Who was the best defender on the 90's Bulls teams?
One thing I've been thinking about when evaluating a player's legacy is what they contributed to each team they were on. Were they the best offensive player? Best defensive player? Best on both sides of the court? Not the best on either but excellent two-way players?
If they were, say, the best offensive player, I like to look at what their teams offensive rating with them on the court was (I don't really value on/off cuz that's mostly going to be representative of how good a team's best 5 players are relative to their bench). The thing is, it feels like it's only a valuable stat when you know CLEARLY that a player is the best on one side of the court.
For instance, Steve Nash's offensive rating with the Suns was 120.3 in the '04-'05 season, a full 14.2 points higher than league average (106.1). That tells me, even if his counting stats weren't incredible, his offensive impact rivals that of Jordan and LeBron at their peaks. If I were to use, however, Amar'e Stoudemire, I'd get 117.8, which is +11.7. While that does also rival the numbers of some of the best offensive players ever, it would be ridiculous for me to say that he was a top 10/15 offensive player ever, because he OBVIOUSLY wasn't the best offensive player on the team.
When it comes to defense, the principle is largely the same. When a player is clearly the best defender on the team, I'm more likely to get valuable information about their performance when comparing them to the rest of the league as opposed to the second or third best player.
Now, I was looking at estimates of the Bulls' ORTG and DRTG with him on the court, but then I was kinda struck by an important question; was Jordan ever the best defender on his championship teams?
I want to be clear that I'm not asking if he was a great defender; obviously he was. Probably the GOAT shotblocking guard, an excellent perimeter defender, and probably the premier defenders at the guard position in the 90's. That said...Scottie was damn good. In all the 90's Bulls games I've watched (which isn't that much and is mostly playoff games), I'm almost universally more impressed with Scottie's defense than I am Jordan's. Also worth noting; most of the games I've watched from Jordan are from the first 3peat, cuz it gets even harder to make the argument that Jordan was the best defender on the team when Rodman shows up.
I want input on this; who was the best defender for each of the Bulls' 3peats?