NBA Award Watch: Mike D’Antoni has Rockets on the rise
By John Buhler
Defensive Player of the Year: Rudy Gobert
If we’ve learned anything from the early part of the 2016-17 NBA season, it is that Defensive Player of the Year will be going to a center. Who says the center position is dead in the NBA? The league has so many strong big man and they are cleaning up on the defensive end.
While centers like the Atlanta Hawks’ Dwight Howard, the Detroit Pistons’ Andre Drummond, and the Miami Heat’s Hassan Whiteside have had their moments in the sun for Defensive Player of the Year, the honor would go to Utah Jazz center Rudy Gobert halfway through December 2016.
Utah is 16-10 and in sixth place in the Western Conference. The Jazz play at a sluggish pace, but are stout defensively. Their anchor down low is the Frenchman Gobert. On the year, Gobert is responsible for 1.9 Defensive Win Shares and has a Defensive Box Plus-Minus of 4.5.
Gobert is blocking 6.8 percent of all opponent field goal attempts when he is on defense, leading the NBA in blocks at 72, averaging 2.8 per game. He is also doing great work on the defensive glass with 8.5 defensive rebounds per game. As the Jazz continue to improve under third-year head coach Quin Snyder, more people will learn about the overall defensive greatness of the Stifle Tower.