DPOY and All-Defense Thread 2023 (FINAL poll reset)

[Ritzo]

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[cupcakesnake]

I think the Bucks have strong candidates in Giannis and Brook, but the DPOY is Jrue.

fwiw, Jevon Carter is currently leading the Bucks in opponents offensive rating at 108.8.

The Bucks are tough with strong perimeter and interior defense and for some reason exploiting Brook's drop defense seems harder than it should be; but I expect that to be fully tested in the playoff.

I think Brook has looked super nimble this year. He's rarely been quite as slow as people picture him.

I think it's also way harder to attack drop when there's a second rim protector. You have watched it all year when Allen and Mobley share the floor. The drop big can come a little higher/be a little more aggressive, and the whole defensive scheme doesn't rely on 1 guy being close to the basket.

You see drop get exploited when the team's scheme is dependent on 1 guy in the paint. The classic example is Rudy in Utah as well as Jokic in Denver. I think the Sixers low-key got carved up a lot in the playoffs last year whenever they could drag Embiid out of the paint. It's not about the big being slow, it's about the team not being able to afford having them leave the paint. I watched Denver vs. Brooklyn the other night, and thought Jokic was playing great defense, but you could see/feel how vulnerable the defense was when he had to close out to the perimeter or switch a pick & roll. The paint is just empty and Denver was 1 slight mistake away from giving up a dunk or a decent look in the paint. Luka annihilated Phoenix last year too with their 1-big defense.

[JonFromVA]

I think the Bucks have strong candidates in Giannis and Brook, but the DPOY is Jrue.

fwiw, Jevon Carter is currently leading the Bucks in opponents offensive rating at 108.8.

The Bucks are tough with strong perimeter and interior defense and for some reason exploiting Brook's drop defense seems harder than it should be; but I expect that to be fully tested in the playoff.

I think Brook has looked super nimble this year. He's rarely been quite as slow as people picture him.

I think it's also way harder to attack drop when there's a second rim protector. You have watched it all year when Allen and Mobley share the floor. The drop big can come a little higher/be a little more aggressive, and the whole defensive scheme doesn't rely on 1 guy being close to the basket.

You see drop get exploited when the team's scheme is dependent on 1 guy in the paint. The classic example is Rudy in Utah as well as Jokic in Denver. I think the Sixers low-key got carved up a lot in the playoffs last year whenever they could drag Embiid out of the paint. It's not about the big being slow, it's about the team not being able to afford having them leave the paint. I watched Denver vs. Brooklyn the other night, and thought Jokic was playing great defense, but you could see/feel how vulnerable the defense was when he had to close out to the perimeter or switch a pick & roll. The paint is just empty and Denver was 1 slight mistake away from giving up a dunk or a decent look in the paint. Luka annihilated Phoenix last year too with their 1-big defense.

Sure, one of the Cavs challenges will be trying to make sure that Mobley and Allen don't both get pulled out of the paint; but they are both far more mobile than Brook and my impression is they play up closer in drop.

One reason Brook seems to get away with a deep drop is because of how Holiday and Carter battle through screens.

If the two teams face each other in the playoffs, it's problematic for the Cavs that Allen and Mobley don't set very good screens, neither are a threat in pick and pop, and none of our SF's are likely to draw Giannis out of the paint; but I'm getting ahead of myself worrying about that.

[ANTETOKOUNBROS]

Jokic apparently.

[AleksandarN]

Jokic apparently.

Jokic living rent free in you head. Lol

[BigO]

The Lopez discussion in interesting:

1) He was the main reason the Bucks improved dramatically this year on defense, but not the only reason. The Bucks were in the bottom half of the league in three point defense last year. This year, because of a conscious change in coaching, they are 4th. That has nothing to do with Lopez, as the Bucks have always been bad in three point defense until this year.

2) While the Bucks mainly play the drop, during the playoffs they are forced to start switching, because teams feast on open two pointers and passive defenses. When that happens, Lopez is unplayable and Giannis takes over the middle. The Bucks closed out the Suns during the championship finale and had to take Lopez out of the game when it got tight.

3) There is very little similarity between the way Cleveland plays the drop and the Bucks. Lopez is almost always camped out by the basket, while Cleveland plays a more aggressive drop and many times actually hedges on the high ball screens.
It's why the Bucks are dead last in forcing opponent turnovers and Cleveland is near the top.

Of course, Mobley is also very switchable and Lopez is not.

That being said, I would love to see Lopez get the award. Nice guy, great teammate and has reinvented himself. Nice story.

[GSP]

These poll results show how out of touch this section is. Its a 2 man race b/w Brook and Jjj. No one is in the vicinity of either for odds of winning it. Mobley should be getting more love tho.

Brook played 22 games last season and Bucks were tied with Orlando Magic with a 112.5 defensive rating without him which wouldve had them as the 17th ranked defense. Theyve been a top 10 defense every other year and finished 1st and top 5 many times.... WITH Brook. Its not rocket science. Jrue and Giannis get the love but Brook has been their most impactful defender for years now.

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[Sidthekid87]

Og still doesn't get nearly enough love. He's the best wing defender in the league and the most versatile defender in the league period.

[Dacost]

With everything that's going in Memphis Jackson is holding it all together with defense and staying afloat pretty much by himself.

Is going to be interesting to see if Jrue and ginnias hurt Lopez when it comes to voting since they are both elite defenders.

While JJJ has Dillon Brooks but no one cares or respects him.

[cupcakesnake]

Og still doesn't get nearly enough love. He's the best wing defender in the league and the most versatile defender in the league period.

It's only because Toronto has had a disappointing season. He was leading early polls in this thread, and was an early favorite for this award in general.

Last night the Raptors were playing the Thunder and Shai was having a game. Dancing around FVV and Siakam despite both of them playing really solid D. But whenever OG got switched onto him it was an ugly forced shot or a turnover. Even a few times when OG was near in help, Shai's rhythm looked disrupted. Shai checks back into the game with 8 minutes left in the 4th to try to get the Thunder back in the game, but Nurse puts OG on him and all of sudden Shai's magical teleportation ability keeps running into a brick wall. To Shai's credit he did manage to get OG his 5th foul and send him to the bench, but by that point the game was out of reach.

It's common knowledge that OG is one of the best wing defenders in the NBA. His name is almost always mentioned when that kind of thing gets discussed. But it can't be said enough. There is no other player in the NBA with the same combination of size, strength, focus, quick hands, quick feet, and vertical bounce. He's quicker and bouncier than Draymond, he's way bigger than Smart, he's much stronger than McDaniels. On top of his physical tools, he's got elite focus. He has a bit of Iguodala to him, and a little Spurs Kawhi, but he's 240lbs.

[cupcakesnake]

These poll results show how out of touch this section is. Its a 2 man race b/w Brook and Jjj. No one is in the vicinity of either for odds of winning it. Mobley should be getting more love tho.

I just reset the poll. You're calling people out of touch for votes made back in late January. The race changes a lot over the year. Brook was an early favorite, then the hype kind of faded (and a Giannis campaign got some steam), and in the last week or so we've seen Brook's campaign really make a comeback.

Early in the season it was OG vs. Brook. Then the Raptors collapsed and JJJ returned from injury. The race then became JJJ as the only solo rim protector as people weren't sure how to parse Giannis vs. Brook and Mobley vs. Allen. Nic Claxton was also surging before the KD injury and trade which took Brooklyn out of the limelight. People try their best to remember Bam exists. Phili had a defensive surge and Embiid was a name for a bit, but then Phili focused more on their flamethrower offense and the defense faded.

I do agree with you that JJJ vs. Brook is the main race at the end of the season. Brook's campaign is going to have to get louder though because tons of media will still vote for Giannis and split the Milwaukee vote. JJJ's campaign lost some of its lustre due to Memphis' struggles, but this makes zero sense because Memphis defense is the thing that has held up through the turmoil.

[eyeatoma]

Disappointed Embiid has been removed on the poll good defense has been insane.

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[eyeatoma]

Jokic apparently.

Jokic living rent free in you head. Lol

Might be your head given that you come to his rescue any time someone even looks at him the wrong way.

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[Bum Adebayo]

Evan Mobley has been the best defender this season with 9.30 DRPM, and it's not really close.

[AleksandarN]

Jokic apparently.

Jokic living rent free in you head. Lol

Might be your head given that you come to his rescue any time someone even looks at him the wrong way.

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Or people thought that posting jokic in thread that has nothing to do with him ie dpoy thread is a clear indication that jokic must be in the guys head. Btw I have Giannis as dpoy and JJJ(but he missed a lot of games)

[yoyoboy]

Long post incoming. But just thought I'd provide some reading material for anyone interested. Beware, I'm a Cavs fan so I'm biased. But I've tried to be fair in my analysis too.

The youngest DPOY winner ever was Dwight Howard. 23 years 128 days old when the 08-09 regular season ended. JJJ if he wins will be the second youngest winner ever, coming in at 23 years 206 days old at the end of the season. Third and fourth youngest are Alvin Robertson and Kawhi.

Doesn't look like he's going to win this year, but I'm hoping Mobley can be the youngest winner ever next season. He'll be around 22 years 295 days old at season's end.

Even this year, I honestly think he has a very strong argument given how much more he's been on the court this season compared to the favorite JJJ. 2432 total minutes for Mobley compared to just 1459 for Jackson Jr. JJJ has played less than 60% of the minutes Mobley has, which makes an enormous difference in the actual defensive value provided on the season, plus it's just more impressive to sustain the same level of play over a much larger sample. So while I do give JJJ a little bit of an edge as a defender at this point in their careers, availability both from the standpoints of injuries and staying out of foul trouble matter, and I think it's enough to give Mobley the advantage this season.

Lopez is ranked by most ahead of Mobley, as well, and while he's been awesome, I would have him third because I just think he's in a pretty optimal situation where he doesn't have the same share of responsibilities as the other two. He has a lot of help with Giannis playing help defense, big wing defenders like Khris and Crowder, and hounds at the guard position like Jrue, Carter, and to a lesser extent Matthews. And yet the Bucks still have a worse DRTG at 110.0 than the Cavs at 109.6. Jrue is honestly maybe the most important factor imo, being the best defensive guard in the league (Caruso is arguable too), and being basically immune to screens, which really helps Lopez to be so effective in that drop coverage. JJJ also has guys on the perimeter like Brooks, Bane, and Tyus Jones who can contain penetration, though to be fair to him he doesn't have another big like Giannis or Jarrett Allen, but again, my main argument against JJJ is the minutes because I do agree he's been the most valuable defender on a per-minute basis.

The Cavs don't have close to the same defensive talent on the perimeter. They're playing two 6'1 guys in the backcourt who have carried negative defensive reps their entire careers and don't navigate screens well, which leaves Mobley having to cover a ton of ground on the court, hedging and recovering, switching, guarding the help-side, and protecting the rim. Looking at some of the other guys, would people call Cedi and LeVert plus defenders? I actually think Caris has been pretty good the past couple weeks on that end, but over the whole season, he's probably a neutral at best. Okoro is actually a good defensive guard who can fight through screens well, but he has to play the 3 for this team where he's just kinda small. And that limits his impact because almost all of his defensive value comes from 1-on-1 D. He doesn't do much on the boards or the passing lanes and he provides no rim protection or switchability onto larger forwards or bigs. Rubio is definitely a good defender at the guard spot, but he's only recently coming back to form and he hasn't played a ton of minutes this year.

One of the biggest arguments people make against Mobley is one carried over from last season, where the Cavs' defense "falls apart" without Allen. And yet that's not true at all this season. With Mobley on the court in the 11 games Allen has missed this season, the Cavs have a DRTG of 106.4. That would be by far the #1 defense in the league. Even if you also add in the time with Mobley off the court in those games, they’d still have the #1 defense at 109.6. He's gotten stronger and so he's fared much better at the center position this year than he did last year.

Another argument is that Mobley's defensive on-off stats aren't great this year. And by extension of that his Def-EPM and Def-RAPTOR which incorporate plus-minus data. The Cavs' DRTG is 2.5 points per 100 possessions better with Mobley on the bench this season, and it's because he's just been a very unfortunate recipient of bad opponent shooting luck. Opponent 3P% variation needs multiple seasons worth of data to stabilize, which is why stats like Luck-Adjusted RAPM, LEBRON, DPM, and RPM try to account for that in various ways by either including more of a prior or simply eliminating the variations in opposing team's FT% and 3P%, since the data shows those factors are for the most part out of any individual defender's control. Opponents are shooting a whopping 39% from three with Mobley on the court. That would rank #1 in the NBA among teams. And they're shooting 32.5% from three when he's sitting. That would rank dead last, 30th among teams in the league. If you still have doubts that it's due to bad luck out of his control, there was just a 1.6% difference in opponent 3P% for Mobley on versus off the court last season, and this year it's 6.5%. And Mobley leads the NBA in contested threes this year with at 257, 37 ahead of second place. Furthermore, to illustrate the impact of that opponent 3P% disparity this season, if you assumed opponents were shooting equally well from 3 with Mobley on versus off (and we'll use 36.1% which is league average this year) and that the 3PA attempts per 100 possessions was the same with him on versus off, the DRTG with Mobley off would be 112.5 while the DRTG with Mobley on would be 108.6. So all of a sudden the Cavs' defense would be 4 points per 100 better with Mobley on the court versus off, and that's in spite of Jarrett Allen, an awesome defender in his own right, being his replacement.

Another thing that plays into some of these cumulative metrics attempting to gauge impact is the box score stats, and it's not like Mobley is a guy stuffing the steal, block, or rebound categories either. Mobley is a guy who prefers verticality for contests, is willing to concede non-ideal shots from mid range and floater range (much like Draymond does as well), and offers a ton of deterrence and horizontal elimination of open space. So it's harder for the box score to accurately peg his defensive value, but you can see the results at the team level, considering how the Cavs have been able to end up with the best defense so far in spite of so many weak links.

Finally, if you look at some of the other advanced metrics, Mobley ranks 1st in Luck-Adjusted D-RAPM, 1st in DRPM, 1st in Defensive Win Shares (though admittedly I'm not as big on that stat), and 4th in D-LEBRON but he's played a lot more minutes than the three guys ahead of him. He's 99th percentile in rim points saved despite also being 1st in contested 3PA on the year as mentioned earlier. And he's the most impactful defender on the #1 defense in the NBA, whose scheme versatility allows the Cavs to buck so many trends by playing a small backcourt as well as switching between double-big with Mobley at the 4 or Mobley at the 5 with a wing at the 4, both of which have been successful.

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Here's an example of a Mobley possession. Just stopping multiple advantages for the offense before the 7'3 KP makes a tough bucket over good defense by Mobley. This one possession obviously resulted in a score, but you can just see how much space Mobley not only covers but threatens as well. He just has such gentle ballerina-like feet guarding drives and dancing with guys looking for shots on the perimeter. And he's become so good as a help defender identifying the biggest threats each possession and pouncing to that area. He's done great as the primary rim protector when Allen isn't on the floor and 1-on-1 he's also been really good against bigs imo, whereas both of those things were weaknesses of his last year. The only guys he's really had trouble against are the MVP-level bigs in Giannis, Embiid, and Jokic. Just too much strength and power given up at this point in his career, so the hope is that he'll get on that strength-training regimen that other skinny bigs have gotten on and gradually add some mass over the years.

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And then in this video by Ben Taylor from earlier in the year, you can see more footage from Mobley as well as him covering my argument from above about him suffering from really bad opponent 3P shooting luck:

Okay, that closes my argument. Would love to hear others' analyses of their preferred DPOY candidates as well.

[AussieBuck]

Does a disservice to a long and pretty good argument to cheapening it by dinging Brook for playing with Khris (injured most of the year and bad defensively when playing) and Crowder who has been on the team 5 minutes.

The general argument is fine, Brook's lack of mobility is mitigated by Giannis covering the corner and Brook's back at once and the guards (Jrue and Carter) chasing hard over screens.

Mobley is a great bet to win this award at least once as he gets more experience and gets some man strength.

[yoyoboy]

Does a disservice to a long and pretty good argument to cheapening it by dinging Brook for playing with Khris (injured most of the year and bad defensively when playing) and Crowder who has been on the team 5 minutes.

The general argument is fine, Brook's lack of mobility is mitigated by Giannis covering the corner and Brook's back at once and the guards (Jrue and Carter) chasing hard over screens.

Mobley is a great bet to win this award at least once as he gets more experience and gets some man strength.

Yeah that's totally fair. Should've mentioned that for Crowder. I honestly didn't know Mids has been bad on defense since he never stuck out as bad in my more limited viewing experience this season, but I'll take your word for it and that's not surprising.

Mobley gaining muscle mass seems like the most obvious avenue for improvement (on both ends) but I really want the Cavs to be careful with that and take it slowly season-by-season. Too much weight too fast and he'll lose that mobility that makes him so good on defense. I actually think that happened to AD to some degree. He never reached his defensive potential imo that he showed in college.

[AussieBuck]

Does a disservice to a long and pretty good argument to cheapening it by dinging Brook for playing with Khris (injured most of the year and bad defensively when playing) and Crowder who has been on the team 5 minutes.

The general argument is fine, Brook's lack of mobility is mitigated by Giannis covering the corner and Brook's back at once and the guards (Jrue and Carter) chasing hard over screens.

Mobley is a great bet to win this award at least once as he gets more experience and gets some man strength.

Yeah that's totally fair. Should've mentioned that for Crowder. I honestly didn't know Mids has been bad on defense since he never stuck out as bad in my more limited viewing experience this season, but I'll take your word for it and that's not surprising.

Mobley gaining muscle mass seems like the most obvious avenue for improvement (on both ends) but I really want the Cavs to be careful with that and take it slowly season-by-season. Too much weight too fast and he'll lose that mobility that makes him so good on defense. I actually think that happened to AD to some degree. He never reached his defensive potential imo that he showed in college.

AD moves and gets injured like a guy who does no core work. Dude folds under physicality like Thon Maker. Middleton is smart team defender but he's been living off reputation for the most part since he tore his hamstring off the bone in 2017. This year he's coming off a bad knee and has terrible balance and mobility so far. 35 year old post ACL Joe Ingles moves far better than him.

Mobley can probably go the Giannis route defensively and gradually move to more C during his second contract IMO

[cupcakesnake]

My imaginary ballot right now has Lopez, Mobley, and JJJ on it. I really don't know what in what order. All 3 are having DPOY-level seasons.

- I think it's time to end the candidacies of Giannis and Jarrett Allen (the latter has probably already happened). Not because they aren't legit candidates (they are!) but I just think it's time to decide which teammate is slightly more impactful on defense than the other and throw full support behind that guy so they don't become victims of a split vote. I think Brook is in more danger than Mobley because Giannis is just so popular. There's still a segment of the voter base that would rather give this award to the biggest name possible. Giannis is a DPOY level candidate but I'm more into Brook's defensive work and value this season. Not only is the king of drop coverage, but he's been way more mobile than people who don't watch the Bucks think he is. He has no problem coming up higher on screens and making himself a massive obstacle wherever Milwaukee needs one. His rotations have been excellent and he has some of the best defensive discipline in the league.

- Mobley is a bit of a victim of small sample size stats early in the season. Some 3-point shooting luck favored Jarrett Allen early and Mobley's campaign got derailed early. But those stats have normalized and been wiped out and JEEZ have you watched him play lately? Man will make multiple rotations, help and recover, slide on the perimeter against a guard, before dropping back into the paint to make a massive 2-armed vertical contest and wipe out a rim attempt.

- I think Bam gets slept on a bit. No way this team should be 6th in defense with no other bigs and plenty of defensive liabilities. Every other team that tried something like what Miami is doing with Bam have really struggled defensively for a lot of the season (Toronto, Brooklyn, New Orleans, Denver, Golden State, Dallas). I think Bam turns any of those teams into immediate top 5 defenses. I get that Miami has Jimmy, Caleb, and the occasional Lowry sighting, but they hide Herro, Strus, Robinson, and now Kevin Love. They don't have any functional non-Bam lineups.