NBA: Top 10 candidates for 2019-20 Defensive Player of the Year

If you want to gauge the impact Dejounte Murray could have in his return to the San Antonio Spurs after missing all of last season with a torn ACL sustained during the preseason, consider this.

Last season, the Spurs ranked 20th in the NBA with a defensive rating of 110.5 points allowed per 100 possessions.

In 2017-18 — the season in which Murray, then in his second year, was named to the All-Defensive second team despite averaging only 21.5 minutes per game — San Antonio was fourth in the NBA at 104.1 points allowed per 100 possessions.

And before anyone is too quick to say, “But Kawhi Leonard left San Antonio last season,” remember that Leonard’s contribution to that defensive effort in 2017-18 consisted of nine games and 210 minutes played.

Murray returns this season and will compete with Derrick White for minutes at the point guard spot — a head-to-head battle of 29th overall picks from consecutive years by the Spurs, Murray in 2016 and White in 2017 — and already owns an impressive NBA record for his defense.

He was 21 when he was named to the All-Defensive team in 2017-18, slightly younger than Kobe Bryant was when he was named in 1999-00, and is the youngest player in NBA history to be so honored.

Murray was also just the third player — joining Dwyane Wade in 2004-05 and Patrick Beverley in 2013-14 — to make an All-Defensive team in just his second season. No rookie has ever been selected.

At 6-foot-5 with a 6-foot-10 wingspan, Murray also created his own statistical niche two seasons ago, becoming the NBA’s first player shorter than 6-foot-6 with 400 rebounds, 50 steals and 30 blocks in a single season.

That length can be a load for point guards to work around and it’s a reason to like San Antonio’s chances to keep the run of consecutive playoff appearances going in 2019-20. The Spurs are currently tied with the Syracuse Nationals/Philadelphia 76ers run from 1950-71 with the longest streak in NBA history at 22 consecutive seasons.

(For the sake of history, Syracuse made the National Basketball League playoffs in 1948-49 before the league merged with the Basketball Association of America to form what we now know as the NBA, so there’s that.)

In any event, having Murray back gives San Antonio options on the perimeter defensively, a vital thing to have in the pace-and-space era.