NBA Awards Rankings: New No. 1 in Defensive Player of the Year race
The NBA season has officially been underway for three weeks and so much has already happened. The Rockets and Magic are pretty good, and the Clippers, Suns, and Bucks have struggled to start the season while the 76ers, Celtics, and Nuggets have been dominant.
The play of the players has also been great as Nikola Jokic and Joel Embiid are the two front runners for MVP for the fourth straight year. Cam Thomas has finally gotten his chance and has been one of the most improved players. There is a great battle between Chet Holmgren and Victor Wembanyama for Rookie of the Year.
It is natural for fans to be looking at who the early award winners would be through the first three weeks. The Defensive Player of the Year race has been very interesting to start the season. Usually, the winner of this award is on a playoff team and a lot of the players you expect to be in the conversation aren't because their team has been bad.
Here are your early front runners for Defensive Player of the Year
Honorable mentions: Evan Mobley, Giannis Antetokounmpo, Chet Holmgren, Bam Adebayo, Joel Emiid, Jaren Jackson Jr.
NBA Defensive Player of the Year power rankings
3. Anthony Davis
The Los Angeles Lakers have been disappointing to start the season but not bad enough for Anthony Davis to be out of the Defensive Player of the Year conversation. To start the season, Davis has been the dominant defensive player that we know he is.
Davis has been the best rim protector thus far in the NBA. He has been averaging a league-leading three blocks per game and a total of 24 blocks, which also leads the NBA. The only thing that will hurt his rim protection game will be him getting hurt so far he’s only missed one game.
Looking at Davis' other defensive stats, he is 23rd in defensive win shares with 0.4, 54th in defensive box plus-minus with a +0.8, and shockingly 126th in defensive rating with 109. Usually this poor performance in the advanced defensive stats hurts someone’s chances of winning Defensive Player of the Year. These stats are also affected by how the rest of the team plays and the Lakers haven’t been good defensively outside of Anthony Davis.
Davis’ poor advanced defensive stats is the reason he is number three. Also he is this high because one, he is leading the league in blocks and also leading the league in blocks plus steals per game at 3.9. The stat leader in blocks and blocks plus steals are always in the Defensive Player of the Year conversion.
Also the other players that are supposed to be in the conversation are on teams that have been performing worse than the Lakers. As of right now the Lakers are a play-in team while some of the other top DPOY candidates are on teams that aren’t in the play-in or have bad records.
The season is still young and a lot can change but fully expect Anthony Davis to continue his defensive dominance. Expect the Lakers to be even better defensively when Jarred Vanderbilt comes back and when he does, Anthony Davis is going to take another step defensively and that will be scary.