Who is the best defender in the Euroleague?

29/Apr/16 12:07 April 29, 2016

Lefteris Moutis

29/Apr/16 12:07

Eurohoops.net

Eurohoops singled out 6 players, taking into account two basic criteria and asks the people to decide. Who is the best defender in this year’s Euroleague?

Best D photo

By Nikos Varlas/ varlas@eurohoops.net

Many basketball experts are proponents of the view that it’s the offense that brings the fans to the stadium and the defense that wins titles. An approach that is very close to this view is that the defense is like money in the bank, while the offense points more to… gambling, since it’s the topic of the day!

Our view? In contemporary basketball the titles are won by a combination of the balance between defense and offense, when both function at the highest level for a team! The reason? Now, offense and defense are more and more interconnected and interdependent, since basketball is getting faster, plays unfold faster and situations proceed from one to the other in no time.

The question is simple. Who is the best defender in this year’s Euroleague? Which player deserves to get the Best Defender award that was established in the 2004-05 season?

Before we present our own candidates, let’s remember the winners of the previous 11 seasons! The absolute dominator is Dimitris Diamantidis with 6 wins (2005-09 and the 2011 season)!

In 2010 it was Viktor Khryapa, in 2012 Andrey Kirilenko, in 2013 Stefan Lasme and in the 2 last seasons it was Bryan Dunston as a player for Olympiacos.

The best defender has emerged from a Greek team nine times and two times from CSKA. This particular award hasn’t travelled to any other countries outside of Greece and Russia! Impressive!

This year, for the very first time, the chance of the award to going to a player that plays in a different country is big!

The six candidates

Eurohoops singled out 6 players not only based on numbers, but with the criterion being their overall effort and impact on the defensive function of their teams and with contribution that is not captured in statistics. The second basic criterion is the course of the clubs they play for and how far they went. Let’s take a look at them!

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