No question: Howard deserves DPOY award

Dwight Howard shows repeatedly why he deserves to be the first player to win three straight Defensive Player of the Year awards. (AP)

Many of you have probably seen this play, where Dwight Howard jumps out to help Ryan Anderson guard Al Horford and then slides from the semicircle to swat Etan Thomas at the rim. It’s far too simple to say this is why Dwight Howard deserves his third straight Defensive Player of the Year award, which he received Monday … but this is why he deserves his third straight Defensive Player of the Year award.

Howard does stuff like multiple times in every game, and not just to slow Etan Thomas types who are in just to foul him. If you’re rooting against the Magic, there will be a few moments when you’ll start celebrating, assuming your guy holding the ball near the rim has an easy look, only be deflated when Howard flies in from the top of the key, where he just disrupted your team’s initial pick-and-roll, to block the shot or force your guy to launch the ball toward the top of the glass in terror.

There are a ton of great defensive players in the NBA. Andrew Bogut blocked more shots per game this season than anyone, and he actually keeps a decent percentage of his blocks in bounds. Tyson Chandler changed the Mavs’ defense in the same way (if not as dramatically) as Kevin Garnett changed Boston’s in 2007-08. Garnett still plays the angles and the passing lanes better than any other big man. Al Horford has spent his entire career switching from centers to power forwards to point guards Mike Bibby couldn’t defend. Andre Iguodala stopped just about every scorer he came across this season, including LeBron James, who also played some of the best perimeter defense you’ll ever see. Chris Paul, as the New Orleans announce crew will remind you at least 70 times per game, is the Man of Steal. Rajon Rondo might be the league’s best defender at his position when he’s motivated. Tony Allen scares me.

But none of these guys impact a game, and a franchise, the way Howard does in Orlando. There’s a reason the Magic ranked third in points allowed per possession and in the top five (per Synergy Sports) in defending pick-and-rolls where the ball-handler finishes the play (first); pick-and-rolls where the roll man finishes (fifth); spot-up chances (fifth) and scoring chances that followed offensive rebounds (first). They managed to do this all without a rotation player any group of league executives would comfortably describe as an above average defender at his position. There’s a reason no team allowed fewer shot attempts at the rim this season. 

Stan Van Gundy deserves a lot of credit for this. He holds everyone accountable (ask Brandon Bass), and he has gotten that entire roster to buy into his system. If there’s a knock on Howard’s DPOY candidacy, it’s that Van Gundy’s system so clearly works; the Magic still played better than average defense with Howard on the bench this season, and they were decent with him on the bench last season, according to Basketball Value. But as I’ve written before, a lot of that has to do with the fact that Howard typically rests while the Magic’s strong bench goes up against middling back-up units.

Howard doesn’t rest much, either, which means his plus/minus numbers will trend very closely toward his team’s overall margin. And when he did rest this season, the Magic, sound as they are, still surrendered three more points per 100 possessions compared to what they gave up with Howard on the court. That’s a big difference — the equivalent of the gap between a top-five overall defense and an average one. 

There’s also this: Howard’s defensive excellence has consistently allowed Van Gundy to think offense first with the rest of his starting and crunch-time lineups. The Magic of past seasons would probably have been better-served defensively if guys such as Mickael Pietrus had started more often, or had Van Gundy given more minutes to a bigger power forward instead of Rashard Lewis. Heck, the Magic of this season would probably be stingier if Quentin Richardson got more time at small forward, but with the team’s offense hovering around mediocre, Van Gundy has used Jason Richardson and J.J. Redick at small forward when Hedo Turkoglu (no elite defender himself) sits. 

Oh: Only two guys (Kevin Love and Kris Humphries) grabbed a higher percentage of opponent misses than Howard, as the Magic led the league in defensive rebounding rate for the second straight season. 

The general point is this: Howard and Van Gundy are propping this entire operation up, and Howard is the only one of those two guys who actually plays (though Van Gundy will box your ass out in a pickup game, I bet). Being the first player to win three straight Defensive Player of the Year awards is a big historical thing, the kind of accomplishment we want associated with an historically great defender. Howard fits the bill.