Superstar bias in All-Defense awards in past selections?

[durantbird]

Did guys like Larry Bird, Karl Malone, Moses Malone, Kobe Bryant, Shaquille O'Neal truly deserved all of those all defense selections? Or were they rewarded with defensive awards partly because of their offensive excellence and superstar status?

Were they truly among the top defensive impact guys in the league? Should these awards be taken with a grain of salt?

It seems like nowadays you don't see this phenomenon happen that much. Otherwise guys like Jayson Tatum, Jaylen Brown or Shai Gilgeous Alexander would've probably already have All Defense selections. Edwards last season too. You still see two way guys like Giannis AD Kawhi etc. get selected but rightfully so. Do the defensive role players get more credit than before? If so why. Of course there were role players that got All Defense awards before like the TR Dunn types of guys, but still probably more superstars getting defensive recognition.

[70sFan]

There was definitely a superstar bias for ALL-D selections, but each case should be judged separately.

[kcktiny]

There was definitely a superstar bias for ALL-D selections

As there is and has been for the all-NBA team selections.

Prior to 2013-14 voting for the all-defensive team was done by NBA head coaches. Since then a panel of sportswriters/broadcasters. People who watched a lot of basketball. DPOY voting was always sportswriters/broadcasters.

Were they truly among the top defensive impact guys in the league?

The five you first mentioned were. Very good to excellent defenders that played a lot of minutes.

Was prime defender Kobe Bryant a better defender than say prime defender Tony Allen? Likely not, but Allen played as many as 2000 minutes in a season just once in his career (1300 minutes/season), whereas Bryant averaged playing close to 2900 minutes/season over 14 years. What's better defense overall from a coach's perspective? Bryant at 2900 minutes or Allen at 1300 minutes/season?

How about some examples of players and the year they were named that you disagree with, so we can discuss?

[penbeast0]

Let's take Kobe since you mentioned him. Was he really 1st team All-Defense material in 2007 to 2011 or was it just superstar bias? Was he even top 5 in the league in those years?

[Joao Saraiva]

Let's take Kobe since you mentioned him. Was he really 1st team All-Defense material in 2007 to 2011 or was it just superstar bias? Was he even top 5 in the league in those years?

Kobe was still a great on ball defender when he was spending energy on that. The times he did that were less and less tough, it's natural while you age.

With that said it can't be an on and off thing to be on the all defensive team. Definitely Kobe had some undeserved selections in those years.

[KembaWalker]

defensive specialists, especially ones that suck on offense have little utility outside of helping already good teams

ask any coach off the record when they aren't in leadership/political mode and theyll tell you it does a lot more for their team defense to have a guy that can do the work of 2-3 guys on offense and allow them the flexibility to even fit those specialists into their rotations without crippling their team. when that guy is out there on that workload while also putting in high effort on defense and generating buy-in and accountability, thats massive. i couldnt care less about these specialist iso guys, especially guards and wings fading in and out of the award teams for a year or two at a time like Caruso, Bledsoe, Thybulle, Covington, White, Smart, Bev.

im aware this isnt a function that is sortable in excel which will cause some seething, but oh well.

[falcolombardi]

defensive specialists, especially ones that suck on offense have little utility outside of helping already good teams

ask any coach off the record when they aren't in leadership/political mode and theyll tell you it does a lot more for their team defense to have a guy that can do the work of 2-3 guys on offense and allow them the flexibility to even fit those specialists into their rotations without crippling their team. when that guy is out there on that workload while also putting in high effort on defense and generating buy-in and accountability, thats massive. i couldnt care less about these specialist iso guys, especially guards and wings fading in and out of the award teams for a year or two at a time like Caruso, Bledsoe, Thybulle, Covington, White, Smart, Bev.

im aware this isnt a function that is sortable in excel which will cause some seething, but oh well.

Tldr: we award offensive players for what we imagine they could do defensively instead of who actually played defense

[falcolombardi]

defensive specialists, especially ones that suck on offense have little utility outside of helping already good teams

ask any coach off the record when they aren't in leadership/political mode and theyll tell you it does a lot more for their team defense to have a guy that can do the work of 2-3 guys on offense and allow them the flexibility to even fit those specialists into their rotations without crippling their team. when that guy is out there on that workload while also putting in high effort on defense and generating buy-in and accountability, thats massive. i couldnt care less about these specialist iso guys, especially guards and wings fading in and out of the award teams for a year or two at a time like Caruso, Bledsoe, Thybulle, Covington, White, Smart, Bev.

im aware this isnt a function that is sortable in excel which will cause some seething, but oh well.

Tldr: we award offensive players for what we imagine they could do defensively or even gor what they did offensively instead of who actually played defense

Do you have jokic as all defense too? My excel sheet telks me he does a lot of points amd assists so he surely is a dpoy contender

[penbeast0]

defensive specialists, especially ones that suck on offense have little utility outside of helping already good teams

ask any coach off the record when they aren't in leadership/political mode and theyll tell you it does a lot more for their team defense to have a guy that can do the work of 2-3 guys on offense and allow them the flexibility to even fit those specialists into their rotations without crippling their team. when that guy is out there on that workload while also putting in high effort on defense and generating buy-in and accountability, thats massive. i couldnt care less about these specialist iso guys, especially guards and wings fading in and out of the award teams for a year or two at a time like Caruso, Bledsoe, Thybulle, Covington, White, Smart, Bev.

im aware this isnt a function that is sortable in excel which will cause some seething, but oh well.

No reason you can't write an Excel sort for that if you can quantify the defensive impact. Then you just write it seeking people who are strong in both like TS ADD looks at both volume scoring and efficiency.

[KembaWalker]

defensive specialists, especially ones that suck on offense have little utility outside of helping already good teams

ask any coach off the record when they aren't in leadership/political mode and theyll tell you it does a lot more for their team defense to have a guy that can do the work of 2-3 guys on offense and allow them the flexibility to even fit those specialists into their rotations without crippling their team. when that guy is out there on that workload while also putting in high effort on defense and generating buy-in and accountability, thats massive. i couldnt care less about these specialist iso guys, especially guards and wings fading in and out of the award teams for a year or two at a time like Caruso, Bledsoe, Thybulle, Covington, White, Smart, Bev.

im aware this isnt a function that is sortable in excel which will cause some seething, but oh well.

Tldr: we award offensive players for what we imagine they could do defensively or even gor what they did offensively instead of who actually played defense

Do you have jokic as all defense too?

I mean I did specify more toward the guards/wings. A center can anchor a defense, Pat Beverley can't. You get some guy like Dejounte Murray over CP3 on an All Defensive team and it becomes very obvious later that he actually kinda sucks at defense, especially as he gets tasked with more and more workload offensively or leaves the worlds most ideal situation. so yeah, to me that makes it more impressive for more two- way responsible players, more portable players and to award players who do stuff longer term, which is generally star/superstar players.

[kcktiny]

Let's take Kobe since you mentioned him. Was he really 1st team All-Defense material in 2007 to 2011 or was it just superstar bias? Was he even top 5 in the league in those years?

Are you asking or telling? If you believe he did not deserve the accolades, explain why you believe so, and what players should have been named instead.

From 2006-07 to 2010-11 the Lakers ranked 7th best in the league defensively at 104.4 pts/100poss allowed. League average was 106.3 pts/100poss allowed. So over those 5 seasons among 30 teams they ranked halfway between the best defensive team and just the average defensive team.

Bryant alone played 1/7 to 1/6 of their total minutes played. So for example if he alone was just an average defender those 5 seasons, a whole lot of somebodies on the Lakers had to be better than the team ranking for them to rank halfway between best and average.

Here's who played the most minutes for them those 5 seasons:

14906 Kobe Bryant
12663 Lamar Odom
09357 Pau Gasol
09214 Derek Fisher
07724 Andrew Bynum
05633 Luke Walton
05446 Jordan Farmer
05015 Metta World Peace

That right there is 7/10 of the Lakers' total minutes played (another 26 players played the remainder) those 5 years.

So again, if Bryant was not a very good to excellent defender, who on the Lakers was during that time such that as a team they ranked 7th best in the league defensively out of 30 teams?

Those 5 seasons no other Lakers player was named to an all-defensive team, including Metta World Peace who was on the team in 2009-10 and 2010-11, played 2604 and 2410 minutes.

Fyi - from 1999-00 to 2003-04, Bryant was named to an all-defensive team each season, but the Lakers as a team ranked just 10th in the league in defensive efficiency. Did he deserve those nominations then?

Definitely Kobe had some undeserved selections in those years.

Well then tell us definitely what years, why, and who should have been named instead.

[ronnymac2]

Well, you want a balance. You can't just have superstars inundate the all-defensive teams because then there's no point to tertiary players and you can't build as many storylines. Kobe vs. Battier and Tony Allen vs. Durant only works if Battier and Allen get recognized for their defensive play; then you've primed the storyline of superstar scorer vs. defensive stopper.

At the same time, you want to highlight the guys ultimately drawing. You want to play up your standard-bearers like Bird, Jordan, Shaq, LeBron, Paul, etc., by making them more accomplished. This is who the people want to see, so that's how you grow the game.

Honestly, I think one of the biggest mistakes was never putting Yao on an all-defensive team. He was actually good defensively, too.

[durantbird]

Part of the question is why those guys got All Defense in the past while stars today like Tatum/SGA/Brown don't

[ronnymac2]

Part of the question is why those guys got All Defense in the past while stars today like Tatum/SGA/Brown don't

I think analytics being pushed in people's faces has a lot to do with it. It's harder to give an aging superstar who can't play defense like they used to the benefit of the doubt, which is a shame. You used to be able to sneak some stars in there and still maintain a straight face, but these dorks are making it harder, which is worse for the game.

That said, Tatum and Brown make Tim Duncan look interesting. Those guys aren't really stars. The most interesting thing either one ever did was when Brown didn't congratulate his well-liked teammate on being an Olympian - which was really an uncool move.

SGA probably should begin making them this year. As for why he hasn't...probably because people have perceived that he and his team are young and will get there at some point. I think that point may be now.

[lessthanjake]

I don’t really think there’s a big superstar bias in all-defense awards. There’s a lot of superstars that get dogged on for their defense—sometimes even at times when their defense is pretty good. And it’s tough to think of superstar players who got an all-defense selection and didn’t ever deserve it.

But I do think that people are too slow to update their perception of players’ defense when their defense goes downhill. It’s easier to update your priors about someone’s offense, because you can see their numbers clearly dip. Defense is a lot more nebulous to measure, and so it is much harder to really notice a fall-off and identify how big it is. I think that’s the main effect at play with someone like Kobe Bryant getting all-defense selections well after the time period where he was an all-defense level defender. It’s not that Kobe was never that level on defense, but rather that it took people too long to realize that he no longer was.

I guess perhaps these factors dovetail with each other, and the guys more likely to get the benefit of the doubt in slow updates to people’s priors about their defense are superstars (i.e. players who people default to thinking highly of). That seems plausible to me. But this would have to be a case-by-case thing. Some superstars have continued to have great defense, rather than falling off a lot defensively and having people not quite realize it.

[penbeast0]

Let's take Kobe since you mentioned him. Was he really 1st team All-Defense material in 2007 to 2011 or was it just superstar bias? Was he even top 5 in the league in those years?

Are you asking or telling?...

I'm not putting myself out as an expert on Kobe's defense nor have I done enough statistical analysis to make a stat based argument. Against the Wizards, who are the team I generally follow, he was not All-Defense level in the games I saw, being less aggressive on defense than the top guys out there but that's a very limited sample size. He looked better in the playoffs but most players raise their energy levels for the postseason.

I remember Luke Walton as the 3 and D guy, then Ariza came in who was better, then Metta World Piece, so there was always another wing defender playing starter/rotation minutes if not star minutes.

[One_and_Done]

Most of Kobe's all-D teams were patently absurd, so yes.

[Snakebites]

I think superstars are typically deserving of them at first but continue to get them after they no longer do.

Kobe got nods for years after his defense dipped. I don’t think Kawhi deserved the one he got in LA either.

[LukaTheGOAT]

Kobe did not deserve any all-defense awards after 01. He peaked on defense in 99 or so.

[Doctor MJ]

Part of the question is why those guys got All Defense in the past while stars today like Tatum/SGA/Brown don't

This is a great point of clarification.

I think the role of reputation on defense is much smaller now than it used to be because of the data that's now available. I doubt we'll ever seen anyone have as many unearned All-D accolades as Kobe got ever again.

Re: Brown. You mean Jaylen Brown? Well there I'd say it has something to do with him oftentimes not being a top 5 defender on is own team. He can play tight man defense when that's all he's asked to do, but he's not in the same league of versatility as Tatum or Smart or Holiday or White among the non-bigs he's played with.