During his remarkable 17-year career, Phoenix Suns forward Kevin Durant has yet to garner an all-defensive distinction. Frank Vogel, Durant’s coach, believes his superstar is deserving of it.
“I think he should absolutely get first- or second-team [all-defense],” he was quoted as saying. “That is my opinion.”
Durant’s average with the Suns is 2.1 stocks (1.2 blocks and 0.9 steals a game). He is ranked 55th in all-time defensive win shares, which measure defense that leads to wins.
Durant believes he should be acknowledged as possibly the best player of all time, but he does not have an all-defensive award, which some believe is relevant to recognition by fans, media, and players, among others in basketball.
An all-defensive honor would strengthen Durant’s GOAT argument.
“Why shouldn’t I be in that?” Durant informed AZCentral. “That’s the question you should ask.”
Durant has won two championships, one regular-season MVP award, and twice been named NBA Finals MVP. He averaged amazing highlights against the Cleveland Cavaliers and LeBron James, who some regard to be the best player of all time.
Despite being ranked No. 10 all-time in box plus/minus, which estimates a player’s contribution in points above league average per 100 possessions played, and VORP, the box-score estimate of points per 100 team possessions, Durant is not an all-defensive honoree like James or Michael Jordan, who were named NBA Defensive Players of the Year.
Durant is one of only three players (Nikola Jokic and Magic Johnson) who has not received at least one all-defensive accolade among Basketball Reference’s top ten greatest basketball players of all time in terms of box plus/minus.
The honor has escaped the 17-year-great.
Durant’s closest vote to an all-defensive team came in 2017-18 with the Golden State Warriors, when he received 31 combined votes. Durant is expected to be a first- or second-team all-defense pick this season since he is the Suns’ premier defender and can guard many spots.
“He’s guarded the best in the league, not just crunch time, for 48 minutes,” Vogel told reporters, “and has done a great job, night-in and night-out, and made some great lowman plays throughout the course of the season.”
Durant, who is used to playing the three, has played the four, thus his defensive rating (114.4) is not visually appealing.
“We play small lineups where he’s guarding the biggest ‘three,’ ‘four,’ each night,” Vogel went on to say. “He’s played small-ball center and guarded centers in natural situations. “He’s really done everything for us.”
According to Vogel, Durant stands out among main defenders.
Durant has the eighth-best DIFF ranking (-3.8%) among 65-game players this season while covering several ball-handlers and bigs.
Durant stands out by numbers.
The most essential numerical calculation is defensive win shares, which are estimates of how many victories a player contributes when on defense. Jusuf Nurkic, Phoenix’s starting center, is ranked 15th, while Durant is ranked 27th on a Suns team that lacks a point-of-attack defense. He is asked to complete several tasks for Phoenix.
Durant, 35, has a defensive box plus-minus of 0.1, according Basketball Reference.
Durant is also expected to perform many defensive jobs, such as guarding threes, fours, and fives, which is not the case for other nominees for the award, such as Rudy Gobert, Anthony Davis, and Jaden McDaniels.
Furthermore, the Suns are not a defensively inclined squad. However, since the NBA All-Star break, the Suns have posted the fifth-best defensive numbers.
Durant and Nurkic are arguably the causes for this.