Scottie Barnes snubbed for Defensive Player of the Year finalist

The NBA announced finalists for seven individual awards on Sunday night, with winners starting to be revealed on April 20th. Defensive Player of the Year will be announced first, and honestly, it is pretty disappointing that Scottie Barnes is not getting more recognition.

The finalists for DPOY include, San Antonio Spurs’ Victor Wembanyama, Detroit Pistons’ Ausar Thompson, and Oklahoma City Thunder’s Chet Holmgren.

Out of all the names listed above, Barnes makes the case of being the most versatile defender out of that group. He can legitimately guard all five positions while playing any position on the floor, and he actually does it on a regular basis. 

This season he finished as the only player in the league to have at least 100 steals and 100 blocks. He pulled this off in a season where he spent a big chunk of the year without a proper starting lineup around him. Barnes throughout the whole season strived through adversity and still anchored a strong defense.

Outside Wemby, Barnes has a legitimate case to be named ahead of Holmgren and Thompson. This is not a knock on those guys. Do not get it wrong, Holmgren is great, no doubt, but he’s surrounded by elite defenders and even has another starting-caliber center backing him up. That makes his job easier, and it’s hard to argue he carries the same defensive load or importance as Barnes.

Thompson with the Pistons brings elite perimeter defense, but he’s not the same kind of rim protector and can’t guard as many positions. He, like Chet also has more help on that end of the floor, especially with guys like Isaiah Stewart (who some people even mentioned in DPOY conversations before he dealt with injuries).

Availability matters too. Barnes played 80 games, that number is 11 more than Holmgren and nine more than Thompson.

And of course there’s team context to consider. The Pistons and Thunder entering this season were already expected to be good squads. The Raptors weren’t. They went from missing the playoffs to being a top-five seed, and Barnes’ defense was a huge part of that. He is truly the face of the Raps defensive identity.

As for Wembanyama, he’s the obvious favorite, and deservedly so. There’s really no strong argument against him. He led the league in blocks by a wide margin (197 blocks in just 65 games) and impacted the game defensively in ways almost no one else can. It’s not just his size, his mobility and ability to defend on the perimeter are elite too.

At the end of the day, Barnes probably wasn’t beating Wemby anyway. But it still stings that he didn’t get enough respect to crack the finalist list. Even so, he’s easily one of the top five defenders in the league right now, and he should absolutely be on the All-Defensive First Team. If he doesn’t at least make that list then we have a whole other conversation to get through.

Join our friends from Hello and Welcome and Inside the Green Room as they host a Live Show and Raps Watch Party for Game 3 on April 23rd at Chefs Hall.  

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Come spend the evening with Will Lou, Alex Wong, Danny Green, Harrison Sanford and special guests!

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The post Scottie Barnes snubbed for Defensive Player of the Year finalist first appeared on Raptors Republic.