NBA 2017-18: Top 10 wing defenders this Season
Perimeter players are the lifeblood of basketball teams. The best teams in the league today are invariably the ones that have the best swingmen. This has been true ever since the 1980's following Kareem Abdul-Jabbar's retirement and the rise of the phenomenon that was Michael Jordan.
The most elite swingmen today handle a wide variety of tasks on both ends of the floor as the NBA continues its move towards a future of positionless basketball. Death Lineups are the order of the day, and teams like the Houston Rockets, the Warriors, the Cavaliers and the Celtics are able to field lineups with 3-4 wing players without losing a beat on the offensive end, or defensively.
The following ranking will focus on the players' ability to guard star offensive players, switch on to the toughest assignment on the night and make a difference. Bonus points are handed out to players with the ability to guard multiple positions.
Note: Players who have played 20 games or less this season, or are averaging less than 15 minutes per game are ineligible.
Without further ado, here goes our list
#10 Terry Rozier III - Boston Celtics
It is not 'this play' that we're swooning to as we put Rozier at no. 10 on our list of best wing defenders. It is not even the fact that Rozier ranks 7th among all qualified perimeter players and 3rd among point guards in defensive rating this season. It is based on the fact that Rozier's energetic play passes the eye-test that his mightily impressive defensive stat line indicates.
It is because of the fact that these stat lines have a solid basis in ground reality. Whenever Rozier gets on the floor (he's averaging a career-high 24.1 minutes per game, a commendable number considering his competition), opposition point guards have to be wary of his 6'8" wingspan, lateral quickness and basketball IQ, which enables him to average an excellent 1.5 steals per 36 minutes. In addition to this, he is a solid rebounder for the point guard position, nabbing 4.5 per game.
Rozier has improved his game by leaps and bounds so far, and there is no reason to think that his graph will slow down considering that he's still only 23 years old and has a vast room for improvement on the offensive end. But if he improves even further on the defensive end, I suspect that All-Defensive teams are not out of reach for him at some point in his career.