The NBA Defensive Player of the Year award is up for grabs this year. Each top contender has a different way of impacting the game.
It feels like this year the discussion around the NBA Defensive Player of the Year is more wide-open than ever before. The event that triggered this vortex of conversation was, of course, Victor Wembanyama’s blood clot diagnosis in February.
As the clear frontrunner for the award, Wembanyama’s season-ending injury created a power struggle unlike few we have ever seen before with this race. Since then, numerous players have been pegged as the clear-cut right choice.
This phenomenon is somewhat paradoxical. With a league in which players are often accused of phoning it in on the defensive side of the ball, how can there be so many players worthy of this honor?
While critics of the sport are hesitant to admit it, the real truth is the NBA is chock-full of incredible defenders, arguably more so than ever before.
Instead of contributing to the circular DPOY discourse, we’ve decided to give some praise to some of the best defenders in the league (outside of the obviously stout Wembanyama).
Doing this is simple: By just looking at our top five players in D-DRIP (minimum 1,600 minutes played), we get a great snapshot of all the different kinds of talented defenders in our league today.
Keon Ellis (No. 3 in D-DRIP) – Defensive Playmaker
Bogus rules around award voting will ultimately prohibit Keon Ellis from getting a deserved NBA All-Defensive Team recognition. However, that won’t stop us from giving him 200 words of fame.
Ellis’ greatest asset as a defender is his knack for generating steals. He sits in the 96th percentile league wide in steal rate.
People have a complicated relationship with steals. Back in the day, voters would basically only take into account a player’s SPG average when filling out the guard section of their All-Defensive ballot (Alvin Robertson benefited a great deal). In recent years, though, individuals have pushed back on the statistic’s value, citing steal merchants as reckless gamblers who sacrifice the integrity of their team defense to chase foolish glory.
The real truth is a steal is immensely valuable because it takes away a shot attempt from the offense, and in basketball, a team scores on exactly 0% of the possessions when it doesn’t get a shot off. In today’s era of premium marksmen, you take a steal over a contested jumper whenever you can get it.
Ellis is one of the best at producing one of these turnover-winning plays, but we’d be remiss not to also mention Dyson Daniels. He just missed the cutoff here (finishing sixth in D-DRIP), but he deserves a shoutout for his juice as a defensive creator. With two games remaining, he’s already tallied the most steals in a season of any player this century (226).
Other Defensive Playmakers: Dyson Daniels, Tari Eason, Matisse Thybulle, Delon Wright, Jose Alvarado
Rudy Gobert (No. 2 in D-DRIP) – The Paint Guardian
Last season, Rudy Gobert joined Ben Wallace and Dikembe Mutembo as the only players to win a record four DPOYs in their careers. While Gobert isn’t the most well-rounded defender in basketball (more on this in just a bit), the one superpower he does have involves safeguarding the most important real estate on the court.
Everyone makes the mistake of calling it a 3-point league, but the average shot at the rim (1.39 points per possession) is still worth more than the average 3-pointer (1.08 PPP). So having a titan on the inside who can alter and deter shots around the rim is a massive boost to a team’s overall defense.
For Gobert, this season hasn’t been quite as dominant as his tour de force last season, but the Minnesota Timberwolves’ defensive rating is 7.7 points lower per 100 when he’s on the floor versus on the bench (remember, with defensive rating, the lower, the better).
Other Paint Guardians: Victor Wembanyama, Chet Holmgren, Jaren Jackson Jr., Ivica Zubac, Anthony Davis, Walker Kessler, Jarrett Allen
Kris Dunn (T4 in D-DRIP) – Lockdown Specialist
If you ask any coach what defensive attribute they most value, many of them will tell you it’s the ability for a player to get in a stance and keep his man in front of him. The reason for this is that if everyone on the floor could just guard their yard, there would be no need to send extra help and concede an advantage to the opposition – thereby eliminating open 3s and uncontested layups.
Unfortunately for coaches, modern offensive players are too skilled for the average defender to shadow on a consistent basis. But every once in a while, you get that special player who can keep even the greatest players locked in a prison.
Kris Dunn is one of those lockdown artists; hence his large footprint in our D-DRIP metric. According to NBA Matchup Data, Tyler Herro, Cade Cunningham, Fred VanVleet, Anthony Edwards, Kyrie Irving, Kevin Durant, Jalen Green, Trae Young, CJ McCollum and Stephen Curry are all well-below their season-long averages when being shadowed by Dunn.
Dunn also provides impact as a turnover igniter (98th percentile in steal rate) and switch defender, but his bread continues to be buttered in being the basketball equivalent of Darrelle Revis.
Other Lockdown Specialists: Luguentz Dort, Scotty Pippen Jr., Cason Wallace, Jrue Holiday
Amen Thompson (T4 in D-DRIP) – The Hybrid
Not to be confused with his twin brother Ausar (who ironically has an identical D-DRIP – 2.3 –but doesn’t meet the minutes threshold), Amen Thompson is what we like to call “The Hybrid” defender.
Don’t confuse this with our last category because this defender type can’t be trusted to credibly guard centers. Instead, the Hybrid makes his bones by fusing all that we love from a Lockdown Specialist and Defensive Playmaker.
Thanks to Amen’s two-of-a-kind athleticism, the sophomore wing can wreak havoc in the passing lanes by materializing into them out of thin air, make incoming drivers look like junior varsity players by merely stunting at the nail and copy ball handlers move for move.
Dunn is probably more disciplined at the point-of-attack, and Daniels and Ellis have higher steal rates, but Amen provides more scheme versatility by simultaneously wearing both those hats for his team.
Other Hybrids: Ausar Thompson, Herbert Jones, Jalen Suggs, Jaden McDaniels
Draymond Green (No. 2 in D-DRIP) – The Jack Of All Trades
We’ve discussed rim protection, event creation, on-ball defense and matchup versatility, but what if there was someone who could do a little bit of all of that?
Draymond Green isn’t elite in every one of these categories, but he’s as close to a brown belt in all of them as anyone else in the league.
These days, Green often starts at the five for the diminutive Golden State Warriors, making him their de facto primary enforcer (84th percentile block rate). He also uses his immense feel to read passing lanes (86th percentile steal rate), memorizes player tendencies to mirror their movements in isolation, and will switch onto anyone ranging from Nikola Jokic to Austin Reaves.
Since Jimmy Butler made his debut with the Warriors on Feb. 8, they’ve been third in defensive rating in the league (even ahead of the Oklahoma City Thunder in this stretch). A lot of this has to do with Green, who’s played in every game in that span (29 games).
We can quibble over whether Green has been consistent enough this season to warrant his second DPOY selection. But one thing is for certain: There aren’t too many people you’d take to war with you over the Warriors’ Dancing Bear.
Other Jacks of All Trades: Evan Mobley, OG Anunoby, Toumani Camara, Alex Caruso, Jalen Williams
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