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Originally Posted by Minstrel
Good question. I consider defense, from an a priori standpoint, to be a bit less important than offense for an individual player. I'd say that it's the most important single factor after scoring. I arrive at this conclusion thusly:
1. From a team standpoint, defense is as important as offense. Every point you prevent (that the average team wouldn't) is as valuable as every point you score (that the average team wouldn't). I'm specifying "from average" to take away the element that offenses have the objective edge on defense...on average, every possession is worth over 1 point. Half of all possessions do not end in defensive stops. But if you adjust both sides from what the average team would do, this isn't a concern and defense above the average (or marginal defense) is worth exactly as much as offense above the average (or marginal offense).
2. On an individual level, the value of defense shrinks from equal importance. The reason for this is that a single star can consistently cause an offensive possession to result in success, by making an individual play that scores a basket. While it's difficult, it's possible for one player to score without (substantative) help from his teammates (they do need to be out there and theoretically threatening  ). However, a single star cannot consistently cause a defensive possession to result in success. That's because the offense controls where the ball goes and can avoid that star. If the star's teammates are duffers on defense, there's nothing he can do to prevents scores beyond the rare steal or block.
Based on those two logical premises, I conclude that individual defense is worth a lot, but not as much as all individual offense combined and probably not even quite as much as scoring alone. But probably more than any other single factor.
Scientific, no. Logically reasonable, yes, in my opinion.
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I'd have to agree with your assessment, both from the standpoint of pure logic and personal experience: trying to shut down your man when you are unable to score on offense is generally a losing game. The only way to score 0 points and to have a positive overall impact is to be a great team defender and, more importantly, to find a way to get
everyone more involved on the defensive end.
When that happens, it's possible for a Rodmanesque offensive player to have a strong impact on his team's performance. But, there generally aren't that many players who can
consistently accomplish this on an NBA level against a variety of teams well capable of making ingame adjustments; which is why we see more Bruce Bowen types (excellent man-to-man plus hits open spot-up threes) in the league.
There are probably many other ways to articulate your points, and if I had the impulse to carefully articulate my own assessment for the value of defense, it would have been somewhat different, but the results would be the same: for teams, defense is as important as offense; for players, defense is less important than offense (not to throw in an 'rpg' reference, but it's like pure melee vs support -
somebody has to do the actual damage).
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Weighing in defense is a mixture of opinion and logic, then. Opinion on the quality of defense, logic on how much the defense is worth.
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You said pretty much what I wanted to say.
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After that, it's just opinion how good someone is on defense. But at least I have some idea how to weigh that opinion in comparison with their more certain production. If I think player X plays great defense, that's more valuable than player Y's great Rebound Rate, in my opinion.
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Interesting...more valuable than a rebound rate, but less valuable than a...?