The best defender of the Jordan era was Dennis Rodman.
Certainly a valuable and well compensated player. But no where near the compensation of the best offensive players at the time like Jordan, Iverson and Malone.
As far as 3 point line, agree its added some scoring to the game, and taken away some of the value of be strong under the boards. But we're really only talking degrees of difference ... the game may have gone from teams averaging 80-something points per game to 90-something, but either way that's still a huge emphasis on scoring compared to other sports.