2022-23 NBA Midseason Awards Media Poll: Defensive Player of the Year
With just over six weeks left in the 2022-23 NBA regular season, not only will the race for who will and who will not make the playoffs heat up, but so will the race for this season’s awards.
Will Nikola Jokic be dethroned as the back-to-back recipient of the Most Valuable Player award? Is the race for the Most Improved Player award a two-man race between Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and Lauri Markanen? With all the great teams this season, who will ultimately be named the league’s Coach of the Year?
Fastbreak on FanNation polled 25 different NBA media members, some who cover the league as a whole and some who cover an individual team, asking them these specific questions and gathering their results.
Below are the results from the voting that took place for the 2022-23 NBA Defensive Player of the Year award at the All-Star break:
Media Members Pick To Win 2022-23 NBA Defensive Player of the Year:
Jaren Jackson Jr. - Memphis Grizzlies (16 votes)
Through the years, the NBA’s Defensive Player of the Year award has always seemed to be one of the most unpredictable award races. Rudy Gobert won this award three of the last five seasons as a result of being an elite-level shot-blocker with the Utah Jazz, but Giannis Antetokounmpo won it during his 2019-20 MVP season and just last year, Marcus Smart took home the award after Rudy Gobert, Giannis Antetokounmpo and Mikal Bridges were the favorites for most of the season.
This year, there are still a handful of worthy candidates, but the impact Jaren Jackson Jr. has made on the defensive-end of the floor for the Memphis Grizzlies is quite remarkable. After missing his team’s first 14 games of the season due to offseason foot surgery, Jackson began his 2022-23 campaign with a 5-block performance and he has not looked back since then.
In fact, the only players who are looking back are those who try to drive at Jackson, as most of them wind up resetting things and dribbling the ball back to the perimeter because of what he has proven to do in the paint this season as a rim-protector!
Jackson’s 3.3 blocks per game would lead the league this season if he had played in more than 40 games thus far and he is also averaging 1.1 steals per game, which would rank tied for 30th in the league.
The Grizzlies big man ranks first in the league in defensive rating (103.1), first in the league in block percentage (10.8), third in defensive box plus/minus (2.9) and 14th in defensive win shares (2.5).
Perhaps the most impressive part of Jackson’s season so far is the fact that he is averaging about 4.4 “stocks” per game, which are steals and blocks combined per game. Recording at least 4 blocks in 19 of the 40 games he has played in this season and recording at least 2 steals in 13 of these 40 games, Jaren Jackson Jr. has been the most impactful defensive player in the NBA this year, which is why he is the overwhelming favorite for the Defensive Player of the Year award right now.
Of course, anyone can make a late-season push for this award like Marcus Smart did a season ago, but as long as he remains healthy, it is hard to imagine the first-time All-Star not winning this award.
As for others who are still in the mix, Milwaukee Bucks big man Brook Lopez, Miami Heat big man Bam Adebayo and Brooklyn Nets big man Nic Claxton are all some of the league’s best interior defenders as well.
Lopez quickly emerged as the favorite for the Defensive Player of the Year award over the first month or so of the regular season, hence why he received six total votes in the poll above. Lopez’s 139 total blocks this season is tied for the most in the league with Claxton’s 139 total blocks.
As for Adebayo, he is very much like Jackson in the sense that they can both guard multiple positions and impact the game defensively in more ways than just being a shot-blocker.
In addition to the four players receiving votes in this media poll, Cleveland Cavaliers second-year big man Evan Mobley could also receive consideration for the award and All-Defensive Team honors since he ranks sixth in the league in blocked shots, fifth in defensive rating and first in defensive win shares.
