NBA Season Awards – Arbitrary Hair-Splitting and Irrelevant Opinions Included!
By David Walker
Mar 20, 2013; Memphis, TN, USA; Memphis Grizzlies center Marc Gasol (33) celebrates after making a shot during the game against the Oklahoma City Thunder at FedEx Forum. Memphis Grizzlies defeat the Oklahoma City Thunder in overtime with a score of 90-89. Mandatory Credit: Spruce DerdenUSA TODAY Sports
Defensive Player of the Year
Defensive Player of the Year is pretty defined as far as awards go; the best defensive player in the league gets this one. The problem is defense is extremely subjective and opinion based, being something you can’t really back up with statistics. Furthermore, evaluating an individual’s defensive impact and how that compares to another player in a different defensive scheme, with different players, and playing different positions is rather difficult.
What is more valuable, perimeter defense or interior defense? Does having the benefit of being placed together with multiple highly skilled defenders help or hurt a players case? How much does the system in which the player plays factor in? How does the position of the player affect his defensive value?
These are questions for high-minded basketball philosophers, who frequent the Sloan conference and belong in long-winded dissertations, not for NBA blogs. However, for the sake of defending my picks here are my simple criteria for judging defensive value: playing more minutes helps your case, interior defense matters a little more, the system matters but doesn’t hurt your case, and the skill of the guys you play with matters.
Winner:
Marc Gasol (35.3 minutes, 4.5 defensive win shares, +7.8 defensive rating):
The Memphis Grizzlies are the second best defensive team in the league and a whole hell of a lot of that comes from Gasol’s impact. The man is a human traffic cop in terms of communicating and pointing to where teammates need to be in the half court and no one is better at recognizing and blowing up pick and rolls before they even start. If you watch enough of Gasol’s work you can learn opposing players offensive tendencies just by seeing how he reacts to them, and it is amazing how often he makes the correct decision in either sinking off them, helping, closing out, or switching. It must be said that he is significantly helped by the best defensive backcourt in the league of Mike Conley and Tony Allen, but rarely will a great defensive big ever be without elite perimeter defense as well.
If only…:
Larry Sanders (27.2 minutes, 6.4 defensive win shares, +7.5 defensive rating):
Speaking of great defensive bigs not succeeding without elite perimeter defense, here is your exception. Outside of the recently acquired JJ Redick there is nobody on the Milwaukee Bucks who you could count as an above average perimeter defender. Despite this, when Sanders plays the Bucks have the third ranked defense in the league and when he sits they plummet to 26th. As Kirk Goldsberry points out in one of those Sloan conference high-minded dissertations Sanders is statistically the best interior defender in the league. Trust me I really wanted to give him DPOY but his minutes per game, 27.2 minutes, makes it impossible. While more than deserving of more minutes his impact is just not enough right now to conceivably put him over Gasol. But just know that you’re the Defensive Player of my heart Larry Sanders.
Joakim Noah (37.7 minutes, 4.6 defensive win shares, +5.4 defensive rating):
Joakim Noah is that horse in all those fantasy movies and series that carries all the heroes stuff while they walk around the world, gets overworked like crazy, and is either forgotten or martyred off by the end. I would give you his defensive splits to prove he is such a good defender but it would be nearly irrelevant because he really never sits. The Bulls 5th ranked defense is predicated on Noah’s ability to hedge like crazy on pick and rolls, force the ball handler to pick up his dribble, and return back to the rolling big in time to cut off a pass. With the loss of Asik not many other bigs on Chicago can do this so Noah plays nearly 38 minutes a game. The fact that he is invaluable to a top five defense is why he is so high on the list.
Andre Iguodala (34.4 minutes, 2.8 defensive win shares, +3.9 defensive rating):
See I don’t completely discount perimeter defense and Iggy also happens to be a special case. Denver’s defense is just outside the top ten despite having well below average interior defense and this is due to their parade of good perimeter defenders, lead by the king of perimeter defense in Iguodala (don’t kill me Tony Allen). When Iguodala is on the court Denver is 4 points per 100 possessions better defensively and this is despite the fact he plays a lot of his minutes trying to combat JaVale McGee’s horrible interior defense. Add that to the fact he is doing this with the second fastest paced team in the league and you get a uniquely impactful perimeter defender.
The other perimeter defenders (and friends):
Tony Allen (switch him for Iggy and I would be fine), Paul George, LeBron James, Roy Hibbert, David West, Tim Duncan, Omer Asik, and Kevin Garnett.