Who is the Defensive Player of the Year?

[Feed Your Head]

There’s legitimately 4 or 5 guys who could win, and I’d have no complaints.

[No-more-rings]

With Bridges, his team has been better on defense with him off the floor i know on/off is noisy but i don't know how you can be considered the league's best defender with that. It's just not something you can say about the other premier names. If Draymond played more minutes and games it would probably still be him, but he missed too much time. Gobert, Giannis, Bam are all good names to mention.

[cupcakesnake]

Robert Williams III.

Boston has the #1 defense in the league. Williams is their best defender, not Smart. But Smart will get the votes.

This. Williams is the best defender by far.

The Smart campaign since Rob went down is...odd. The best defender on the best defense went down...Smart, the second best defender remains, and the Celtics defense doesn't look nearly as good without Rob...so reward the next best guy?

Sent from my SM-G975U using Tapatalk

Yeah, the campaign for Smart is interesting to me.

Smart is an absolutely elite defensive guard and has been for years. He's tenacious, he has outlier strength for his size, he's the best switching guard in the NBA. He's one of those Jimmy Butler/Kyle Lowry level intense competitors that is always hunting for extra edges in the form of hustle plays, charges, flops etc. Marcus Smart has the resume. He's made 2 all-defensive teams and been in that conversation for most of his career.

Boston has the #1 defense in the NBA, and their defensive dominance in the second half of the season has been one of the important storylines of the year. We absolutely should be looking at Boston players DPOY cases because people need credit for this!

Time Lord is, by the numbers, clearly Boston's best defender. Even without the numbers, it's pretty clear in game that Robert Williams III ability to bring elite rim protection, whether he's sitting in the paint, or rotating from the wing, is the biggest, scariest, defensive weapon on the Celtics. There are lots of switchy teams this year with 3-4 strong wing defenders (Raptors, Clippers, Mavs, Spurs, Heat, Warriors) so to me Time Lord is what stands out as special.

But the timing of the injury of Time Lord has taken some wind out of the sails of his DPOY campaign. Smart might play 70 games this season, and Williams played 61, it shouldn't be a big thing. Williams is also the new guy, the breakout candidate, and so it seems more important that he keep sticking in peoples minds by playing in games. It really feels like we're defaulting to Smart, and his lengthier resume, in an effort to keep celebrating Boston even though the media isn't interested in still talking about Robert Williams.

I think for a guard or wing to win this award, they really have to do something crazy and historical. Anyone who has studied basketball for a long time knows about the impact disparity between bigs and smalls. To me, it will always look a bit gimmicky and narrative driven to look back and see Marcus Smart's name on the DPOY list, despite him being absolutely one of the greatest defensive guards of his era.

[Johnny Bball]

Then if you cant guarding the paint, you shouldn't be DPOY either.

You think smart or bridges can't guard his man in the paint?

They cant guard a centre in the paint no. Just like Gobert cant keep up with guards on the outside.

Smart can guard centres. At least better than the other way around.

[bradybunch]

Shamet is number one in defensive rating.

[greg4012]

You think smart or bridges can't guard his man in the paint?

They cant guard a centre in the paint no. Just like Gobert cant keep up with guards on the outside.

Smart can guard centres. At least better than the other way around.

Enter Bam Adebayo

[KIRAG]

So Smart would not be a crazy choice.

But I am somewhat amazed by how hard he's campaigning for the award. I don't recall anything else like that in the era of social media. (Jordan campaigned hard too, but the media world was very different then.)

Marcus Smart needs is a nickname as catchy and widespread as “Glove”. Since 1989, only one guard has been named Defensive Player of the Year, and that guard was nicknamed Glove. So, science tells me Smart should also get a nickname as catchy as glove.

I believe his nickname is Cobra but I guess it's not widely known in the league or the media yet

[Jaqua92]

Robert Williams III.

Boston has the #1 defense in the league. Williams is their best defender, not Smart. But Smart will get the votes.

This. Williams is the best defender by far.

The Smart campaign since Rob went down is...odd. The best defender on the best defense went down...Smart, the second best defender remains, and the Celtics defense doesn't look nearly as good without Rob...so reward the next best guy?

Sent from my SM-G975U using Tapatalk

Yeah, the campaign for Smart is interesting to me.

Smart is an absolutely elite defensive guard and has been for years. He's tenacious, he has outlier strength for his size, he's the best switching guard in the NBA. He's one of those Jimmy Butler/Kyle Lowry level intense competitors that is always hunting for extra edges in the form of hustle plays, charges, flops etc. Marcus Smart has the resume. He's made 2 all-defensive teams and been in that conversation for most of his career.

Boston has the #1 defense in the NBA, and their defensive dominance in the second half of the season has been one of the important storylines of the year. We absolutely should be looking at Boston players DPOY cases because people need credit for this!

Time Lord is, by the numbers, clearly Boston's best defender. Even without the numbers, it's pretty clear in game that Robert Williams III ability to bring elite rim protection, whether he's sitting in the paint, or rotating from the wing, is the biggest, scariest, defensive weapon on the Celtics. There are lots of switchy teams this year with 3-4 strong wing defenders (Raptors, Clippers, Mavs, Spurs, Heat, Warriors) so to me Time Lord is what stands out as special.

But the timing of the injury of Time Lord has taken some wind out of the sails of his DPOY campaign. Smart might play 70 games this season, and Williams played 61, it shouldn't be a big thing. Williams is also the new guy, the breakout candidate, and so it seems more important that he keep sticking in peoples minds by playing in games. It really feels like we're defaulting to Smart, and his lengthier resume, in an effort to keep celebrating Boston even though the media isn't interested in still talking about Robert Williams.

I think for a guard or wing to win this award, they really have to do something crazy and historical. Anyone who has studied basketball for a long time knows about the impact disparity between bigs and smalls. To me, it will always look a bit gimmicky and narrative driven to look back and see Marcus Smart's name on the DPOY list, despite him being absolutely one of the greatest defensive guards of his era.

Fantastic post and I agree.

But to keep it even simpler, the second best defender on the best defensive team just doesn't seem like a "fair" win.


My issue is that the MVP award is one that's always been somewhat narrative driven. The DPOY award, frankly, has always been the most impactful/"best" defensive player in the league which is why it's usually bigs. Other than MJ, and Payton, it's typically not a narrative driven award.

On sheer number of winner criteria, Celtic media is attempting to bend what's been a generally consistent defining criteria to Smart's favor. Smart's reputation is deserving, but historically, Rob is the most deserving Celtic of the award and giving it to the "next best guy" just doesn't do it for me.

Sent from my SM-G975U using Tapatalk

[babyjax13]

I don't think it should really ever be a perimeter player, unless someone as generationally talented as Thybulle can stay on the court for starter's minutes. With how Utah has been collapsing, I don't think Rudy is going to get it this year, so my choice would be Bam or Giannis, but I can see arguments for others.

[PapaBear53]

Smart, and if he doesn't win it's because he made his own bed flopping to much and Bam wins.

And if you can't defend the perimeter too, you shouldn't be DPOY anymore.

Then if you cant guarding the paint, you shouldn't be DPOY either.

You think smart or bridges can't guard his man in the paint?

And you think Gobert can't guard his man on the perimeter?

[greg4012]

For most, the idea of guarding 1-5 is a narrative pumped up by anecdotal moments. For Bam, it's really true.

Read on Twitter

Defensive Player of the Year
1. Bam Adebayo, Heat
2. Marcus Smart, Celtics
3. Mikal Bridges, Suns

The first thing that jumps out is the name that isn’t there. Rudy Gobert ranks at or near the top of the NBA in blocks, defensive rebounding, and contested shots. He’s holding opponents to 50 percent shooting at the rim—sixth best out of 259 players to face at least 100 up-close shots, according to Second Spectrum. And while the Jazz’s defense on the whole has dropped from first last season to 11th this season, that’s been more about how much things fall apart when he’s not around.

But while Gobert remains excellent, the blah overall nature of Utah’s season felt like an occasion to open the door to some new blood—and, with it, a consideration of different types of defensive value in 2022.

Reasonable people can differ on which perimeter defender is the NBA’s best, but Bridges belongs on any short list. I’m not sure anybody in the league equals his ability to battle top offensive threats (he ranks 13th out of 260 players to log at least 1,000 minutes in average defensive matchup difficulty, according to The BBall Index’s defensive charting) and the availability to do it night after night (he leads the NBA in total minutes and is on pace to play in every game for the fourth consecutive season). His brilliance lies not in the traditional statistical markers of defensive success, but rather in the stuff that never makes its way to the stat sheet.

Bridges’s talent for tirelessly chasing the game’s best shooters and scorers all over the court, denying the ball, and plugging up passing lanes with his 7-foot-1 wingspan allows Phoenix’s bigs to focus on dropping back to smother the paint. His ability to slither around screens and stay connected to his man helps keep those bigs out of the kind of danger that can come with having to deal with both a driver and a roller barreling downhill at them. It allows aging genius Paul to roam off the ball, forever looming and ready to wreak havoc on the weak side of the action. It simplifies everybody’s else’s responsibilities and lets them just lock in on a smaller portion of the game plan with confidence that the other team’s no. 1 option is taken care of. Having an answer for the scariest perimeter question makes Monty Williams’s life a lot easier; it also makes Bridges the linchpin of the NBA’s no. 2 defense and worth every penny of the $90 million extension he got before the season.

Like Bridges, Smart operates as one of the NBA’s top perimeter stoppers; unlike Bridges, his impact is anything but quiet.

The 28-year-old is forever flying all over the floor in hot pursuit of another possession. Beyond the chaos he creates, Smart’s greatest value might lie in how his strength, length, intelligence, and tenacity allows him to guard players at all five positions; that enables the Celtics to both switch screens more often and allow fewer points per chance on switches than any other team in the NBA this season, according to Second Spectrum’s tracking data, a huge reason why Boston boasts the league’s stingiest defense.

There’s plenty of credit to go around in Boston: the emergence of spring-heeled big man Williams, the presence of a pair of excellent big wing defenders in Tatum and Jaylen Brown, the resurgence of Al Horford in his second tour of duty, the arrival of perfect-fit guard Derrick White, etc. All of it, though, traces back to the “stretch 6” who can not only bang with opposing bigs, but actually bully them.

Smart and Bridges recently made their DPOY cases by emphasizing the different and, to their way of thinking, tougher challenges that premier perimeter defenders face, such as staying in front of the league’s toughest covers and keeping them from getting to their preferred spots in the first place. Gobert and Embiid (another legitimate candidate for this award) made theirs by highlighting the global impact of a great defensive center—the back-line captains who see the whole floor, who call out the coverages, who dissuade drivers from even attempting a shot.

In presenting their arguments, though, they inadvertently made one for Adebayo—the player who does all of that better than anybody else in the league.

Miami ranks fourth in defensive efficiency this season, behind Boston and Phoenix, but the Heat crank it up when Bam mans the middle, with a mark nearly two points per 100 stingier than the Celtics overall. Crucially, though, Bam doesn’t stay in the middle: No screen defender switches onto ball handlers more often than he does, according to Second Spectrum, and few stonewall them more effectively.

Bright-eyed ball handlers who draw Adebayo and think, “OK, I’ve got a center, that’s a mismatch,” quickly find themselves disabused of that notion: He allows just 0.9 points per chance after those switches, 10th fewest of 181 players to log at least 200 switches. And trying to take him one-on-one is worse: He’s giving up just 0.74 points per isolation, according to NBA.com/Stats, 12th lowest among 112 players to defend at least 50 isos.

He handles his business without giving up the store inside, too: With him on the floor, Miami clears the defensive glass at a league-best level and prevents at-rim attempts at a top-10 rate. He can slide into the zones that Erik Spoelstra loves to deploy to short-circuit offenses, sink in a more traditional drop pick-and-roll coverage if the opponent calls for it, deny passes into the post against bigger and burlier threats, hedge at the 3-point arc or blitz the screen—you name it, he can do it.

The one knock on Bam’s case is missed games. Because of a torn thumb ligament earlier this season, he’ll wind up with fewer than 60 games and 2,000 minutes played. It doesn’t necessarily have to be disqualifying, though: Gobert’s first DPOY came in 2017-18, a season that saw him come in beneath those marks, too. In the absence of a no-doubt-about-it alternative, I feel OK going with a switch-everything swingman the size of Karl Malone, a legit shot blocker and paint patroller faster than most point guards—a dude who looks like the next evolution of NBA defense, and whose play will go a long way toward determining whether Miami can make their second Finals run in three seasons.

https://www.theringer.com/nba/2022/4/7/23014604/nba-awards-mvp-giannis-antetokounmpo-nikola-jokic-joel-embiid

[Perishable517]

Smart, and if he doesn't win it's because he made his own bed flopping to much and Bam wins.

And if you can't defend the perimeter too, you shouldn't be DPOY anymore.

Then if you cant guarding the paint, you shouldn't be DPOY either.

Well, then there is only one answer now.

Giannis.

Sent from my HTC U11 using RealGM mobile app

[Plutonashfan]

The fact that Mobley is on this list as a rookie is amazing!

[Kobe187]

Really close, Giannis probably gets it.

Has anyone ever won the scoring tittle, MVP & DPOY in the same season!? That would be insane if Giannis could do it!

[UcanUwill]

Really close, Giannis probably gets it.

Has anyone ever won the scoring tittle, MVP & DPOY in the same season!? That would be insane if Giannis could do it!

That would definitely be insane. Still an average FIBA player, I kid guys, I kid...

[Patsfan1081]

Would like to see someone other than a big man win.

[Patsfan1081]

For most, the idea of guarding 1-5 is a narrative pumped up by anecdotal moments. For Bam, it's really true.

Read on Twitter

Defensive Player of the Year
1. Bam Adebayo, Heat
2. Marcus Smart, Celtics
3. Mikal Bridges, Suns

The first thing that jumps out is the name that isn’t there. Rudy Gobert ranks at or near the top of the NBA in blocks, defensive rebounding, and contested shots. He’s holding opponents to 50 percent shooting at the rim—sixth best out of 259 players to face at least 100 up-close shots, according to Second Spectrum. And while the Jazz’s defense on the whole has dropped from first last season to 11th this season, that’s been more about how much things fall apart when he’s not around.

But while Gobert remains excellent, the blah overall nature of Utah’s season felt like an occasion to open the door to some new blood—and, with it, a consideration of different types of defensive value in 2022.

Reasonable people can differ on which perimeter defender is the NBA’s best, but Bridges belongs on any short list. I’m not sure anybody in the league equals his ability to battle top offensive threats (he ranks 13th out of 260 players to log at least 1,000 minutes in average defensive matchup difficulty, according to The BBall Index’s defensive charting) and the availability to do it night after night (he leads the NBA in total minutes and is on pace to play in every game for the fourth consecutive season). His brilliance lies not in the traditional statistical markers of defensive success, but rather in the stuff that never makes its way to the stat sheet.

Bridges’s talent for tirelessly chasing the game’s best shooters and scorers all over the court, denying the ball, and plugging up passing lanes with his 7-foot-1 wingspan allows Phoenix’s bigs to focus on dropping back to smother the paint. His ability to slither around screens and stay connected to his man helps keep those bigs out of the kind of danger that can come with having to deal with both a driver and a roller barreling downhill at them. It allows aging genius Paul to roam off the ball, forever looming and ready to wreak havoc on the weak side of the action. It simplifies everybody’s else’s responsibilities and lets them just lock in on a smaller portion of the game plan with confidence that the other team’s no. 1 option is taken care of. Having an answer for the scariest perimeter question makes Monty Williams’s life a lot easier; it also makes Bridges the linchpin of the NBA’s no. 2 defense and worth every penny of the $90 million extension he got before the season.

Like Bridges, Smart operates as one of the NBA’s top perimeter stoppers; unlike Bridges, his impact is anything but quiet.

The 28-year-old is forever flying all over the floor in hot pursuit of another possession. Beyond the chaos he creates, Smart’s greatest value might lie in how his strength, length, intelligence, and tenacity allows him to guard players at all five positions; that enables the Celtics to both switch screens more often and allow fewer points per chance on switches than any other team in the NBA this season, according to Second Spectrum’s tracking data, a huge reason why Boston boasts the league’s stingiest defense.

There’s plenty of credit to go around in Boston: the emergence of spring-heeled big man Williams, the presence of a pair of excellent big wing defenders in Tatum and Jaylen Brown, the resurgence of Al Horford in his second tour of duty, the arrival of perfect-fit guard Derrick White, etc. All of it, though, traces back to the “stretch 6” who can not only bang with opposing bigs, but actually bully them.

Smart and Bridges recently made their DPOY cases by emphasizing the different and, to their way of thinking, tougher challenges that premier perimeter defenders face, such as staying in front of the league’s toughest covers and keeping them from getting to their preferred spots in the first place. Gobert and Embiid (another legitimate candidate for this award) made theirs by highlighting the global impact of a great defensive center—the back-line captains who see the whole floor, who call out the coverages, who dissuade drivers from even attempting a shot.

In presenting their arguments, though, they inadvertently made one for Adebayo—the player who does all of that better than anybody else in the league.

Miami ranks fourth in defensive efficiency this season, behind Boston and Phoenix, but the Heat crank it up when Bam mans the middle, with a mark nearly two points per 100 stingier than the Celtics overall. Crucially, though, Bam doesn’t stay in the middle: No screen defender switches onto ball handlers more often than he does, according to Second Spectrum, and few stonewall them more effectively.

Bright-eyed ball handlers who draw Adebayo and think, “OK, I’ve got a center, that’s a mismatch,” quickly find themselves disabused of that notion: He allows just 0.9 points per chance after those switches, 10th fewest of 181 players to log at least 200 switches. And trying to take him one-on-one is worse: He’s giving up just 0.74 points per isolation, according to NBA.com/Stats, 12th lowest among 112 players to defend at least 50 isos.

He handles his business without giving up the store inside, too: With him on the floor, Miami clears the defensive glass at a league-best level and prevents at-rim attempts at a top-10 rate. He can slide into the zones that Erik Spoelstra loves to deploy to short-circuit offenses, sink in a more traditional drop pick-and-roll coverage if the opponent calls for it, deny passes into the post against bigger and burlier threats, hedge at the 3-point arc or blitz the screen—you name it, he can do it.

The one knock on Bam’s case is missed games. Because of a torn thumb ligament earlier this season, he’ll wind up with fewer than 60 games and 2,000 minutes played. It doesn’t necessarily have to be disqualifying, though: Gobert’s first DPOY came in 2017-18, a season that saw him come in beneath those marks, too. In the absence of a no-doubt-about-it alternative, I feel OK going with a switch-everything swingman the size of Karl Malone, a legit shot blocker and paint patroller faster than most point guards—a dude who looks like the next evolution of NBA defense, and whose play will go a long way toward determining whether Miami can make their second Finals run in three seasons.

https://www.theringer.com/nba/2022/4/7/23014604/nba-awards-mvp-giannis-antetokounmpo-nikola-jokic-joel-embiid

How is that possible? Do the heat play zone 100% of the time? There’s no way teams could be switching that amount vs them. They would have to be running the pick n roll 100% of the time.

[Patsfan1081]

Dont promote floppers
JJJ for me .

Every player flops, especially the best defenders…..

Watch on YouTube

[Bornstellar]

RWIII. Best defensive player on the best defensive team

[Sothron]

Can we see some actual defensive stats? My inclination is to vote for RW3 on Boston not Smart.