Hey, Tony Allen, where did you think you'd end up in the All-Defensive Team voting this year again?
Right you are, "Grindfather." Right you are.
The score-stopping Memphis Grizzlies guard was named to the 2014-15 All-Defensive First Team on Wednesday, marking his third career appearance on the NBA's top defensive squad and his fourth All-Defensive nod overall, including a Second Team berth after the 2010-11 season.
He's joined on the First Team by Defensive Player of the Year winner Kawhi Leonard of the San Antonio Spurs and DPoY runner-up Draymond Green of the Golden State Warriors in the forward slots. Los Angeles Clippers bookends DeAndre Jordan and Chris Paul round out the first five in the center and second guard spot.
Leonard led all players with 116 First-Team votes from the 129 sportswriters and broadcasters with official ballots, and also received a league-high 242 "total points." (You get two points for each First Team selection, and one point for each Second Team nod.) Green received 106 First Team votes, followed by Allen's 88, Jordan's 84 and Paul's 67.
It's the first All-Defensive selection for both Green and Jordan, and the first First-Team nod for Leonard, who made the Second Team last season. It's Paul's fourth straight First-Team berth, and the fifth of his career; he's also made the Second Team twice.
Chicago Bulls swingman Jimmy Butler added to his Most Improved Player hardware by making his second consecutive appearance on the league's All-Defensive Second Team. He's joined in the Second Team backcourt by Washington Wizards point guard John Wall, who line up alongside forwards Anthony Davis of the New Orleans Pelicans and Spurs legend Tim Duncan, with the Warriors' Andrew Bogut in the middle.
It's the first All-Defense appearance for Davis, who received 47 First-Team votes and 155 total points; Wall, who received seven First-Team votes and 67 total points; and, somewhat surprisingly, for Bogut, who's long been a defensive stalwart but who had never cracked the top 10 before receiving 33 First-Team votes and 102 total points this season.
Unlike Davis, Wall and Bogut, this is very, very, very much not Tim Duncan's first All-Defense nod. The "Big Fundamental" has now made one of the top two squads 15 times in his illustrious 18-year career, with eight selections to the First Team and seven to the Second.
Voters were asked to pick two forwards, two guards and one center for each of the two teams "at the position they play regularly," which led to some tough decisions for some voters.
There was certainly a strong argument to be made for Rudy Gobert of the Utah Jazz, who held opponents to the league's lowest shooting percentage at the rim among rotation bigs and whose elevation into the starting lineup helped the Utah Jazz transform into the NBA's stingiest defense after the All-Star break, over Jordan or Bogut or, had the voting procedures allowed, over Duncan or Davis. Reasonable people can disagree without becoming especially incensed, because these are all very good and impactful defensive players we're talking about, and nobody should burst a blood vessel over it. (Nobody who doesn't have a vested financial interest in it, that is.)
Your leading vote-getters who didn't crack the top 10, and thus find themselves in arguable snub territory;
• Gobert, who got five First-Team votes and 54 total points, leading him to unleash this absolutely scathing and scorching post-vote tweet:
• LeBron James (six First-Team votes, 47 total points) and Russell Westbrook (13 First-Team votes, 35 total points), which seems much more in line with the fact that they are very famous than with the degree to which they were very helpful defenders this season;
• Avery Bradley of the Boston Celtics (five First-Team votes, 26 total points) and Michael Kidd-Gilchrist of the Charlotte Hornets (two First-Team votes, 21 total points), both of whom would seem to these eyes to have more legitimate gripes about getting overlooked than either of the starrier players one bullet point to the north;
• Danny Green of the Spurs, who didn't get a single First-Team vote and wishes we'd all quit sleeping on him.
We hope Danny's wounds will be salved by the eight-figure contract he's going to receive as arguably the premier 3-and-D player in unrestricted free agency this summer.
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