It’s award season in the NBA, with the 2018 All-Rookie squad getting announced on Tuesday afternoon. One day later and the league announced its latest honors, as the 2018 NBA All-Defensive Team has been revealed.
There weren’t any major surprises among the five first-team selections: Rudy Gobert earned the most first-team votes with 94, followed by Anthony Davis, Victor Oladipo, Jrue Holiday, and Robert Covington. On the second team, we have Joel Embiid, Draymond Green, Al Horford, Dejounte Murray, and Jimmy Butler. Thirty-one other players earned votes and 17 of those picked up first-team votes, with Chris Paul coming the closest to getting a spot on the second team.
Here’s how the full All-Defensive team voting broke down.
First team all defense. pic.twitter.com/dV2i1zkmud
— Jeremy Woo (@JeremyWoo) May 23, 2018
The only major surprise, if that, would be that Green — who is considered the most versatile defender in basketball and the lynchpin of the Warriors’ defense — missed out on first-team honors. It does appear that he fell victim to the fact that the league has a number of stout frontcourt defenders more than anything, as Gobert, Davis, and Covington all got more first-team votes than him.
And as is always the case with the All-Defense team, the most entertaining portion of the voting comes at the bottom. Some players not exactly known for their defensive prowess, like Russell Westbrook and Eric Bledsoe, received more or as many votes as players like Steven Adams and LeBron James. Defensive awards are always kind of weird, but fortunately, voters did a pretty good job with the two teams.
