When James Jones speaks, we listen.

MIAMI -- When it’s all said and done, James Jones could have been a lawyer. He is always game for a debate in the pregame lockerroom.

He could have been a trader on Wall Street, or in the financial district in nearby Brickell, FL. He has a finance degree from the University of Miami and is currently the treasurer of the NBA Players Association.

He could have been a behavioral economist. He loves deciphering why people do what they do.

Which is why I caught up with him before Monday’s game to discuss the Defensive Player of the Year voting totals that came out Monday.

The top ten were reported as follows:

1. Dwight Howard

2. Kevin Garnett

3. Tyson Chandler

4. Tony Allen

5. Rajon Rondo

6. Andrew Bogut

7. Grant Hill

8. Andre Iguodala

9. LeBron James

10. Luol Deng

As expected, he had no shortage of words about how outsiders view the game and our common misconceptions about what good defense entails. Here’s our conversation:

Tony Allen and Rajon Rondo finished in the top five in voting. With their distant proximity to the basket, do perimeter defenders deserve to finish that high?

I think so. That’s a really tough award to hand out because stats don’t tell the whole truth. If a guy is a high steal guy, people will automatically say he’s a defender. But he could just be a guy who gambles. Other defenders don’t have great stats -- but if you look at opponent shooting percentage against them, or look at their role of guarding the best player night in and night out -- those things you can’t really gauge. Those types of guys get overlooked.

[Voters] just look at it as points off turnovers, or offense that’s generated by defense. And that’s understandable. But there are a lot of true defenders out there, guys that play their position, force guys into tough shots and they don’t get enough recognition. I thought that’s what the Defensive Player of the Year is supposed to be about and not just a guy who has great stats.

Say you had you could choose who guarded you on a given night, who would you choose: Tony Allen, Grant Hill, Andre Iguodala, LeBron James (I know he’s your teammate) or Luol Deng?

Grant Hill, but he played really well this year. He took that role and was a great defender for them. But all those other guys are very, very explosive defenders. Tony Allen is extremely athletic. Iguodala, freakishly athletic. LeBron, freakishly athletic. So I would have to go with Grant.

Looking at the big names in the rankings, is there a star bias going on here?

Without a doubt.

With that said, could an offensively limited guy like your teammate Joel Anthony be seriously considered?

I think guys like [Joel] are usually cast away because they look at them and say, “Oh, well, all they do is defend. It’s what we’d expect. That’s what they do.” I give a lot of guys like that a lot of credit. Thabo Sefolosha is a great defender for Oklahoma City. Keith Bogans -- however underrated he is, he’s a great position defender. If you look at the guys who play against him, he’s not necessarily shutting him down but if you just look at how hard he makes them work. If a guy gets 18 points, and he takes 22 shots, that’s a good defender compared to a guy who has five steals but the guy he guarded went 7-for-9 from the field. But he has five steals. That’s the way it works, it’s a stat-driven league so you have to understand and respect that.

There was a New York Times article written by Michael Lewis that called Shane Battier the “No-Stats All-Star.” Is he what you mean by that?

The guy he guards misses shots. He made turnovers that were team forced turnovers, he made his guy pass the ball to someone else and got someone off the ball. Those things you really can’t gauge so it’s understandable.

So say you’re a voter. What would you look at?

You have to look at the good defensive teams and you also have to look at what a team looks like defensively when those guys are not in rotation. Field goal percentage, production from the unit when they’re in, look at the opposing players they’re guarding, what their efficiency ratings are, not just the cumulative numbers. A guy like Dwight Howard is easy. If you look at him, you know that he changes shots, you know that he alters everything in the paint, so he’s a no brainer.

You also have to look at versatility. But you can’t quantify it. LeBron guards [positions] 1-through-5. Iguodala guards 1-through-4. Tony Allen will guard 1-through-3, and 1-through-4 -- they’ll put him on Dirk. It’s tough.

But that’s why we leave it up to the experts, pundits, and columnists.

It’s too bad that Roland Beech, the founder of advanced stats warehouse 82games.com, is now a member of the Dallas Mavericks coaching staff and not Miami’s. Something tells me that they’d be pals.

Why?

Because a lot of the measures that Jones wants to see, they actually do exist -- and they exist on 82games.com. Jones says it would be great if we could somehow measure a player’s opponent efficiency rating as if it is some undiscovered holy grail of basketball stats. But we have it at 82games. For example, we find that Jones' counterpart player efficiency rating (PER) checks out at 13.7, which is below the league average of 15 (remember, a lower number is better for defense). Jones' figure ranks him in the top fifty in the category. He would probably like to know that information. (For those wondering, Jones' opponent Iguodala ranks first with a counterpart PER of 8.8).

Although Jones doesn't specifically call it by name, he's essentially describing the spirit of plus-minus when he says, "you also have to look at what a team looks like defensively when those guys are not in rotation." At 82games, we can see how teams perform defensively with each player on the court and off the court. For example, we find that the Heat allow 104.7 points per 100 possessions with Jones on the court. Off the court? Just a tick above that rate, 104.8 points per 100 possessions. Among Heat regulars, Chris Bosh leads the way with a minus-5.4 defensive efficiency on-court/off-court differential.

There are stats -- the traditional ones that you see in the newspaper. And then there are stats -- the advances ones that you see on the internet. And Jones is right: evaluating defense with traditional stats is tough. And using advanced stats sheds more light on the defensive puzzle. We still don't have the entire picture but we've made tremendous strides over the past few years. No, we haven't been able to quantify the versatility of LeBron guarding opposing point guards and centers -- or at least not yet. That's a question for another day.

You know, considering Jones' basketball ideas and numerical disposition as a finance guy, when it's all said and done, maybe Jones could have been a stat-head after all.