Enforcers💪 and "masterminds"🧠
Why the lottery needs saving, awards part deux, bad Shams tweets and more
OPENING TIP
Last week we brought you the first half of our awards extravaganza, and this week, with the national NBA media finally awash with inferior opinions on this same subject, we return to set them straight.
This time, we look at defense, most improved player, and coaching.
THE ENFORCER
The Defensive Player of the Year debate, with rare exceptions, tends to center on who is blocking the most shots in a given season. It’s understandable: people watch teams play offense, and when someone swats a shot into the third row, the reaction of “Hey! Defense!” makes sense. But good defense actually tends to come in two distinct flavors: the big men who patrol the paint, and the wings tasked with shutting down lead ballhandlers.
Your enforcer needs to not just block shots, but also (by the very threat of being able to do so) discourage players from driving or shooting at the basket at all. In addition, he needs to be a great help defender: he should be able to hard hedge a high screen and recover to the roller. Finally, as big men increasingly look to shoot from the outside, your defensive enforcer needs to be able to pop out to discourage that pass to a screener and still be able to recover to clog the paint. And this year’s nominees are:
RUDY GOBERT
The Stifle Tower looks primed to win his third Defensive Player of the Year award in four seasons, and that is because he’s an unbelievable defender. ESPN’s real plus/minus, one of the few advanced defensive stats, shows that Gobert’s D is worth 3.1 points per 100 possessions more than the second place player Clint Capela. That’s the same gap as between Capela in second and… Terry Rozier, in 65th place.
GIANNIS ANTETOKOUNMPO
The reigning Defensive Player of the Year, the Greek Freak has the advantage of having fellow seven-footer Brooke Lopez patrolling the paint with him. This allows him to showcase his range, as Giannis playing tennis probably looks like most of us playing ping pong. He recently blocked a KD fadeaway, which is almost impossible. Pray you are never on the wrong side of a Giannis closeout.
MYLES TURNER
Indiana was shopping Turner this offseason, but he has taken a massive step forward this year. He leads the league in blocked shots and opponent field goal percentage around the basket (among starters). Plus, his twitter handle is @Original_Turner, which we choose to believe is a shoutout to famous romantic painter J.M. Turner, whose turbulent marine images are famous around the world.
And The Winner Is….
Gobert. The Jazz have the best defensive rating in the league without another elite defender on the floor. He is as close to a one-man defensive scheme as we have ever seen.
THE LOCKDOWN WING
Away from the traffic of the lane is where the game’s best scorers are increasingly making their money. Steph Curry and Bradley Beal are currently locked in a scoring race that will come down to the wire, and both do most of their damage 25 feet from the basket. When you absolutely need someone to shut them down, who do you turn to?
JIMMY BUTLER
Butler likes to work out. A lot. You may have heard. But that fitness, while it hasn’t bought him a 3-point shot, has made Butler capable of chasing opposing players indefinitely. And when he’s not checking the opposition’s best player, he’s in the passing lanes, leading the league in steals by a wide margin.
BEN SIMMONS
At 6’10”, with Gumby arms, Simmons’ length makes him the most versatile defender in the League. Simmons may be the only player who can credibly claim to be able to defend every single position on the floor at a high level. Earlier this year, he hounded 6’0” Dame Lillard into a terrible performance, and had the assignment on Giannis the very next night.
JRUE HOLIDAY
One of the smartest defenders in the league, we linked to Holiday breaking down how he guards the NBA’s best last week. And that is his thing. Holiday has spent more time guarding Top 10 scorers in the NBA than anyone else and is still in the top 5 in steals, deflections, and loose balls recovered.
And the winner is….
Simmons. Maybe his time dating a Kardashian helps keep him on his toes at all times.
MOST IMPROVED
A lot of players see their stats jump from year to year, but that can often be a consequence of higher usage rather than improved skill. We’re defining the award here as the player whose growth has most improved their ability to contribute to a championship-level team.
MICHAEL PORTER JR.
It’s possible (as episodes where he gave out Adam Silver’s private phone number on Snapchat, or declared COVID a conspiracy before getting it twice indicate) that MPJ is not what we like to call a “brain genius”. But he can ball. Porter is averaging 20 and 7 while shooting 45% from three, and his emergence as an elite scorer has given Denver a true “big three” (once Jamal Murray comes back) that will be able to compete with anyone for a long time.
LU DORT
Dort made a stir in last year’s playoffs because he works like a dog, defends mightily, and is named ‘Dort’. But the second-year player who was drafted to be an effort guy off the bench is flirting with being on the NBA’s All Defense team, and has, quite unexpectedly, flirted with shooting 40% from three. He has been so good that OKC has had to limit his minutes of late to keep him from messing up their lottery odds.
JULIUS RANDLE
After five years in the league, we had Randle figured out. He had good hands, but didn’t pass (3 APG), try on defense, or shoot at all (27% from three). Then this season happened. Suddenly, Randle is scoring 24 points and 10 rebounds per game, while doubling his assist total to 6 (elite for a forward) and shooting 41% from three (elite for anyone). What?
And the winner is…
Randle. Taking the Knicks from “depressing laughingstock” to “NBA team” in five short months simply has to get you some kind of prize. And don’t sleep on them in the playoffs: while the Knicks’ defense has come back to the pack slightly due to getting less lucky on opponent three-point percentage, they’ve posted the 7th best net rating over the past two months.
THE “MASTERMIND”
Each year, we vote for Coach of the Year, and everyone seems to have agreed that it will go to whichever team improved the most from last season, regardless of circumstance. So this year… Quin Snyder… okay, we good?
Okay, so choosing Coach of the Year is boring. But what about Not Coach of the Year? Good coaching is hard to see from the outside, and really only comes into its own in the playoffs, where the real adjustments get made. What’s more fun to spot is the guy who is dragging his team down just as fast as he can.
The nominees:
BRAD STEVENS
Prior to this season, Stevens would have easily made anyone’s top five coaches list. But this is now the second time in four seasons that his team has decided they hate basketball and possibly each other and massively underperformed. He may have the X’s and O’s down, but someone needs to get Brad a team of therapists on staff, or maybe an exorcist.
STAN VAN GUNDY
The Pelicans were a popular pick to make some noise in this years playoffs, what with the most unstoppable offensive force in the NBA in Zion Williamson, and the league’s reigning most improved player in Brandon Ingram. All they needed was a reliable coach who could improve the defense. The result: a 21st ranked defense and a team with the same record as the Sacramento Kings. The Kings. Sacramento.
NATE BJORKGREN
Last season, Indiana’s brain trust decided that coach Nate McMillan wasn’t cutting it, and brought in a bright new star in Bjorkgren. While McMillan has led the Hawks to their best season in years, Bjorkgren… well…
“When he was hired I was surprised, because he's not the easiest to work with just on anything. He's kind of stubborn, won't listen, even though it might be good conversation. He's a micromanager and he's not for everyone.”
“Typically younger coaches bring a more positive, spirited, encouraging behavior, not an antagonistic approach…”
“He's just very different. He's not a dick; he's just completely out of his element as a leader.”
"That's how he is in general," added one Indiana staffer. "He's got like a Jekyll-and-Hyde thing."
It’s even come to light that the Pacers’ TJ Warren chose to have season-ending surgery rather than play for Bjorkgren. Sounds like good times in Indiana!
And the winner is….
Bjorkgren. It appears to be surprisingly easy to be a bad coach, but it takes that little something special to have your players and league officials on deep background all slagging you before you even get fired! At least Boston media have the courtesy to wait for Stevens to leave before they shank him in the back.
TWEET OF THE WEEK
So, the final games of the season will take place either between 12-3:30, or at some other time.
Got it. Thanks, Shams, for this earth-shattering reporting!
STL INVESTIGATES: THE RUTHLESS UTTER DESBASEMENT OF THE VERY CONCEPT OF SPORT
The play-in game has made the end of the season shockingly watchable, and between that and the changes recently instituted to the lottery odds, some have suggested that we have tanking on the run. But that might be getting a little optimistic.
To whit: the Lakers have been in a tailspin lately, and appear quite close to dropping into the play-in spots, much to the horror of TV execs everywhere. Meanwhile the Celtics are in a nosedive of their own in the Eastern Conference. But (to continue with our theme of tired aviation references) the team that’s really just flying the plane into the side of the *&!$ing mountain is the Cleveland Cavaliers.
The Cavs had the temerity to beat the Celtics last night, and in doing so, may have set their franchise back years. You see, that win takes the Cavs’ winning percentage all the way up to a gag inducing .314. This brings them out of a three-way tie for worst winning percentage, which in turn severely damages their lottery odds.
They should really be taking notes from the Oklahoma City Thunder. OKC started off the season expecting to be terrible, but the solid play of Al Horford, the development of Lu Dort, SGA making a leap, and a smart coaching hire made them surprisingly competitive. So we’ve enjoyed watching this fun underdog story as they continue to beat…. no, wait, sorry, no. Seeing that his team was fun and good, GM Sam Presti sprang into action, benching Horford despite his not being injured, reminding SGA he “had a foot injury” and promoting ‘interesting’ prospect and terrifying stick figure Aleksej Pokusevski from the G League to starter.
STL has exclusively learned, per a source close to the Thunder, that during Poku’s worst stretches, many teammates were so embarrassed by his play they actively avoided sitting next to him on the bench. Seriously. The results were dramatic. OKC has been despicably bad, having lost 15 of its last 16 games to shore up high lottery odds position after its relatively strong start to the season.
No, unfortunately, tanking is alive and well. Someone really should Save The Lottery. There have been a lot of suggestions, from flattening the odds for all lottery teams to the confusing and unbalanced wheel system.
But we’ve heard (from us) that someone (us) is on the case. Stay tuned to this space, dear reader, to discover how the NBA might start to get this whole fiasco turned around.
AT THE BUZZER
No more ice baths! A-Rod got our memo about starting his own VC firm (Axios)
We are still trying to figure out what this means (FlexV)
Why it’s so difficult to measure defense (The Ringer)
The Wolves finally have new owners. Now what? (The Athletic, $)
The NBA is full of mixed-handers (WSJ, $)