Breaking: Marcus Smart Named DPOY

[Zvaart]

Spoiler:

Marcus Smart winning DPOY the day after Kyrie decimated him is pretty humorous.

does "Regular season award" ring any bell for you and the other morons who +1ed your post?

[dhsilv2]

Zeke said that KD asked him how he would go up against Mikal since he's such a good defender. KD didn't ask about anyone else. The players know who is DPOY. Leaving it up to the media to vote for these awards and all-nba teams is just garbage. Let the coaches and players decide who among their peers is deserving of the acclimades.

They took it away from them because of how terrible their choices are! I recall Richard Jefferson discussing how he didn't realize how tall Manu was until he went to the spurs. Keep in mind, they met in the NBA finals in 2003. These guys have zero idea who the other players are unless they face them man to man.

[dhsilv2]

Giving the DPOY to a guard...and here I thought the voters had grown half a brain cell.

[Triple7]

Smart is a very good defender, but he's not even the best defensive player on his own team this season so it's a pretty awful DPOY selection, arguably one of the worst in history.

This is a bad take, the guys been first team multiple years. Its not like he hasnt been one of the best defenders for years now.

How is it a bad take? Tatum is unquestionably a better defender THIS season. DPOY is not a career award. A guy winning DPOY for the entire league when there's better defenders on his own team is all time awful.

You could say the same when marc gasol won over Lebron in 2013. Clearly he wasn’t the best defender in the league. You could argue Tony Allen was even the best defender on his team. So it is what it is. Stop being salty lol.

[LewisnotMiller]

Marcus Smart winning DPOY the day after Kyrie decimated him is pretty humorous.

Box score hot take.

[LewisnotMiller]

Congrats to Marcus Smart. Well deserved.

Mikal is also a good sport, a future DPOY as well

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This is classy by Mikal.

[Larry_Russell]

Very much deserved

Smart has been a monster on defense all season long

[Gusto1903]

I dont like Rudy Goberts one dimensionality on defense

[Icemanz]

It shouldn't matter but Goberts continual post season failure meant he was never going to win it

Smart narrowly edges it over Bridges due to the narrative, that's what it's about these days and Bridges sending that classy tweet sets up his narrative for next year if he keeps up a similar standard of play

[LewisnotMiller]

On the Celtics Rob Williams has a statistical case besides Smart as well.

Again, subjective award. Narrative and reputation matter. Smart's long been known as an elite defender and BOS's defense was arguably the main story of the second half of the season. If you're up in arms about the order of anyone I mentioned above you gotta look in the mirror and ask yourself if you like watching the sport or if you just like to argue about it.

you said it yourself. it is questionable if smart is even the leader to me RW3 is more fit for DPOY if anyone boston has to win.
smart will never be dpoy caliber bc he is a midget guard. hes no jordan/dwade where he blocks like a center. the only guard that is worthy of DPOY is thybulle.

Rob Williams, and the rest of the Celtics, strongly disagree on who the defensive leader is.
Much as I like Rob, there is no doubt who leads the Celtics defence.

And if you see Thybulle as more of worthy of defensive player of the year than Smart, I dunno what to tell you.

And 'midget guard'? Lol

[fishfuego.]

Bam should have won this or at least finished in the top 3. The was some serious snub.

I agree, but I’m not surprised.

[BenoUdrihFTL]

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[username_taken]

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Bam missed a third of the season. Not really that surprising that he wasn’t a finalist. If GP didn’t matter Draymond could’ve won it all

[jsierra1985]

congrats to Smart.....

Mikal will get his soon.....

[Larry_Russell]

congrats to Smart.....

Mikal will get his soon.....

I love watching great defense.

Mikal and Smart both fill that need for me. Mikal once he gets a little more vet savvy is going to be a monster defender, MONSTER defender.

[hugepatsfan]

DPOY is so subjective. You can try to make it a statistical thing, but even the best metrics out there are flawed. It's so tough to isolate individual performance on that end. Any of us pretending we've cracked the code to do it are delusional.

Gobert is always an elite defender but we've seen teams bring him down a notch in playoff series fairly commonly. I think that cast some skepticism on his regular season performance and there's general voter fatigue.

Bridges is a stud on that end himself but his body of work is shorter. Smart's been an elite defender for like a decade now which give his name a little more "oomph" in these discussions.

Green missed a god chunk of time this year and again, voter fatigue.

Bam is a stud. Could never go wrong picking him.

Could always give it to Giannis again.

On the Celtics Rob Williams has a statistical case besides Smart as well.

Again, subjective award. Narrative and reputation matter. Smart's long been known as an elite defender and BOS's defense was arguably the main story of the second half of the season. If you're up in arms about the order of anyone I mentioned above you gotta look in the mirror and ask yourself if you like watching the sport or if you just like to argue about it.

I agree with much of what you’re saying, but DPOY has never been viewed as a reward for contributions over one’s career. Unlike MVP, it literally has the words “of the year” in its name, so no one should be thinking about a player’s body of work over the course of their career when judging who deserves DPOY.

Defense is so subjective that it's naïve to think reputation doesn't matter. You can miss a rotation and the guy misses an open shot. Or you can put him in hell and he barely gets off a heave that goes in. If you hold the other player to no shot attempts is that because your defense is good or are you overplaying passing lanes? Are you piling up blocks because you give up layups chasing blocks?

There's no way to every truly make defense objective. Too many variables. And any statistic you want to use is unreliable ov ereven a year sample size. So it will always been an award that you need to play elite defense for a while to get your reputation up to where they discuss your name.

[hugepatsfan]

On the Celtics Rob Williams has a statistical case besides Smart as well.

Again, subjective award. Narrative and reputation matter. Smart's long been known as an elite defender and BOS's defense was arguably the main story of the second half of the season. If you're up in arms about the order of anyone I mentioned above you gotta look in the mirror and ask yourself if you like watching the sport or if you just like to argue about it.

you said it yourself. it is questionable if smart is even the leader to me RW3 is more fit for DPOY if anyone boston has to win.
smart will never be dpoy caliber bc he is a midget guard. hes no jordan/dwade where he blocks like a center. the only guard that is worthy of DPOY is thybulle.

???

I mean, yeah Smart doesn't block shots. Never heard him described as a midget guard though. He very much is capable of guarding 1-3 and many 4s. That's just a way out of left field comment haha

[AgentGreen]

This thread needs more salt. Here have some more.

[IceColdCubano]

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Bam missed a third of the season. Not really that surprising that he wasn’t a finalist. If GP didn’t matter Draymond could’ve won it all

The games were enough, and he didn't miss an actual third of the season he played 2 games above a third. Other DPOYS have won it with less games played than Bam played this year. Draymond however missed an actual 1/3 or more of the season which disqualifies him. The precedent was there for the number of games missed not to have mattered, apparently some voters decided it applied to Bam but not to previous players.

[Perseus1966]

not one not two bur six minutes

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