NBA Defensive Player of the Year Ladder 3.0: Rudy Gobert, Kawhi Leonard breaking away
By Phil Watson
Two players who comprise four of the last five NBA Defensive Player of the Year winners have pulled away from the pack on the latest awards ladder.
Reputation matters when it comes to an award such as NBA Defensive Player of the Year. It can take time to build that reputation, but once it’s built, it’s there.
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So it should not come as a huge surprise that as two players have broken away from the pack on version 3.0 of the NBA Defensive Player of the Year Ladder, it is two players who are multiple-time winners of the award.
Rudy Gobert of the Utah Jazz is looking to become the first player to be named NBA Defensive Player of the Year three consecutive times since Dwight Howard did it from 2008-09 through 2010-11 and just the second player ever to be so honored.
Dikembe Mutombo and Ben Wallace were named NBA Defensive Player of the Year a record four times each, but neither player won three consecutive seasons. Mutombo was named in 1996-97 and repeated in 1997-98, while Wallace went back-to-back in both 2001-02 and 2002-03 and again in 2004-05 and 2005-06, an unprecedented run of four wins in five seasons.
There’s a bit of irony in the fact the one season Wallace didn’t win during that run was 2003-04 … the year the Detroit Pistons captured the NBA title. Ron Artest of the Indiana Pacers — yes, the Artest now known as Metta World Peace — was named NBA Defensive Player of the Year that season.
The other leader pulling away from the rest of the ladder is Kawhi Leonard of the LA Clippers, who won the award in both 2014-15 and 2015-16 while a member of the San Antonio Spurs.
While Gobert has a chance to match Howard’s three straight NBA Defensive Player of the Year wins, Leonard can join Mutombo, Wallace and Howard as the only players to win the award at least three times.
The five rungs on the ladder underwent a bit of a shakeup since the last time it was published on Jan. 11.
The knee injury sustained by Orlando Magic forward Jonathan Isaac has now knocked him off the ladder, as he has fallen below the threshold of 68 percent of his team’s games — in line with Gobert having played the fewest games of any previous winner with 56 in 2017-18. Isaac had been No. 4 the last time the ladder came out.
The other player to fall completely off the ladder made the longest fall possible, all the way from the top rung. Yes, Jimmy Butler is a victim of his team’s poor defensive play over the last four weeks, going from No. 1 to off the charts after the Miami Heat ranked just 20th in the NBA with a 113.1 defensive rating since Jan. 11.
Through Jan. 10, the Heat were 13th in the NBA with a rating of 107.0, but have slipped to 14th while their defensive rating has climbed to 108.5. Miami is just 7-6 over that span, although their net rating of plus-3.5 is unchanged.
Proof once again that defense is a key component of winning, even in the NBA, where offense is king.
So let’s climb the ladder.