Defense is less straightforward, so we'll need to call in the ringers. We'll package together three of the most comprehensive defensive metrics in the public forum: opponent PER, which tells us the PER of a player's counterpart in the opposing lineup; defensive plus-minus, which tells us how the team defense improved with a player on the court; and Synergy Sports' defensive efficiency rating, which uses countless hours of scout video tracking to assess a player's defensive acumen. I combined the three ratings to come up with a rating that ranges from 1 to 100, in which 50 is average and 100 is the cream of the crop. That's the defensive component. Both are on a 100-point scale.
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Zach Randolph -- Offense 94, Defense 65
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Sure, he's not the best help defender out there, but while he's putting up 20 and 10 every night, all of the available defensive metrics consider him average or slightly above average on that end of the floor. The Grizzlies' defense is essentially unchanged when he leaves the court (allowing 106.6 points per 100 possessions with him on the floor and 106.5 points when he's on the bench), and when it comes to defending the post-up Synergy Sports places him in the top-third in the league in defensive efficiency. He's easily a top-20 player in the league, and now he's getting paid like it.
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Carlos Boozer -- Offense 84, Defense 26
