Interesting look at DPOY race based on a variety of statistical indicators. http://www.basketball-reference.com/blog/?p=4516 Dwight Howard looks to be far ahead of the pack by most measures. Varejao might deserve consideration, though.
I'd like to see Gerald Wallace win it. They have the top defense in the league along with Boston, even though they traded away Okafor.
I agree with Gerald Wallace. He was leading the league in Def rebounds at one point I think, but he's had a couple 20 board games and is a stat stuffing (not in a bad way like ricky davis) contributor on a defensive juggernaut of a team. Not to mention he's playing 44-45 minutes a game. If Varejao wins it, I will vomit. On sheer embarassment alone from that Wade dunk he should take himself out of any award contention.
I remember when Dream average 2.2 blocks per half. No offense to Howard but his defense is so overrated. I hate to get all "if he played in the 90s" on people but you could (strongly) argue he wouldn't even be a top 5 defensive Center back then when guys like Dream, Deke, Mourning, D. Robinson, Ewing and even young Shaq were shutting down the paint. I just have a hard time giving DPOY to a guy who is a poor one on one post defender and has the defensive IQ of a fire hydrant. His rebounding numbers are impressive, however.
what about Josh Smith? He's a total stud on D this year. Part of the reason Atlanta had such a good record this year is beacuse of his marking and his help D. Sometimes stats are overrated, e.g Camby
Just chill bro. We're not talking about DPOY circa 1990's...we're talking about DPOY circa pathetic big men. So what if DH's basically just the best of the worst? The fact is there are no great centers anymore, all of the guys better than him are dead, old and/or retired already. So you're not gonna accept him just because some dudes who played a decade ago were better? LOL stop living in the past
A counter-argument to that could be that the rules favored post players then more than they do now. From a purely physical and athleticism standpoint, Howard is much more impressive than Ewing. Sure he doesn't have the skill or the ruggedness, but I don't see why Howard couldn't have held his own a guy like that. If he had played then who knows, he might have been one of the best defensive power forward to ever play the game. I certainly would have liked to have seen a player like him alongside Dream when Dream complained that his help wasn't getting it done on the boards. Anyway, even if he couldn't stack up against Dream, Robinson, etc, he could have stacked up very well against some of the other players like Danny Schayes. If that guy could survive in the league, a player like Howard would have still commanded due respect. As it stands now, Howard is the best there is at the position, and I'd take his pick and roll defense over any non-undersized center. The guy is pretty extraordinary, that team can only function the way that it does, with no real front-court players, because of Howard.
