 what's the word y'all welcome back to the Kenny for real award week yesterday we started off a rookie idiot and i got him at the mentions kind of went crazy after that one some good some bad regardless um i'm excited to bring you episode two which is defensive player of the year man for the first time since probably college which is 2016 is i created a spreadsheet and you know what low kick out of proud of myself man like i said i take these things very very seriously oh and even in saying that i still get things like objectively wrong like yesterday we were talking about all ricky teams and i think i had jaylen green on the first team over josh giddy that was the oversight by me so even though i take these things very seriously i am very far from perfect and i want you to remember that as well i am just a guy that watches some basketball that happened to have a microphone in the camera you might disagree with everything i say that is completely okay it is just basketball today we're talking about defensive player of the year and i guess all defensive teams too that is the reason i created this spreadsheet because well this year for me defensive player of the year is not as straightforward as some of the previous seasons whether it been uh rudy gobert last year yonus before that rudy gobert the two years before that kawaii linards years um draemon greens year it seems like every single season it had been relatively straightforward on who the defensive player of the years and the way i always gauge this is like i'll go back to watch our podcast my podcast um all star there i go again award shows and if four people who watch basketball are in a consensus of this award then it was relatively straightforward right i think this year we're going to do that same exact show and three out of the four of us might have a different defensive player of the year that's how ridiculous it is this season and i think one of the reason it is that case is because draemon green was running away with this award very early on in the season and then boom he got injured and then he missed months of basketball and because of that he is not the runaway defensive player of the year anymore so when i say i got a spreadsheet i'm being very serious there man i'm not a guy that typically looks at advanced stats and and all of the things but i think it was important for defensive player of the year because of course the itess matters for sure the itess matters and a lot of things in my life but defensive player of the year is a unique award that like you need to pair with the actual statistics to match it but even in of course statistics can be flawed right the way you interpret and statistics can be completely different and when it comes to advanced statistics specifically defensive statistics it's gonna weigh heavily on the bigger players and when you get to my all defensive teams you're gonna kind of see that man it's hard to pick guards to be in the the overall conversation the only guy or the last guy to do it was gary patin and and there is some buzz from marcus smart being a defensive player of the year this season which is great marcus smart is the the communicator the the perimeter guy on the best defensive team in the nba a team that if you discount the first month and a half of the nba season is the greatest defensive team in the history of basketball he is the vocal point he is the attack point he is the aggressor he is the the ha su guy so i understand him being in the conversations but other than that there's not a lot of guards that like jump off the page when it comes to all defensive teams or defensive player the of course there are an extreme amount of very talented guards and the nba is just hard so i'm gonna start off with some of my honorable mentions these are the guys that did not make my two all defensive teams right um and and i'll explain some of the reasons because one of these dudes i would just start off with him alice caruso might be a homer pig but if you watch bull's basketball at all this season you can clearly understand why him and lonzo ball like i'm a pair of them together um are the most some of the most impactful on ball defenders in the entire nba if you go deep into the advanced analytics alice caruso is top three when it comes to a point of attack defender in the entire nba and the reason why he's not on my two all defensive teams is because he's only played a thousand minutes on the season and i went back on like my last year all defensive team and compared it to like matisse matisse stable was not a player that started last season but he was undoubtedly on my all defensive team and matisse stable even last year as a rookie coming off the bench for the 76ers still played about 300 more minutes than this year's alice caruso and the same thing with lonzo ball who has a little bit more minutes but he's missed the last 40 games of the season or so so those two dudes because of the smaller sample size did not make my list you're going to see some people on my list that still do have a small sample size but it's i don't know i don't want to phrase this the wrong way it is a combination of kind of this legacy thing and me knowing it okay it's drain my green and like drain my green like i said he was to run away for defensive player the year for the first half you know one third of the season whatever you want to say and then he got injured and then he came back and he's still a good defender but his sample size is smaller than some of the people that aren't on the list but it's because i know that even though drain my green sample size is small the drain my green is that do defensively right you know i'm saying so i'm taking his personal resume into account when saying that he has a smaller sample size but he gets a pass because of it another guard that missed my list this season um but deserves some consideration is freve and vleet he had been a guy that has been at the top of the list or towards the top of the list on deflections this entire season and he is another smaller guard who i like to show love to because he uses like the fact that he's not super athletic or super tall it's a lot of this on the defensive side of the ball a lot of him putting his body on the line on the defensive side of the ball and i like those players but i don't have him on my all defensive team and another dude a guy that had been a consensus all defensive team guy for me for the last maybe three seasons is drew holiday and he deserves some consideration this season but i do not have him on my final ball remember we're talking about four guard spots and for the first time in my life i kind of stretch the rules a little bit i'm thinking about all nba teams again i'm it's a little late here when we talk about all nba teams some people that you you see as a forward also classifies as a guard so one of my final guards is actually a forward but he's such a damn good defender that putting him on the second team would have been like a crime against nature but he also is maybe not better than my two forwards that already have him but he classifies on the official ballot as a guard i guess it's the same thing with like the yokich and jollenby thing and i think i've come out and said publicly that i don't like the idea that they're allowing yokich and jollenby to both be classified as forwards but here i am kind of going back on that because i want this player to be an all defensive player regardless it's my ballot damn it all right so let's talk about the fords that didn't make it but deserve some consideration um jason tatum is a super versatile defender when you go into the advanced stats he's one of the most versatile defenders in the entire nba and he's a very good player at that if you want to know a cool a cool statistic scotty barnes the most versatile defender in the entire nba as he's a rookie most versatile defender in the entire nba according to the advanced statistics the next guy that deserves some love that didn't make my list is rice o'neill self-explanatory every single season he's like the only guy on the perimeter that gives a damn on the defensive side of the ball for the utah jazz and that did not change the season the next one is doran finney smith man and i desperately desperately wanted to get doran finney smith on one of these teams but i just don't have a place for him and i'll explain that later as as good as he is i just it's hard for me to take him over the other four forwards on my list next herb jones shout out to my rookie guy he had um another point of attack guy that was towards the top of the statistics and then uh americ gordon one of the most defensive versatile players in the league and lastly vando jeer vanderbilt deserves some attention but of course these guys did not make my actual list and when i go over to centers uh the two guys that i have is jared allen and yacopo okay with that being said let's get over to the official all defensive list and i like i said i still don't exactly know who my official defensive player of the year is and i might go with a default answer because maybe the simplest answer is the right answer okay my all rookie first team guard is marcus smart we already talked about him being such an impactful player on one of the best defensive teams of all time or if you take you know change the sample size a little bit marcus smart deserves to be on every single he should be a unanimous oh i i forgot to mention patrick bevelly to on guards my fault he should be a unanimous unanimous all defensive guard whether you have him on your first team when your second team there should not be a single ballad that's talking about guards that doesn't have marcus smart at least in there my second guy and this is where i start to talk about me stretching the boundaries of positions is mckell bridges the these phoenix sons 100 percent deserve to have an all defensive player they have been one of the top two top three defenses of the of the entire season but the one thing about mckell bridges which makes it very interesting this is why i always say that advanced stats should be a part of the thing but they shouldn't be the the be all say all because if you look at it technically the sons are better the defensive team when mckell bridges is off the floor when you watch them play he is taking the assignment of the best player on the opposing team whether he be a small guard or whether he be a big wing mckell bridges taking that assignment and he's doing a damn good job on it so the advanced advanced statistics might not love mckell bridges but the eye test puts him over that this is where things get interesting because i have i have three forwards that i i really really love in this spot but of course i had to narrow down the two the first one is yannis um yannis's case for defensive player is definitely there and like i said i might default to yannis once at the end of the video when i give you this last one but it's not an overbearing um overbearing i'm 100 convinced that yannis is their defensive player of the year this season uh they have been around the number 10 spot in defense all season long which is a drop off from them in the previous seasons or the drop off from when he was defensive player of the year but this year he had to change up his entire defensive role because brick lopez went out the first game of the season so we had to see him basically change throughout the season of him being a defender and then what i liked and i this is kind of just a one game thing but we saw this throughout the season i remember uh in the playoffs last season when kevin arant was going ballistic against him one of the things that was trending on twitter is like yannis just won defensive player of the year last season and you're trying to tell me he's not checking kevin arant well what we saw so far this season is no he might not start off on kevin arant or even take a ton of possessions on kevin arant when it comes to 101 things but when the time comes down to it he's going to take that assignment or what we saw in the game just from last week he might not start off on katie i think it was westley matthews on some of those possessions but what they did is they figured out hey we're going to throw yannis late as a help defender and double him and yannis is the best in the league as a help defender there's a reason why they allow him to play free safety because he's so damn good at it so he deserves to be first team for me and he might be my defensive player of the year maybe before i even give you my second wing spot because um my second forward spot i think that like i said there's a two-man race for that second spot i want to transition to my lock for the first offensive center and that is rudy gobert oh i already see the comments in the tweets kenny you're going to pick rudy gobert on all defensive first team after terrence man drop 40 on him in a very important elimination game and and then you tune into the utah jazz you see azea hartinstein going at him or po george going right him nobody fears rudy gobert maybe that is true but there's a reason why why when he's not on the court the utah jazz are a below average team on the defensive side of the ball and when he is in there they're pretty damn good it's not as good as last season that's why he's not my defensive player of the year but it's pretty damn good and i want to remind you guys that this is a regular season award and and in the regular season rudy gobert is the most impactful defensive center in the nba that is a number saying that and that is the eye test saying that for me personally so he is a lock for me to be an all defensive first team center next let's talk about this last forward spot because there's two players that i i really want to put in here but of course already can narrow it down to two to one uh the first one is bam out of bio yes i understand that bam out of bio is a center but like i changed up the positions for mckell bridges legally by the way legally changed up the positions i'm doing the same thing for bam out of bio because he's as impactful as a defender than pretty much any other person i could have put in a forward spot and since he classifies there why the hell would i not the the only knock on on uh bam out of bio's case is like he missed a chunk of the games with some injuries and stuff but this is a year where i'm kind of putting that on the back burner unless it is such a significant amount of time like in the alice garuso london ball case where they both played like a thousand minutes bam out of bio the season 1700 minutes and 54 games at this point so he you know i'm saying he might miss about 18 to 20 games this season regardless he still put up 700 more minutes and some of the people i nixed out of it and bam out of bio is such a great defender um he's the most switchable defender in the entire mba whether it be on to guards or to be on to forwards the you the miami heat in general i think i was listening to low the low post and he was talking about it's like uh bam out of bio is number one when it comes to switchability in the mba and then it's like tyla hero and then it's bam out of bio it's uh dunk and robison but the difference is the points per possession when bam is switched on is significantly lower than dunk and who's like the worst of all time damn i'm sorry doctor shout out to the homie um but bam out of bio just impacts the game so much on the defensive side of the ball and since i could put him at forward i will put him at forward and the other guy that was in conversations for the spot of course i ended up going with bam on the first team is jaren jackson jr jaren jackson jr's a guy i think he's leading the league in total blocks or blocks per game that has been a sting and and he has some position versatility as well he's played a lot of minutes at the center position he's played a lot of minutes at the forward position but the reason i like jaren jackson jr more this season than any other year he's a lot smarter on the defensive side of the ball and we're going to talk about another player on my list that has grown this way too we're like early stages of jaren jackson jr he was in crazy foul trouble and even this year it's not completely down it's not like bro don't foul out because he still does but it's it's it feels a lot less this year than any other season he's blocking shots all over the place he's switching very well and he is very good on his rotation so i i unfortunately he had to end up on the second team but he's on the second team jaren shout out to you yeah his fouls per game went from 3.8 to 3.5 so you feel me shout out to what's his name trip is the end of his rap name trip all right so we already found out one of my forwards on my defensive team let's talk about the second for it it's draymond green i already mentioned my case for him he had it wrapped up in the first quarter of the season third of the season whatever you want to say um and then he missed some time but i'm giving him the benefit of the doubt because we all know that he is as elite as anybody on the defensive side of the ball whether it be him as a vocalizer whether it be be him on the switches him being guarding all five positions draymond green is still that but let's go a little bit forward because i i got us very similar situation to last year like i mentioned matisse steib oh matisse steib was on my second team by the way but uh his rookie season matisse steib made my team um playing around i think it was 1400 minutes on the season i might be rounding up a little bit for him he played about 1400 minutes but he was such a minutes on the defensive side of the ball that i had no choice but to add him to my second team last year he's on my second team again this year and and i wanted to fit him in but i i respected mckel bridges this season on the defensive side of the ball just a little bit more if you got matisse on the first team i completely understand it but i went with the homie mckel bridges on the first team but matisse steib is just as dominant this season's last season but it's miniature up because he's starting a lot more games a shout out to matisse but like i said this is a similar situation where my second guard on my all defensive team is a guy that doesn't play a ton of minutes um he's actually a guy that kind of loses his spot in the rotation every once in a while but he might be the best perimeter defender in the NBA right now and it's gary patin the second this season gary patin the second has played 1100 minutes so even that is a lot lower um than some other people that's that's that puts him in the range for reference of like alice caruso and lanzo ball but i think this man is such a menace on the defensive side of the ball that i would be it would feel weird to me to not have him there similar to matisse last year i don't expect anything from him but to have the opposing team and he does a damn good job at it if he got the sample size of 1700 minutes there's no way you can't put him on the first team the only problem is because his offense is so bad he doesn't get the minutes but i'm not going to penalize him for being a terrible offensive player or just a bad offensive player um but man he's ridiculous and my second team center is the timelord robert williams a couple months ago i went out to tnt um and they gave me a two minute segment to talk about who i thought the sleeper team in the east of conference was and in this this was like when the this is when the boss asceltics were maybe in the middle of their big run right i thinking that they were like nine in their last 10 and they were climbing up the standings and i asked the producer there is there a limit to what i can talk about and they said no be yourself do you think so i spent basically two minutes talking about robert williams on on on tnt which is great because i don't think he gets a lot of of pt or or facetime on these national televised games that people don't really talk about him enough but he deserves to be here because uh halfway through the season e-mail yudoka figured out that that robert williams as that same help defender position that you got yannis in or you got them out of bio win robert williams is playing that same exact role on one of the greatest offensive teams of all time i can understand you having him on first team over gobert i wouldn't fight you on it whatsoever um but he deserves 100 to be a center here and i i don't see an argument for anybody else other than gobert williams maybe jared alla got to vote because they were a very good defense and then he went down and then they still had evan mobily but the defense was still trash jared alla might have a case but over the two guys that we got i don't see it so get him back to the the real question who is the defensive player of the year i guess i'm defaulting yannis but i i would i haven't done his research here but i would guess that if yannis won defensive player of the year it would be one of the the one of the worst offensive teams who get a defensive player of the year because you're sitting at the 10 spot i don't know that for sure but maybe i i guess my runner-up probably bam sample size a bit small and that might hurt him then bridge is not then smart i don't know the winner is the only thing that really matters right and even that as you can tell from my tone doesn't really matter to me too much i'm more invested in the all defensive teams than the actual final award but hey man i'm just a guy with a spreadsheet in front of him and a little bit of the eye test um let me know in the comment section who you think deserved to be here that probably wasn't here uh and i'll be down there like i always am you can tweet at me if you want just don't be reckless dog please don't be reckless