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\n\t\t\t\tOctober 9, 2021\u00a0
\n\n\t\tWho wins Defensive Player of the Year in the WNBA?\n\t
\n\tLooking at the award's history, one position tends to be favored, winning 17 of the 25 awards to date
\n![\"Minnesota](\"https://i0.wp.com/www.thenexthoops.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/20210819__DS10533_chrisposs-Edit-scaled.jpg?fit=1024%2C791&ssl=1\" "\\"Minnesota")
\n\t\t\t\t\tDuring the 2021 WNBA season, guards Natasha Cloud of the Washington Mystics and Brittney Sykes of the Los Angeles Sparks both planted a stake in the ground: They wanted to win Defensive Player of the Year.
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\r\n\r\n\u201cYou don’t see any other point guards in this league facilitating their teams, guarding the other team’s best offensive player \u2026 being able to switch, being able to facilitate and being able to score,\u201d Cloud told reporters on Sept. 19.
\n\n\n\nAlthough Cloud and Sykes are widely considered two of the league\u2019s top defenders at their position, they faced an uphill battle in winning the award. The award ended up going to Minnesota Lynx center Sylvia Fowles, extending a streak in which no player who is listed exclusively as a guard has won the award since 2001.
\n\n\n\nWhy do frontcourt players dominate the award\u2014and what attributes, beyond position, do Defensive Players tend to have? I answered some of these questions about the Most Improved Player award last year, and I\u2019m back to do it again with the game\u2019s premier defensive award.
\n\n\n\n(Unless otherwise noted, all statistics, including players\u2019 listed positions, are from Basketball-Reference.com and represent the regular season only. You can view a full list of WNBA Defensive Player of the Year award winners here.)
\n\n\n\nWho wins Defensive Player of the Year?
\n\n\n\nDefensive Players of the Year tend to be tall, experienced starters who play heavy minutes. The winners have an average height of 6\u20192 and have had an average of 6.7 years of WNBA experience at the time they won. That amount of experience may be slightly misleading, though, because in the early years of the league, no one had much WNBA experience. In the past ten years, the award has gone to players with an average of 8.9 years of WNBA experience, even as the winners\u2019 average age has remained steady, around 30 years old.
\n\n\n\nIn addition, all but one winner started every game in which she appeared during her winning season, and the outlier\u2014Sheryl Swoopes in 2003\u2014started 30 of 31 games. They rarely came out of the game, either, averaging 32.0 minutes per game; no winner has ever averaged fewer than 25 minutes per game.
\n\n\n\nAs previously mentioned, the award tends to go to frontcourt players: In 25 seasons of the award, players who were listed as forwards and/or centers won the award 17 times, guard-forward hybrids won five times and guards won three times. New York Liberty guard Teresa Weatherspoon won the first two awards in 1997 and 1998, but then-rookie center-forward Yolanda Griffith won in 1999, beginning an extended run of frontcourt dominance. (Miami guard Debbie Black in 2001 is the only other pure guard to win the award.)
\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"https://i0.wp.com/www.thenexthoops.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/Screen-Shot-2021-10-09-at-6.09.11-PM.png?resize=643%2C265&ssl=1\")
This positional breakdown is not meant to suggest that the frontcourt players have been undeserving; in fact, they have been some of the best players in league history, widely represented on the WNBA\u2019s list of its 25 best players all-time. There are limited statistics available to quantify defensive contributions, but the Defensive Players of the Year winners averaged 5.5 defensive rebounds, 2.0 steals and 1.4 blocks per game. They have also consistently topped the charts in defensive rating, which aims to measure the points they give up individually per 100 possessions. Over the years, WNBA offenses have gotten more efficient, so it\u2019s not fair to more recent winners to compare the absolute numbers, but per Her Hoop Stats, all but two winners have ranked in at least the 93rd percentile in defensive rating in their winning season, and nine have ranked in the 100th percentile.
\n\n\n\nIn seven seasons, voters have had an easy choice, as the best defensive team in the WNBA also had a player who ranked in the 100th percentile in individual defensive rating. Indiana Fever forward Tamika Catchings has been that player three times, and Fowles did it most recently in 2016. But even when the choice hasn\u2019t been so clear-cut, the award has gone to a player on one of the top three defensive teams, as measured by WNBA.com\u2019s team defensive ratings, 80 percent of the time. The outlier is Seattle\u2019s Lauren Jackson in 2007, as the Storm ranked 11th in a 13-team league in defensive rating.
\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"https://i0.wp.com/www.thenexthoops.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/Screen-Shot-2021-10-09-at-6.30.08-PM.png?resize=675%2C295&ssl=1\")
Jackson is also an outlier in another respect, as she has the highest scoring average (23.8 points per game) in her winning season of any Defensive Player of the Year. The winners have averaged 14.9 points per game as a group, but their offensive contributions have ranged from a few points per game to Most Valuable Player-level offense.
\n\n\n\nLooking at win shares also helps illustrate the range of offensive abilities among the award winners, at least in their winning seasons. The winners have earned about 47 percent of their total win shares on the defensive end, on average\u2014but individually, they have earned anywhere from 16.8 percent (Jackson) to 93.3 percent (Alana Beard in 2018) of their total win shares on that end. The most balanced winner? Catchings in 2009, when she got 50.8 percent of her win shares on defense.
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Finally, while not every Defensive Player of the Year has been a bona fide star, it\u2019s rare that a player wins that award without winning other awards in the same season. Twenty-one winners have been All-WNBA selections in their winning seasons\u2014a number that will increase if Fowles makes one of the All-WNBA teams this season. Fourteen winners have been All-Stars in their winning seasons, and the number would likely be higher if the All-Star Game had been held every season. And five have won MVP and Defensive Player of the Year in the same season: Griffith (1999), Swoopes (2000, 2002), Lisa Leslie (2004) and Jackson (2007). In contrast, just three Defensive Players of the Year have not won any of those honors, most recently Beard in 2018.
\n\n\n\nWhy do guards (almost) never win?
\n\n\n\nSeveral WNBA coaches posited that the limited defensive statistics that are available contribute to why guards rarely win Defensive Player of the Year. \u201cPost players tend to get favored in stats that affect the defense,\u201d Minnesota Lynx head coach and general manager Cheryl Reeve said. \u201cAnd so right away [voters] go, \u2018Okay, I’m voting for it. What do I look at? Well, they defensive rebound, they block shots, looks like they get some steals.\u2019\u201d
\n\n\n\n\u201cGuards get assists; that’s not defense,\u201d added Las Vegas Aces coach Bill Laimbeer. \u201cIt’s hard to measure a guard’s defensive capabilities unless they’re steals, which is not a very high-profile category, and there’s not many of them. The leader in the league in steals, they’ll [have] two point something.\u201d
\n\n\n\nChicago Sky head coach and general manager James Wade added that frontcourt players sometimes have an advantage when it comes to the eye test, too. \u201cThey’re a safety net for the entire defense, so whether they’re cleaning up straight line drives or whether they’re securing the rebounds, they impact the game in a lot more visual ways than guards do,\u201d he said. \u201c\u2026 We’re not talking about guards’ help on the perimeter as much as we talk about on the inside, especially when it comes to protecting the paint \u2026 You’ll notice a big guarding a guard more than you’ll notice a guard guarding a big on the inside and actually getting the stop.\u201d
\n\n\n\nBut, according to Sykes, the available statistics don\u2019t capture the essence of defense\u2014and the eye test can fall short, too. \u201cRebounding and a couple of steals, that\u2019s not defense,\u201d she told Winsidr\u2019s John W. Davis in July. \u201c[Defense is] having your presence felt. Every night I step on that court, that coach on the other side, they are trying to figure out how the heck can I get my player open, how the heck are we going to figure out these offensive sets with Brittney on the court. That\u2019s my goal every game.\u201d
\n\n\n\nThat begs the question: Is Sykes right? How should we actually evaluate individual defense?
\n\n\n\nWhat makes a good defender?
\n\n\n\nFor Laimbeer, good defense boils down to team defense. \u201cI’ve had outstanding team defenses [in] my career, always number one or two in percentages, and never really get any defensive people on the [All-Defensive] team,\u201d he said wryly. The percentages that matter most to him are opponent field goal shooting percentage and defensive rebound percentage.
\n\n\n\nPhoenix Mercury head coach Sandy Brondello also emphasized team defensive principles as part of individual defense. Are players versatile enough to switch onto bigger or smaller players and smart enough to adjust to those matchups in real time? She pointed to her own Defensive Player of the Year candidate, forward Brianna Turner, as someone who has those abilities.
\n\n\n\nReeve sounded similar notes about Fowles, who has evolved over her career from a back-to-the-basket player to a much more versatile player on both ends of the court. Now, Reeve said, Fowles is \u201cnot only worried about her own matchup, but the entire scheme of [the opponent] because she’s going to be involved in most of the action, either a fight [in] the post, which is more rare, defending pick-and-roll, highly frequent, and then also coming from the help side \u2026 So the frequency with which she’s involved in possessions, and she’s affecting and impacting possessions, is really, really high.\u201d
\n\n\n\nCiting a story by The Next\u2019s Natalie Heavren about the best two-guard in the WNBA\u2014widely considered to be Briann January of the Connecticut Sun\u2014Reeve added that the ability to disrupt an opponent\u2019s schemes is a hallmark of an elite defender. \u201cThat [story] talked about [how] you can’t get a lot of things done against Briann January. Well, Sylvia Fowles is very similar in that, if you have a post player that you want to enter the ball on the block to, it’s just going to be really hard for you to get that done. You can’t count on that offense when you play against the Minnesota Lynx and Sylvia Fowles.\u201d
\n\n\n\nMystics head coach and general manager Mike Thibault and Sun head coach Curt Miller further dissected the attributes that set great defenders apart from their peers. Thibault listed athleticism\u2014\u201cstrength or quickness or both\u201d\u2014as a prerequisite given the high levels of talent and athleticism in the league, but he also emphasized the mental side of the game. \u201cPart of it is being willing to lock in every day to learning the players in the league, learning tendencies and how to take away certain things,\u201d he explained. \u201c\u2026 You have to be so in tune to the players you’re defending. And then \u2026 you\u2019ve got to have mental toughness, be willing to every night say, \u2018Okay, I got another tough one. That’s part of my job.\u2019\u201d
\n\n\n\nMiller added that \u201ctheir tenacity, their want-to [and] their will\u201d separate the players who have won Defensive Player of the Year from others. \u201cThey play their guts out \u2026 They also are proactive thinkers and not reactive. They understand the game and see the game before it happens; the game slows down to great defenders.\u201d That often comes with individual film study, he said, above and beyond the film that the team watches together.
\n\n\n\nAnd then there is what Sykes mentioned, looking to players and other people around the league to evaluate defenders. As Miller put it, \u201cThe best credit that Bri January can get is from her peers: People do not like to be guarded by Bri January. \u2026 There’s no one that’s more physical from the guard position and stays in plays and makes life tough for off-guards.\u201d The league\u2019s general managers largely agreed in a 2021 preseason survey, choosing January as the league\u2019s best on-ball defender.
\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"https://i0.wp.com/www.thenexthoops.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/DAA_1817.jpg?resize=1024%2C684&ssl=1\")
Who\u2019s got next?
\n\n\n\nCould January break the streak of frontcourt players winning Defensive Player of the Year? It\u2019s very possible\u2014though her teammate and fellow guard Jasmine Thomas, voted the second-best on-ball defender in that preseason survey of general managers, could steal some of her votes.
\n\n\n\nPerhaps it will be Turner, a young forward who seemingly only needs more experience to fit the prototype perfectly. Or an MVP candidate such as Seattle Storm forward Breanna Stewart, who could follow in Jackson\u2019s green and gold footsteps. Or even Aces center Liz Cambage, another MVP candidate and a player who tied with Turner in the survey of general managers for the best interior defender.
\n\n\n\nAlternatively, as the WNBA becomes increasingly positionless, perhaps the next Defensive Player of the Year will be someone who further challenges those categories. Maybe Alysha Clark, a 5\u201911 forward who improved the Mystics\u2019 defense without even playing this season, or Rebecca Allen, a 6\u20192 forward who plays like a guard and whose defense decided multiple games this season?
\n\n\n\nOr perhaps the award will go to Cloud or Sykes, who so boldly manifested it in 2021\u2014and showed the world that it\u2019s cool to aspire to be Defensive Player of the Year.
\n\n\t\tWritten by Jenn Hatfield\n\t
\n\tJenn Hatfield has been a contributor to The Next since December 2018 and is currently the site's managing editor, Washington Mystics beat reporter and Ivy League beat reporter. Her work has also appeared at FiveThirtyEight, Her Hoop Stats, FanSided, Power Plays and Princeton Alumni Weekly.
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