Rudy Gobert is having a dominant defensive season and appears to be on track to win his third Defensive Player of the Year award in the past four years.
If Gobert indeed does win his third DPOY award, he would be in rare air, joining Dikembe Mutombo, Ben Wallace and Dwight Howard as the only players in NBA history to win DPOY three or more times.
Here’s how Utah’s defensive anchor stacks up against other DPOY candidates.
Rudy Gobert, C, Utah Jazz
Steals per game: 0.6 (Rank: 151)
Blocks per game: 2.7 (Rank: 2)
Defensive rebounds per game: 10.1 (Rank: 1)
ESPN Real Defensive Plus-Minus (measures a player’s impact on his team’s defensive performance in terms of points allowed per 100 possessions. A positive number is better): 8.0 (Rank: 1)
Cleaning the Glass opponent points per 100 possessions decrease when on the floor (measures the decrease in opponents’ points per 100 possessions when Gobert is on the floor compared to when he is off the floor, minimum 1000 minutes played. A negative number is better): -12.8 (Rank: 1)
Opponent field goal percentage difference when defending (measures the difference in a player’s field goal percentage when Gobert is defending compared to the player’s average field goal percentage, minimum 47 games played. A negative number is better): -.7.7% (Rank: 2)
FiveThirtyEight Overall Defensive RAPTOR (measures a player’s impact on his team’s defensive performance in terms of points allowed per 100 possessions, minimum 1,000 minutes played. A positive number is better.): +8.6 (Rank: 1)
Rudy Gobert is having a monster defensive year. Perhaps the best of all time.
Gobert is first in the league in defensive rebounds and first or second in the league in blocks per game, depending on what criteria you use (Myles Turner of the Indiana Pacers leads the league in blocks per game at 3.4, but has only played 47 games; Gobert leads the NBA in blocks per game among all players who have played 50 or more games).
The Jazz defense is 12.8 points worse per 100 possessions with Gobert off the floor, per Cleaning the Glass. FiveThirtyEight rates the Jazz as 8.6 points better per 100 possessions defensively when Gobert is on the floor. Opponents shoot 7.7% worse than their average when guarded by Gobert, per NBA data. Utah’s defensive rating is third in the league.
Gobert is at the top or near the top in pretty much every defensive metric.
Ben Dowsett at FiveThirtyEight and Jake Lee at Salt City Hoops have articles breaking down the numbers, and the various defensive metrics that attempt to boil down a player’s defensive impact down to one number say that not only is Gobert the best defensive player in the NBA this season, but he is having the single best defensive season ever.
In all four major defensive metrics — FiveThirtyEight Defensive RAPTOR, ESPN defensive Real Plus-Minus, Dunks & Threes defensive Estimated Plus-Minus and BallIndex D-LEBRON — Gobert’s 2020-21 season is ranked as the best defensive season of all time. Two of those metrics, FiveThirtyEight Defensive RAPTOR and ESPN defensive Real Plus-Minus, go back as far as 1977 and 1996, respectively, and still, Gobert is having the best defensive season of all time.
Numbers can never tell the entire story in basketball, though.
By watching the games, it’s clear that Gobert is such a great defender that the Jazz have actually altered the way they play defense because Gobert is so good at affecting shots.
The Jazz’s defense is built around guarding players tight on the perimeter, preventing 3-pointers. If a player beats his primary defender and gets into the paint, Gobert is usually there to affect the shot.
It works. The Jazz allow the third-fewest 3-pointers attempted in the league and teams make just 10.9 3-pointers per game against Utah, the fewest in the NBA.
“What makes him so good is that Utah’s defense funnels offenses into the paint, which seems like the opposite of what you’d want to do, but it works because Rudy covers so much ground in there,” Cleveland’s Larry Nance Jr. said, per HoopsHype.
Perhaps the best way to illustrate Gobert’s defensive dominance is by watching this sequence against the San Antonio Spurs from May.
The Spurs appeared to have the advantage on the fast break after stealing the ball, but Gobert — by himself — shut down not one, not two, but three San Antonio players, and prevented a fast break score. Not one Spur wanted to as much as attempt a shot on a fast break against Gobert.
That’s DPOY impact right there.
Ben Simmons, G, Philadelphia 76ers
Steals per game: 1.6 (Rank: 8)
Blocks per game: 0.6 (Rank: 61)
Defensive rebounds per game: 5.6 (Rank: 29)
ESPN Real Defensive Plus-Minus: 2.39 (Rank: 31)
Cleaning the Glass opponent points per 100 possessions decrease when on the floor: -3.3 (Rank: 43)
Opponent field goal % difference when defending: -5.2% (Rank: 10)
FiveThirtyEight Overall Defensive RAPTOR: +2.1 (Rank: 37)
When the final awards votes from the media are tallied by the NBA, it’s almost assuredly going to be Gobert first and Ben Simmons second.
If Gobert is the league’s best paint defender this season, Simmons is the NBA’s best on-ball defender.
The argument for Simmons winning DPOY is simple: He can guard every position from point guard through center.
He’s one of the best in the NBA at forcing deflections and steals. Opponents shoot 7.7% worse than their average when guarded by Simmons. Most of the time, Simmons gets the toughest defensive matchup on the opposing team, so that’s impressive. Philadelphia owns the second-best defensive rating in the league thanks in large part to Simmons and Joel Embiid.
Draymond Green, F, Golden State Warriors
Steals per game: 1.7 (Rank: 3)
Blocks per game: 0.8. (Rank: 40)
Defensive rebounds per game: 6.3 (Rank: 18)
ESPN Real Defensive Plus-Minus: 1.68 (Rank: 55)
Cleaning the Glass opponent points per 100 possessions decrease when on the floor: -0.8 (Rank: 89)
Opponent field goal % difference when defending: -5.2% (Rank: 8)
FiveThirtyEight Overall Defensive RAPTOR: +3.5 (Rank: 10)
Golden State is fifth in defensive rating this season, and the reason for that is Draymond Green. Like Simmons, Green draws the opposing team’s best player on defense. Green’s defensive matchups are shooting 5.2% worse against him.
Green is the anchor of Golden State’s defense, disrupting the opposition — Green has the third-most steals per game in the association.
Green, a former DPOY winner in 2017, has been elite defensively for a while and doesn’t seem to be slowing down any time soon.