The man deserves to win the real NBA Defensive Player of the Year award, but getting the nod from the folks at The Athletic isn’t so bad, either.
Boston Celtics veteran guard Marcus Smart recently tied for third place in The Athletic’s Defensive Player of the Year, tied for that position with Milwaukee Bucks big man Brook Lopez behind Los Angeles Laker big man Anthony Davis in second and Bucks forward Giannis Antetokounmpo in first.
Giannis won the award handily in the in-house poll with over 70 % of the vote, AD a distant second with 20 %, and Lopez and Smart each with just over 3 %.
The argument for handing the win to the Greek Freak is a simple one, related by The Athletic’s Michael Lee:
“Giannis Antetokounmpo leads the NBA in defensive win shares, defensive rating, defensive rebounds. And he’s doing it all on the league’s best defense. Only four other players have won both MVP and DPOY in their careers – Michael Jordan, Hakeem Olajuwon, David Robinson and Kevin Garnett. Jordan and Olajuwon did it in the same season.”
Of course the team-oriented aspect of most defensive metrics make it difficult to tell exactly how much is the player and how much is the team, but the eye test supports such a lofty casting of Antetokounmpo.
That Smart is in the conversation at all despite being the sole nominee not playing in the frontcourt is an accomplishment in itself, current Los Angeles Clipper Kawhi Leonard being the last non-big man to win the award in 2015 — and one of the only in the modern era.
