http://www.nba.com/2012/news/05/23/nba-all-defensive-team-2011-2012/index.html?ls=iref:nbahpt2 While Deng has long had a reputation as being a stellar defender, this is the first time he's been voted on to one of the All-Defensive teams. Congrats, Luol.
The All-Defensive selections usually leave me shaking my head, but they're actually pretty good this year. My biggest complaint would be Chris Paul, who gets steals but is not especially disruptive on defense. I'd rather have Rondo. I've always thought Luc Mbah a Moute is one of the best wing defenders that doesn't get the credit he deserves. Anyone notice that Boozer got a vote? Taj and Asik didn't.
The Boozer vote was just silly. Can't help but think that the coach who voted for Boozer went to a stats site, saw that Boozer was 2nd in the league defensive rating and ran with it. Has to be a Western Conference coach. The most common criticism of coaches votes is that reputation plays too big a role. Not surprising, since teams from opposite conferences only play each other twice most seasons and some only played each other once this season. I think head coaches know the opposing players within their conference pretty well. If you wanted less reputation-based voting, rather than have a league-wide All-Defensive first and second team, the league should have separate All-Defense teams for each conference.
Oddly, Derrick Rose got a vote, too, and he's never been a very good defensive player. He's better than he was, but it sure seems like he's taken advantage of by a lot of guards. Like Teague on Atlanta in the playoffs last season and Collison, too. If you compare this season to last... Rose was healthy last season, Boozer missed a lot of games and Taj played in his place. Noah missed games last season, too. This year, we were 1st in PPG allowed, and 2nd in DRtg (according to basketball-reference.com). Last year, we were 2nd in PPG allowed, and 1st in DRtg. Our PPG allowed went from 91.3 to 88.2, and our DRtg from 100.8 to 98.3. Our pace declined slightly; I don't think enough to justify the difference. Defense is such a subjective thing, though. The stats only tell part of the story. We see Boozer is only a 50% help defender (he'll cut off driving lanes but not contest shots), but we also see opposing PFs have miserable shooting and scoring nights over stretches of many games against him. Defensive rebounding is also a huge part of defense that most people don't talk about or consider much. We've been effective by having mediocre shooters miss while Noah cleans up the offensive boards. Each of those offensive boards is another possession. Boozer's defensive boards end opposing teams' possessions. FWIW
Rose getting a vote only surprised me because of how many games he missed. Whatever we may think about Rose's D, he has some fans among the league's coaching fraternity as evidenced by the fact that he received 14 votes (4 first team) in his MVP season.
And you just wrote about reputation ;-) They were heaping all kinds of praise on the guy at age 22, including the MVP. It's hardly surprising he'd get all-defense votes, too.
The one vote Rose got this season is pure reputation. The ones he got last season were likely, as you suggest, more for overall excellence. MLB does the same thing...very few "all glove/no bat" guys get Gold Gloves no matter how good they are defensively. I'll say this for Rose, compared to his rookie season, he's become a defensive demon...God, he was bad that first year.
It will always be my contention that he was told by Vinny not to worry about defense, but to devote his energy and attention to developing as an offensive player. I'm sure he got no argument from Derrick, but I think Derrick was willing to work on defense, if he had been told to make it a priority. And I'm not criticizing Vinny. I'm just saying that's how it seemed to me.
