Sorry I haven't posted a lot lately. School has started up again, and with work as well, I don't have as much time as I did in the summer. Also its been pretty quiet on the NBA front other than the World Championships (Congrats to the USA!). But with training camps just around the corner its time for me to pick up the writing once more.
The NBA award process is a tricky business. Every year ballots are sent to members of the media to vote for each award and the final tally makes the award. This isn't an ideal system to me, as many members of the media have biases, and also tend to vote for players who are the better story, or more well-known. Nowhere is this more evident to me than in the All-Defensive Teams. These teams are often just re-makes of the All-NBA teams, with maybe a couple smaller names thrown in. A lot of players are voted into this team based on past reputation (For example, Jason Kidd named to the 2nd team in 2007). How else do you explain Shane Battier as only having won 2 All-Defensive awards, both 2nd team?
Let's use last year's All-Defensive Teams as an example, with their points total (2 points for a 1st team vote, 1 for a 2nd team vote):
1st Team:
Dwight Howard (57)
LeBron James (45)
Gerald Wallace (30)
Kobe Bryant (34)
Rajon Rondo (50)
2nd Team:
Tim Duncan (21)
Anderson Varejao (15)
Josh Smith (20)
Thabo Sefolosha (14)
Dwyane Wade (20)
Its not surprising to me at all that the two players who haven't been on All-Star teams also had the least votes. There also were a slew of votes for players that shouldn't have even been considered. Jason Kidd led the players who didn't get voted in with a point total of 14, despite being too slow to stay in front of anyone for the past few years. Manu Ginobili got a vote (1st team no less) despite San Antonio's defense being .9 pp100 worse with him on the court. Joe Johnson also got a 1st team vote, with Atlanta's defense being almost 4 pp100 worse with him on the court. This is even worse because Joe's teammate Al Horford, one of the best post defenders in the league, only got a single second place vote. There are a few more headscratchers as well.
This is unfortunate for the NBA in my opinion, because plenty of players who do play spectacular defense often go unnoticed for the bigger names. You'll notice that of the small names on the list of All-Defensive players this year, both were on teams with increased media exposure: Varejao with LeBron and Sefolosha with the media darling Thunder. But other players who deserved more votes like Horford, Arron Afflalo, Nick Collison, Andre Iguodala and many others miss out on that attention. There's no doubt that some of the big names do deserve the award. After all, many great players are great because they're good on both ends of the court. But I always hate to see when a player beats out a player more deserving simply because of the name on the jersey.
It is because of this award mainly, but also for other reasons, that I think the NBA needs to overhaul its award process. Don't let the media vote for the awards based on player performance. Let the Players be the ones to vote. Not only would this make the vote fairer in my opinion (players know who the toughest guys they play against are) but it would make the award more meaningful, since its voted on by their peers. The media can still be involved in some of the other awards like Executive and Coach of the Year, and perhaps even 6th man and Most Improved Player. But MVP, All-NBA, Rookie of the Year, All-Defensive, and Defensive Player of the Year should be voted on by the players.
What do you think?
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