bisme37 wrote:He's not eligible for end of season awards but I wanted to shout KP out. He was excellent defending the rim vs Zion yesterday.
He's excellent the whole season, 2nd best rim protector in the league behind Gobert in terms of rim protection differential (DFG% vs expected). Obviously, playing within such defensive system alongside so great 'supporting' cast is helpful, but KP is fantastic, all-star level player aside missed games.
shrink wrote:Wemby has the physical ability to make jaw-dropping plays, but it will take time before he can have the same defensive effect for a team that Gobert has.
I don't think Wemby is a DPOTY this year in terms of his overall season-long impact (he had this wasted first part of the season when he was played as a power forward), but I think he already has this monstrous 'defensive effect': as a center (since 12/08/23), he's +9.8 net positive defensively, that's the difference between Wolves (#1 defense) and Raptors (#26 defense), in Wemby's case: between 2nd and 28th D in this time span.
It's hard to extrapolate net rating of Wemby to compare it to the former DPOTY winners (the better is defense, the more difficult is to have such ridiculous net rating), but Spurs last two seasons without Wemby are dead-last in the defensive rating and center-Wemby takes them to the top (with him on a floor), you can't expect anything more from ... anyone, and that's his effect as a rookie (for most part of the season). Whether that's due to communication, his presence itself or specific skillset is kind of irrelevant.
If he had played the full season as a center (for the first 20 games of this season, he played as a power forward and safety-like role defensively) - he would've been a very realistic DPOTY candidate (level wise). Right now, I'd go with DPOTY runner-up and 2nd team All-NBA D team, what's still ridiculous for a 20yo rookie.
