Cavs: Can Evan Mobley join the legends by making All-Defense Team?
Cavs: The company Mobley would join if he makes All-Defense this year
No rookie in the history of the NBA has ever won Defensive Player of the Year, and given the Cavs’ likely spot in both the standings and the overall team defensive rankings, that’s not on the table for Mobley. Making an All-Defensive Team, however, absolutely is.
If he does so, he will join some illustrious company. Only five players have ever been named to an All-Defensive Team as a rookie: Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Hakeem Olajuwon, Manute Bol, David Robinson and Tim Duncan. That’s an incredible group of names, some of the greatest big man defenders in the history of the NBA (it should be noted that All-Defensive Teams were not being named when Bill Russell was a rookie).
Of those five players, four are Hall of Famers who were named to the NBA’s Top-75 Players list (and my personal list, for that matter). Bol is the exception, but the offensively-challenged shot-blocker ranks second in career blocks per game at 3.3, a truly special rim deterrent. All five had long, elite defensive careers.
It should be pointed out that all of those players were at least a year older than Mobley when they won the distinction. What about looking at players by age? The list plays out similarly, with Duncan, Kobe Bryant (the only player on either list to make First-Team All-Defense), Anthony Davis and Dejounte Murray the only players to make a team in their age-21 season.
Mobley is just 20, and will be for the entire year. If he makes an All-Defense Team — and he has to be considered a strong candidate, if not a favorite to make it, at this point in the season — he will join a collection of the greatest defenders of all time, and he will be the youngest player in NBA history to do so. Combined with his draft pedigree and offensive upside, it also sets a path for Mobley to be a bona fide superstar and future Hall of Fame level player.
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Let’s not get ahead of ourselves, but Mobley is off to a start that is as strong as could have been hoped for. He’s not putting up empty calories, or being propped up by better teammates. Mobley is a difference-maker on defense and is helping to carry his team on that end, elite on a play-by-play basis and prolific in the number of shots he contests. Let’s see what the rookie has to offer us moving forward.