Giannis Antetokounmpo is the season's best defensive player and his numbers backed the win over nearest rival Anthony Davis. It will be the first for the Milwaukee Bucks star and the games ahead will prove if he is the more deserving winner.
The award syncs with the rating afforded to the Bucks and NBA records showed the team as the best in defense from the time the season started and up to the forced hiatus in March. The stats also indicated that not only Antetokounmpo was shooting in big numbers when on the floor, he also made it difficult for the opposing teams to connect.
The voters have decided to agree with the numbers and so the NBA announced on Tuesday that Antetokounmpo is the defensive king in the current campaign. The Milwaukee, by the way, is also a top contender to win the season's MVP title.
According to Silver Screen & Roll, Davis finished in the Top 3 of the award for the second time and he failed to get on the account that his competitors were turning better numbers. In the previous tallying, Joel Embiid and two-time winner Rudy Gobert appeared to dominate the race but it didn't mean that AD was any inferior.
Davis' defensive prowess mostly lies in his general contribution to the Lakers' game. The big man, for instance, performed big in the playoff series with the Portland Trail Blazers and his team is likely to win because he excelled on both ends of the floor.
In other words, Davis is a versatile operator on the court and he takes care of things, offensively and defensively, said the same report. It's just unfortunate that this factor is hard to quantify and therefore unlikely to win the attention of voters.
That was the point that Kendrick Perkins was trying to make. The former NBA star disagreed with the result and believed Davis was the rightful winner, according to Clutch Points.
"Congratulations to Giannis on getting the DPOY...on the other hand watch out for a pissed off AD because he got ROBBED," Perkins was reported as saying.
The outspoken Perkins lamented that the media people who picked Antetokounmpo for the award relied mostly on the statistics. Had they assessed making use of the "eye test," it would have been a different result, and one that favored the Lakers star, Perkins added.
As his social media post indicated, the former teammate to LeBron James said the question of who the league's defensive leaver is far from resolved. The debate will rage on and to be sure, Davis will make use of the upcoming to prove that voters got it wrong.
