Though none of us have a ballot for the NBA’s official awards, we’ll be presenting our choices and making our cases this week for each major honor.
Kurt Helin
1. Joakim Noah, Chicago Bulls
2. Roy Hibbert, Indiana Pacers
3. Andre Iguodala, Golden State Warriors
At the midpoint of the season I thought Hibbert was a lock for this award. While his defense didn’t fall off nearly as much as his offense it did some (his rebounding was never great but became sports talk radio punch line) and that cost him the award because Noah never let up. Whole lot of people deserved the three spot but what Iguodala brought to Golden State really mattered.
Brett Pollakoff
1. Joakim Noah, Chicago Bulls
2. Roy Hibbert, Indiana Pacers
3. Serge Ibaka, Oklahoma City Thunder
The Bulls have had the league’s best defense per 100 possessions since January, so even though Hibbert started strong and Indiana finished at the top of the same defensive ranking when looking at the entire season, Noah gets the nod for leading the charge on a team with less overall talent.
Dan Feldman
1. Roy Hibbert, Indiana Pacers
2. Joakim Noah, Chicago Bulls
3. Andre Iguodala, Golden State Warriors
If this looks like the top defensive players on the NBA’s top three defensive teams in order, it is. But that’s as much as coincidence as it is coincidence good defensive teams have good defensive players. For these awards, I believe in body of work – where early-season games count just as much as late-season games. Hibbert really tested that, but I keep coming back to the fact that the Pacers’ downturn had more to do with their offense than defense (though it’s both).