Rudy Gobert Thinks Future Competition Draymond Green And Kawhi Leonard Deserve Defensive Player of the Year

There’s emerged as something close to a consensus in the race for Defensive Player of the Year: That Draymond Green will win the award, but Kawhi Leonard is just as deserving of it. And it’s an accurate line of thinking.

There hasn’t been a more consistently influential defender in basketball than the Golden State Warriors’ chameleon. Each of Green’s rare attributes – strength, quickness, understanding, general intensity – directly accounts for his team’s league-best defense by means both tangible and otherwise. Steve Kerr’s team is loaded with gifted defensive players, but the ‘Dubs wouldn’t be this elite without the singular presence of Green.

Leonard is the game’s top disruptor. He’s a long-limbed, fleet-footed monster with strength, balance, and hands that grip like a vice. The reigning Finals MVP not only thwarts isolations, but even the mere thought of them – he’s like Steph Curry’s gravitational pull on the other end in that regard. And the numbers and eye-test suggest Leonard’s team defensive impact looms just as large for the San Antonio Spurs.

The NBA’s top two defensive players are 25 and 23, respectively, seemingly entrenched as foundational pieces for franchises with futures nearly as bright as their presents. Green and Leonard will be duking it out for Defensive Player of the Year for many seasons to come, basically.

A sentiment the player most likely to be their chief competition for the award surely shares.

Rudy Gobert received just brief mentions in DIME’s roundtable discussion for Defensive Player of the Year, but they were glowing.

Spencer Lund: …I’m tempted to bring a fourth guy into the discussion, who Jack has been salivating over long before the national press fell in love with him after Enes Kanter’s horrible defense was traded to the Thunder. Yup, I’m talking the Stifle Tower himself, Rudy Gobert.

Martin Rickman: …It took some time to get Gobert comfortable, but it seems like his renaissance is not only real, but worthy of a hard look at first-team All Defensive Team honors…

Jack Winter: Gobert is simply the best rim-protector in basketball, and pretty much every tool of analysis supports that reality… If Gobert had been in Utah’s starting lineup since the beginning of the season, he might very well be a near consensus favorite for DPOY – that’s how stingy the Jazz have been over the past seven weeks.

Needless to say, Gobert’s performance this season left us supremely impressed. If the French behemoth had been a starter with the Utah Jazz from the season-opener, he’d certainly be garnering similar consideration from award voters to Green and Leonard. As is, though, they’re forced to debate his worth as an All-Defense selection and awkward Sixth Man of the Year candidate.

But that the 22 year-old has even risen to those heights so soon in his career is cause for major excitement – or major fear if you’re the rest of the NBA. It was only 21 months ago that Gobert was selected with the 27th pick of the draft and just over a year since he was clearly overwhelmed by the physicality and nuance of the professional game.

What a difference a summer makes. Gobert picked up where he left off following an oft dominant performance with France in September’s FIBA World Cup, quickly becoming a more frequent fixture of Quin Snyder’s playing rotation as November was December and suddenly January. And with Enes Kanter’s public discontent in Utah growing coupled with his own rapid improvement, Gobert was suddenly the Jazz’s lone man in the middle post trade deadline.

What has Utah done in the interim? Carried basketball’s fourth-best record at 19-9 due to its stingiest overall defense. The Jazz’s 94.2 defensive rating over that timeframe outpaces second-place San Antonio by 4.9 points, an indicator that Gobert is surrounded by similarly gifted young defenders.

But if Snyder’s squad makes good on its post All-Star surge next season as a playoff contender, it’s the Stifle Tower’s all-encompassing influence that could serve as the biggest reason why. And in the process, don’t be surprised if he joins Green and Leonard as perennial favorites for Defensive Player of the Year.