DPOY candidates

[Androslav]

I got Steven Adams as DPOY.

Thunder has the NBA's best defense so far, he is their defense minister.
He has been underrated for a long time now, for example, Whiteside, Drumond, and DJ were media darlings, clearly less impactful players on both ends.
His dedication, motor, physicality, his teams rebounding rate, accountability, toughness, conditioning, selflessness, and presence of mind are amazing to me. Like his fellow rugby colleagues, he sees team defense as a single living organism where there is no I, just us against the world mentality.
Sacrifice your body and it will pay off in the long run.

A good quick test to valorize a defender in 3 components:
a) won't play defense (poor motor, lacks motivation, doesn't play with force, poor team chemistry)
b) can't play defense (injury, lacking length, weak upper body and/or small hips, no explosiveness)
c) doesn't know how to play defense (inexperienced, doesn't watch the film, surrounded by bad coaches)

Adams doesn't fit any criteria and those players are surprisingly rare, I'd say there are less than 50 of them (10%).

Who are your favorites for the award?

[RodyTur10]

My remaining three candidates for DPOY (ranked on position) are:

Paul George (Oklahoma City Thunder)
Giannis Antetokounmpo (Milwaukee Bucks)
Joel Embiid (Philadelphia 76ers)

Honourable mentions:

Mike Conley (Memphis Grizzlies)
Josh Richardson (Miami Heat)
Draymond Green (Golden State Warriors)
Rudy Gobert (Utah Jazz)
Marc Gasol (Memphis Grizzlies)

[DefenseWinsChamps]

Marcus Smart is a top 10 consideration right now. With some key plays and games the rest of this season, he can get into contention, but he's not there yet.

It probably has to be Gobert right now. George is also good. Adams might be another sneaky possibility.

[PhoSita]

The best defensive teams are OKC, IND, BOS, MIL, MEM.

UTA is 6th but a good step behind MEM at 5th.


I feel like DPOY should reward a player on one of the elite defensive squads in the league.


Who is most responsible for the defense in OKC, Indiana, Boston?  It's hard to say. 

Names that come to mind ....

George, Adams, Smart, Sabonis, Oladipo, Turner ....

There's not an obvious answer here.


I suspect that by the end of the year, Utah will be a top 3-4 defense and then it will be easy to select Gobert.

If for some reason Giannis doesn't win MVP and MIL continues to be a top 5 defense, he'll probably win DPOY.

[Moranis]

Robert Covington

[PhoSita]

Robert Covington

I know he's made a big individual impact, but he's never gonna win while playing for a Minnesota team that's below league average on defense.

[Neurotic Guy]

A naïve and homer response (I definitely don't watch enough NBA games to make an educated suggestion):  Marcus Smart. 

What an impact he makes as a 6'4" guard.  Meets the OPs criteria.

[Moranis]

Robert Covington

I know he's made a big individual impact, but he's never gonna win while playing for a Minnesota team that's below league average on defense.

doesn't mean he shouldn't though.  Philly got worse defensively when he left and Minnesota got a lot better defensively when he joined them (and that is despite being traded for a good individual defender in Butler).  Covington has been the best defender this year.  He deserves the award for that reason.

[Androslav]

Some pretty good choices throughout the thread.

Team defensive ratings:
https://stats.nba.com/teams/advanced/?sort=DEF_RATING&dir=-1

I wrote Adams as I wanted to reward the most indispensable defender on the best defensive team.
Center is a defensive position first after all.
Even though PG13 leads the league in deflections, recovered loose balls and steals, I still have Adams (man crush alert) above him.
Thunder have a lot of athletes on their roster.

Marcus Smart, being our most consistent defensive player for the whole year. Taking the toughest assignments and emitting that bulldog mentality to teammates.

Indiana, leagues 2nd best defense ATM, needs to have a candidate. Sabonis doesn't quite strike me as the one.
Dipo is top 5 perimeter defenders in the league, but he missed some time.
Turner made some huge strides in improving his overall defense this year. He could very well be my pick.

Giannis, Gobert, Gasol would be my next 3 G's to wrap it up.

[gouki88]

Adams is a good choice. He’s so underrated.

PG is also playing amazingly. AD, despite NO’s bad defence (despite having a defensive beast in Holiday too - looking at you Alvin) is a monster. Gobert & Smart round out my 5

[PhoSita]

Robert Covington

I know he's made a big individual impact, but he's never gonna win while playing for a Minnesota team that's below league average on defense.

doesn't mean he shouldn't though.  Philly got worse defensively when he left and Minnesota got a lot better defensively when he joined them (and that is despite being traded for a good individual defender in Butler).  Covington has been the best defender this year.  He deserves the award for that reason.

To me, he's not the best individual defender in the league and he's not a part of one of the elite defenses in the league.

So I don't really see him as a candidate.

He's a very good defender, though.

[Moranis]

Robert Covington

I know he's made a big individual impact, but he's never gonna win while playing for a Minnesota team that's below league average on defense.

doesn't mean he shouldn't though.  Philly got worse defensively when he left and Minnesota got a lot better defensively when he joined them (and that is despite being traded for a good individual defender in Butler).  Covington has been the best defender this year.  He deserves the award for that reason.

To me, he's not the best individual defender in the league and he's not a part of one of the elite defenses in the league.

So I don't really see him as a candidate.

He's a very good defender, though.

I just see that award as not the same thing as MVP.  Defensive player of the year is an individual award and the best individual defender should win it.  It shouldn't go to the best defender on the best defensive team.

[KGs Knee]

Robert Covington

I know he's made a big individual impact, but he's never gonna win while playing for a Minnesota team that's below league average on defense.

doesn't mean he shouldn't though.  Philly got worse defensively when he left and Minnesota got a lot better defensively when he joined them (and that is despite being traded for a good individual defender in Butler).  Covington has been the best defender this year.  He deserves the award for that reason.

To me, he's not the best individual defender in the league and he's not a part of one of the elite defenses in the league.

So I don't really see him as a candidate.

He's a very good defender, though.

I just see that award as not the same thing as MVP.  Defensive player of the year is an individual award and the best individual defender should win it.  It shouldn't go to the best defender on the best defensive team.

That's a reasonable take. The problem is, RoCo isn't anywhere near the best individual defender in the league.

[Moranis]

Robert Covington

I know he's made a big individual impact, but he's never gonna win while playing for a Minnesota team that's below league average on defense.

doesn't mean he shouldn't though.  Philly got worse defensively when he left and Minnesota got a lot better defensively when he joined them (and that is despite being traded for a good individual defender in Butler).  Covington has been the best defender this year.  He deserves the award for that reason.

To me, he's not the best individual defender in the league and he's not a part of one of the elite defenses in the league.

So I don't really see him as a candidate.

He's a very good defender, though.

I just see that award as not the same thing as MVP.  Defensive player of the year is an individual award and the best individual defender should win it.  It shouldn't go to the best defender on the best defensive team.

That's a reasonable take. The problem is, RoCo isn't anywhere near the best individual defender in the league.

Ben Golliver of the Washington Post gave RoCo his quarter season DPOY award in early December so it isn't like there isn't publicity for him.  He also wouldn't exactly come out of nowhere as he was 1st Team All Defense last year and finished 8th in DPOY voting and 4th the year before that (which is odd since he didn't make a single All Defense Team yet was apparently the 4th best defender in the league).   

https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2018/12/06/giannis-antetokounmpo-is-quarter-season-mvp-more-really-early-nba-awards/?utm_term=.f2d82e6c5147

Defensive player of the year

1. Robert Covington | 2. Paul George | 3. Joel Embiid

Wings rarely win this award because it’s usually difficult for voters to argue that an elite perimeter player can match or surpass a top center when it comes to defensive impact. The vaunted “one-man defenses” of the past few years are almost always big men such as Rudy Gobert, Draymond Green, Embiid and Marc Gasol.

For now, Minnesota’s Robert Covington represents a fascinating counterexample. The 2018 all-defensive first team selection has helped transform the Timberwolves’ defense since he arrived in the Jimmy Butler trade in mid-November. Minnesota, which ranked 28th in defensive rating, has improved to second since Covington’s arrival. If Tom Thibodeau had a laboratory to create his dream players, Covington would make for a natural prototype: tireless, physical, smart, versatile and relentless. With teams playing faster and utilizing more positionless lineups this season, perhaps Covington will emerge as a new model for the defensive player of the year award as well.

Paul George and Embiid again are proving to be linchpins for stingy defenses in Oklahoma City and Philadelphia, respectively. Like last year, George ranks among the league’s leaders in steals and deflections for a Thunder defense that currently ranks first in the league, even though stopper Andre Roberson has yet to return from injury. Meanwhile, Embiid is one of the league’s leaders in rebounds and blocks for a 76ers unit that ranks seventh. Perhaps most impressively, the 7-foot center is averaging a career-high 34.5 minutes per game and has yet to miss a game.

[RockinRyA]

If Covington is so good at D, why the heck did Morris think Philly's new players are better than Saric and Covington at defending them?

I swear covington is so overrated on this blog.