakeem Olajuwon
- Kevin Garnett
- Nate Thurmond
- Rudy Gobert
- Tim Duncan
- Victor Wembanyama
- Wilt Chamberlain
* Bill Russell, Wilt Chamberlain and Jerry West finished their careers before 1973-74, so they are included by hand and have no score. Nate Thurmond is included by hand because only his last two seasons are measured. Andrei Kirilenko and Josh Smith are scored as wings.
The numbers behind the tiers
Only the players on the tier lists above appear here. Choose a position and tap a name to see every qualified season. Click a column to sort.
| Player | Tier | Seasons | Career avg | Top-5 avg | Peak normDefense | Peak season |
|---|
Career avg and top-5 avg are the average Defense score (0 to 100) over all qualified seasons and over a player’s best five. Peak normDefense is the best single season on the bell-curve scale. In the season tables, Stl vs pos and Blk vs pos show how many times the average at his position a player recorded, and DBPM is defensive box plus-minus.