Tony Allen is one of the best defenders in NBA history, and he weighed in on the DPOTY race.
For the entire NBA offseason and much of the regular season, Victor Wembanyama was the frontrunner to win Defensive Player of the Year. The only thing holding him back was the 65-game threshold, and when a blood clot in his shoulder shut down his season during the All-Star Break, suddenly the race was open again.
Jaren Jackson Jr., Evan Mobley, and Dyson Daniels all quickly emerged as the three favorites to win the award with Wembanyama out, although the odds have shifted, and Mobley (-115), Draymond Green (-105) lead the way, with Daniels being a distant third (+1500), according to FanDuel.
Green is anchoring a top-ten defensive team with the Golden State Warriors, Mobley is perhaps the second-best interior defender in the league behind Wembanyama, and Daniels is leading the league with 3.1 steals per game. For context, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander is second with 1.8 steals per game.
Green has been advocating for himself to win DPOTY, but one legendary defender thinks guards should get their flowers.
Daniels has been the best on-ball defender this season and is posting the most steals per game since John Stockton in 1988-89. Lu Dort, meanwhile, is the best defender on the Oklahoma City Thunder, who boast a 107.1 defensive rating, the best in the league by far.
Tony Allen, who made six All-Defensive Teams in a row, supports both Dort and Daniels.
“Dray my boy, he do a lot of stuff on court… he get everybody in the right place,” praised Allen on FanDuel’s Run It Back.
“I wouldn’t have him as my favorite, my favorite is the guy from Atlanta, I like how Dyson, he’s all over the court, he’s in passing lanes, I’ve been watching him when bigs get the ball at that mid-post and they turn their heads he’s sprinting to the corner ripping the ball from their hands. I like his game man, and he’s up for the challenge.”
Green, of course, is his own biggest advocate and has been pushing for himself to win his second DPOTY award.
“Draymond, he gonna politick itself he gonna put his name for that,” said Allen. “I like Dort too, he’s another guy who I say can fit that All-Defense monicker too.
“He can definitely hold his hat on the defensive end for that team, and being number one in the league, we supposed to salute the winners, if he get it, it wouldn’t be a bad option too.”
Like Green, Dort has also made it clear that he considers himself the best defender in the league.
As a 6-4 guard, Allen used his high basketball IQ to disrupt ball handlers. He never led the league in steals or blocks and wasn’t particularly impactful on the offensive end, but he and Marc Gasol were the heart and soul of the Grit’n’Grind Grizzlies on the defensive side of the ball.
Allen, like Green and Dort, campaigned for himself to win DPOTY, but his best finish was fourth place, in 2011, losing to Dwight Howard.
Since 1983, only five true guards have ever won Defensive Player of the Year, with a 26-year gap between Gary Payton and Marcus Smart. Green is undersized, but he is still a power forward, a position that has dominated the award.
Allen certainly believes that guards are overshadowed in Defensive Player of the Year voting, and would love to see Daniels or Dort break the trend and bring home the hardware. While they both have a case, the team success of Green’s Warriors and Mobley’s multi-positional dominance can’t be overlooked, and the race is expected to come down to the wire.
After this year, however, it will once again be Wembanyama’s award to lose.
