Stating the case for every Defensive Player of the Year candidate
The NBA season is seeing one of its closest races for MVP ever. Record are falling left and right and the individual performances from James Harden, Russell Westbrook, Kawhi Leonard and LeBron James — not to mention John Wall and Isaiah Thomas — have been nothing short of incredible. Everyone has picked their sides and have plenty of different reasons to vote for one of those four players.
What MVP you vote for probably says a lot about you and what you like. The MVP race is going to be tight and will almost certainly fuel debates. For fans looking for a deep cut and a debate on player styles and skills, the race for Defensive Player of the Year is just as tight and personality defining.
This is odd, of course. This year has been all about offense (see: MVP race and the triple doubles that dominate the discussion surrounding it). Defenses have been as bad statistically in the league as it has been in decades. This is not the year for defense.
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Yet the Defensive Player of the Year award is as tight as any award race in the NBA. There is the shot-blocking big man in Rudy Gobert, the do-everything defender in Draymond Green and the superstar two-way player in Kawhi Leonard. And all three can make a clear claim at the award. Similar to the MVP, whoever wins this award is going to come down to a matter of taste and notoriety with the voters.
Rudy Gobert
The place to start is at center. 10 of the last 12 Defensive Player of the Year awards have gone to dominating big men. Shot blockers who change the game with their ability to repel shots and keep players from getting to the basket often win over voters.
No player has done that as well as Rudy Gobert over the last few years. He leads the league in blocks per game with 2.7 per game. According to NBA.com, Gobert is second among centers who play at least 24 minutes per game in defended field goal percentage. He gives up 43.1 percent field goal shooting at the rim. Only Joel Embiid is better. So put in the blocks — shots he actually rejects — and the defended field goal percentage — the shots he changes — and that is a pretty clear defensive impact.
According to Basketball-Reference, Gobert posts a +4.6 defensive box plus-minus. Essentially this tries to say the Jazz are 4.6 points per 100 possessions better with Gobert on the floor over an average player. That is second in the league. The Jazz are also third in the league in defensive rating, giving up 102.4 points per 100 possessions.
It is safe to say Utah’s defense has fueled the team’s return to the playoffs and Gobert has fueled the team’s defense. He is the most dominant big man defender since Dwight Howard was roaming the paint for the Magic a little less than 10 years ago.
Draymond Green
If Gobert is the best center defender in the league, Draymond Green may be laying claim to the best all-around defender. And he has to do it all for the championship-contending Warriors every night.
Green plays some minutes at center, he switches out onto point guards on the perimeter and he usually has to defend the best player on the court. Few players have to guard the best big men while also checking LeBron James and the other best perimeter players in the league.
Green’s versatility has a lot of value. The Warriors are second in the league in defensive rating, according to NBA.com, and Green leads the league in Defensive Box Plus-Minus, according to Basketball-Reference. That is not the be-all, end-all of course. It is much harder to quantify Green’s defensive impact than Gobert’s because there are not the counting stats like blocks or the like.
Watching Green, it is clear he gives the offensive-minded Warriors an attitude. Sometimes he takes it too far, but Green largely is the physical presence that gives the Warriors an edge. He gives Kevin Durant and Stephen Curry and Klay Thompson the freedom to worry about the offense, not that they are bad defensively.
Green is a bull defensively and it shows in the way he plays and the way the Warriors play every game. Golden State’s offense gets all the highlights and glory. The analysts hate that a “jump shooting” team wins the title. The reality is with Green anchoring the defense and his ability to play any position defensively, Golden State is and has been one of the top defensive teams in the league for several years. That is how their dominance has been built.
While Gobert is a great player with a huge defensive impact, Green is the one playing for a championship this year.
Kawhi Leonard
When it comes to NBA All-Stars, Kawhi Leonard is still the standard bearer for two-way players. He is the two-time defending Defensive Player of the Year winner and Leonard is deservingly back in the running this season.
Leonard’s defense has so much impact, at least one writer conjectures the way teams are combatting it is sacrificing whoever Leonard is guarding and sticking them in the corner away from the action. A lot of people debunked or disagreed with Matt Moore of CBS Sports’ “Kawhi-solation” theory, but something was definitely up back then.
San Antonio seems to have figured it out by now. The Spurs are the top defensive team in the league. Leonard is a big reason because teams cannot hide their best players. And Leonard is the one tasked with shutting them down time and time again.
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Leonard is definitely a strong perimeter defender. He gets the best players on the opposing team and he has a strong Defensive Player of the Year moment when he swatted MVP-candidate James Harden at the rim on a buzzer beater. That is what Leonard can do.
No one is doubting Leonard’s bona fides and he deserves to be in the running again.