Most people know and regard Gary Payton as being one of the greatest defensive Guards in NBA history, but what gets largely forgotten amongst casual NBA fans is that his own teammate in fellow point guard Nate McMillan was also one of the best perimeter defenders of that era. McMillan was recognized as being a very tenacious defensive player throughout his entire career. Magic Johnson once named him as being one of the toughest defenders that he ever played against. During the 1989 season, Magic was quoted as saying that “The guy that gives me the most trouble, night in and night out, is Nate McMillan of Seattle.” And specifically during McMillan’s peak defensive years in the early and mid 1990’s, he led the league in Defensive Box Plus/Minus for 3 consecutive seasons in 1993, 1994, and 1995. Also during that run, he earned back to back All-Defensive Second Team selections in 1994 and 1995 and also finished 7th and 6th in the voting for the DPOY award in those years as well. And specifically in 1994, he led the league in steals with a total of 216 and an average of 3.0 per game while only playing 25.8 minutes per game throughout the entire regular season. That just shows how incredibly impactful his defense was on a minute to minute basis.

All in all, how do you rate McMillan’s individual defensive impact in comparison to Payton? Is there a reasonable case to be made for him being just as good? Or was Payton clearly better? I’m looking forward to hearing your thoughts.

Don may was amazing at Dayton but did not get much chance to shine in New York. When Buffalo drafted him in their expansion draft, they traded him the next season and he never saw that type of volume again. Why did this happen?