Rudy Gobert Leads The All-Defensive First Team For The Third Year In A Row

The NBA continued its roll-out of its end-of-season awards on Wednesday with the 2018-19 All-Defense teams.

As expected, the three finalists for Defensive Player of the Year — Rudy Gobert, Paul George, and Giannis Antetokounmpo — were near-unanimous selections for the first team, avoiding awkward scenarios like 2012 and 2013 when Tyson Chandler and Marc Gasol won DPOY but were second-team selections. The rest of the first team included guards Marcus Smart and Eric Bledsoe.

Bledsoe narrowly edged out Jrue Holiday, who led vote-getters for the second team. He was joined by Joel Embiid, Draymond Green, Kawhi Leonard, and Klay Thompson, the latter of whom earned his first-ever All-Defense selection. Smart and Bledsoe are also both first-time honorees.

P.J. Tucker and Pascal Siakam were the next two forwards receiving the most votes, as Tucker missed tying Leonard by one point (or one second-team vote). Danny Green and Patrick Beverley were the next two guards, and Beverley did not take kindly to missing out.

As always, much of the fun of these awards announcements is trying to figure out what people were thinking with some of their votes. James Harden got two first-team votes, as did Russell Westbrook, and Stephen Curry received one. Damian Lillard and Kyrie Irving each also received a second-team vote.

Given that Gobert, George, and Antetokounmpo finished three points apart (196, 195, and 193) in voting, there is no indicator of who is in the lead for Defensive Player of the Year. That will have to wait until June 24.