Worst defender
Candidate 1: Dwyane Wade
It’s all about age, injuries and mileage for Wade. He’s an incredible shot blocker, the best ever in that category at shooting guard. The problem is that as he stacks on year after year of wear and tear on his body, he’s not able or interested enough to give that kind of effort consistently. The result is that he would make a couple of a great defensive plays over the course of the season, but he was getting worked more often than not.
Candidate 2: Rajon Rondo
The matador defense is a great look for him. His ability to take almost no steps before his defender gets by him is only rivaled by his remarkable ability to try for a half-hearted pick from behind as his man invariably blows by him. The rub is that he’s much like Wade – a great defender when he’s giving it 100 percent effort. He doesn’t have the years on him that Wade has and he’s not an all-time blocks leader at his position, so I afford him less slack and consider his poor effort to be more egregious.
Candidate 3: Bobby Portis
This is the winner. If you watched even half of Portis’ 64 appearances in 2016-17, you know what he’s about. The man has a look and a feel as a scrappy guy, going head-to-head with plenty of guys, not one to back down. However, he’s just bad on defense. Maybe too early to say irredeemable, particularly since he’s under a head coach who prioritizes offense over defense, but I’d bet against him developing into a great defender. He’s still young and pretty athletic, but he doesn’t transfer any of that athletic ability into defense and that seems very mysterious to me.