All-NBA Defensive Snubs
Isaiah Hartenstein, Anthony Edwards, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Giannis Antetokounmpo, Lu Dort
Onto the snubs. These players barely missed the All-NBA Defensive team cut. New York big man Isaiah Hartenstein was forced into the starting lineup after Mitchell Robinson suffered an injury early in the season.
The Knicks center validated himself as one of the best interior defenders in the league. Opponents shot 11.1 percent worse within six feet when Hartenstein was the primary defender. He was also one of 10 players to average more than a steal and a block per game.
The next players: Anthony Edwards, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, and Giannis Antetokounmpo are all bonafide stars who exert as much effort on the defensive end as they do on offense. Edwards ranked 11th in the association in defensive rating. Of the Georgia product's top-5 most defended players—he held his matchups to 50.0 percent or worse shooting from the floor.
Gilgeous-Alexander tied for the lead in the NBA in steals, averaging 2.0 per game. The MVP finalist forced the third most deflections while contesting the fifth most 3-pointers in the league. Antetokounmpo, a former Defensive Player of the Year, was his usual stifling self. The former MVP averaged more than a steal and block per game. He also forced opponents to shoot nearly 10 percent worse at the rim.
Before we move on to the official projections, we have yet another Oklahoma City player. While Chet Holmgren and Jalen Williams just missed the cut, Lu Dort takes their place. Dort's stats don't display the same efficiency differential as his counterparts, but it has much to do with his extraordinarily tough defensive assignments.
Dort spent more than 20 minutes this season defending Edwards, Jamal Murray, LeBron James, Steph Curry, and De'Aaron Fox. When combining all the aforementioned players' field goal percentages when defended by Dort—they combined to shoot just 47.4 percent.