![The Grizzlies once drafted center Hasheem Thabeet [left] for defense. They already had a future Defensive Player of the Year on their roster.](https://altnuxt-wp-assets.s3.amazonaws.com/sites/4/the-grizzlies-once-drafted-center-hasheem-thabeet-left-for-defense-they/u/original/3398423/1366819445-dsc_5914.jpeg "The Grizzlies once drafted center Hasheem Thabeet [left] for defense. They already had a future Defensive Player of the Year on their roster.")
- LARRY KUZNIEWSKI
- The Grizzlies once drafted center Hasheem Thabeet [left] for defense. They already had a future Defensive Player of the Year on their roster.
I didn’t fully believe Marc Gasol was going to win this year’s Defensive Player of the Year Award until it happened. But the Grizzlies appear set to make this announcement official with a public press conference at 2:30 p.m. today.
Gasol fits the profile of the award only in that he’s a frontcourt player: Since Michael Jordan took it in 1988, 23 of 25 winners have been big men, the only exceptions being Gary Payton and Ron Artest.
But the big-man winners have tended to be overwhelming rebounders and shot-blockers. Dikembe Mutombo, Alonzo Mourning, Ben Wallace, and Dwight Howard are multi-time winners. “Athletic” shot-blockers — quick off the floor and quick to send shot attempts into the stands — are the norm.
Gasol, by contrast, will become the first big man in more than 20 years — ever? — to win the award without finishing among the league’s Top Ten in blocks or rebounds per game. (He’s 12th and 23rd, respectively, in those categories.)
How has Gasol, with such an atypical profile, broken through? It’s tempting to compare Gasol’s victory here to Felix Hernandez winning the 2010 American League Cy Young award with a 13-12 record: It’s a triumph of “advanced” stats over more conventional — and often more limited or even misleading — measures.
