My response was mainly geared towards the people that think LeBron is a better defender than Jordan. I see your argument for LeBron getting DPOY over Chandler and yeah you make some good points. But there are some other guys who do go overlooked. Iguodala is definitely one of those guys. I haven't watched him enough but the times I have watched him this season I don't know how he isn't up there as a contender for this award too. He had arguably the best defensive team statistically and he has guys like Spencer Hawes and Elton Brand as his primary big men. I personally don't think he anchors the defense like a Garnett or anything but he's most definitely the best defender on the Sixers. So if you're going to make a case for LeBron, you have to make the same case for Iguodala.
I don't remember Lerbon playing one on one defense other than when he fronted Gasol for like half a game, and last year against Rose. His defense is either super over hyped or I just don't watch him enough. Plus he got burned pretty hard by Terry last year, but people never bring it up.
Jordan has a longer body of work. If you want to compare LBJ now to Jordan then, hell no. However, LBJ is simply halfway through his career. At this rate though, you can forsee LBJ winning MULTIPLE DPOYs. I see him winning it next year. That's why you don't judge a player midway through his career to someone who has already written his legacy or someone who's nearly done with his career. And to your point, there are other great perimeter defenders in this league. Iggy is great also, and I've watched him. But he doesn't anchor the Sixers' D like LBJ. He's a great man defender, but he doesn't play "safety" to cover up all the Sixers' defensive weaknesses. And the Sixers have much better defensive big men than the Heat. Also, Iggy doesn't guard every position on a consistent basis like LBJ does. You don't hear Iggy shutting down a PG, or having to play PF for extended periods.
No way did Chandler deserve DPOY this year. Sure NY's defense improved. #1) Scoring was down in the NBA (11 teams averaged over 100ppg last year, compared to 3 this year) #2) They fired Dan'toni and the defense improved dramatically afterwards. Tyson Chandler still played a part, and is one of the better defenders in the league, but he didn't deserve DPOY. LBJ was the much better defensive player, and the stats back it up. Not saying there wasn't a more deserving candidate than LBJ, but he was more deserving than Chandler.
tyson has been basically the same defensive player for the past few years. this season's DPOY is really more indicative of how bad the rest of the Knicks are defensively vs how good Chandler is. backhand complement imo.
I don't know if you watched the final heat rocket game. Lebron literally guarded all 5 guys over the course of the game. Never saw jordan do that. Jordan wasn't even the best defender on his teams so how can you make the argument that he was a better defender than lebron, he always guarded the easier guy.
You mean he guarded our offensive powerhouses in Camby and Dalembert? Or he fronted softie Pao Gasol for 4 minutes? Watch the games, Lebron is a great defender but he can't guard C's, if Bynum and him got matched up he would get killed.
Gasol is pretty good. There were plenty of 6-8 guys who would front yao. I think Lebron can front bynum, and probably get him tossed from the game from frustration.
The knicks played horribly the 1st half of the season, defensively... Then they started to play a lil better... In no way, were they a shut-down defense to garner Chandler a DPOY award.... They wanted NY to be so relevant, it's ridiculous... Thank goodness for LIN's injury because the NBA would have wanted to include Lin in Lebron's MVP race ...
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p>Tyson Chandler officially announced as DPOY - first in Knicks history. Ibaka finished 2nd, DHoward 3rd, LeBron 4th, KG 5th.</p>— Howard Beck (@HowardBeckNYT) <a href="https://twitter.com/HowardBeckNYT/status/197770145068883969" data-datetime="2012-05-02T19:30:51+00:00">May 2, 2012</a></blockquote> <script src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script> [rQUOTEr]Tyson Chandler of the New York Knicks is the recipient of the 2011-12 Kia NBA Defensive Player of the Year Award, the NBA announced Wednesday. Chandler becomes the first player in franchise history to earn the honor. Chandler received 311 points, including 45 first-place votes, from a panel of 121 sportswriters and broadcasters throughout the United States and Canada. Oklahoma City's Serge Ibaka finished second with 294 points and Orlando's Dwight Howard, who had won the award each of the previous three seasons, finished third with 186 points. Players were awarded five points for each first-place vote, three points for each second-place vote and one point for each third-place vote received. With Chandler anchoring the middle, New York's defense improved markedly from the previous season in multiple categories. The Knicks ranked among the top half of the league in several key defensive categories, including opponent turnovers per game (17.0, 2nd), opponent field goal percentage (.442, 10th), and opponent scoring (94.7 ppg, 11th). Opposing teams averaged 22.5 more points and shot .520 from the field when Chandler was not in the lineup. Opponents shot .438 with Chandler in the lineup. In addition, Chandler grabbed 22.1 percent of his team's defensive rebounds when he was on the floor.[/rQUOTEr]
So it looks like Chandler barely edged Ibaka and Howard. That sounds about right -- there was no clear winner for the DPOY this season.
Not saying Lebron didn't deserve more or otherwise but the Knicks were a top 10 ranked defense before D'antoni left. Hard to process that.
What are you talking about? Pippen and MJ had the benefit of being able to handcheck opposing players. Playing D nowadays is so much tougher than before, if LBJ was allowed to handcheck people wings wouldn't even be able to score. Do you even realize he has the body mass of Karl Malone?
If there was a Help Defender of the Year award, Ibaka would win in a landslide. But there is more to it than that. If his fundamentals keep improving, his time will come. He's gotta tighten up his PnR defense.
This was a complete shock to me. Did not expect Tyson to get it at all. This thread shouldn't be a MJ vs LeBron thread, or an I hate LeBron thread. Let me say this: I don't like LeBron, so don't confuse me for AshCoza or any LeBron biased fool. But in iso situation, people only shot 20% against LeBron James. The dude is a quick, powerful and smart defender. He's evolved his defense to much more than just a fast break backboard blocker.
