LA Clippers: Paul George should have made an All-Defensive Team
By Evan Desai
LA Clippers shooting guard Paul George was totally snubbed from being selected for one of the NBA All-Defensive Teams.
George, a four-time All-Defensive Team selection didn’t make the first or second team, and only received one first-team vote and nine second-team votes.
That’s fifth for guards who missed out on the placement. They even voted a bench player into the second team over PG.
Paul George should have been a Second-Team All-Defensive selection this year.
Matisse Thybulle is the bench player who made it over Paul George.
Thybulle played over 500 less minutes than George this year, yet he makes it over him.
Is Thybulle a great defensive player? Absolutely, as he has a 103.1 defensive rating along with averaging 1.6 steals per game and 1.1 blocks per game. But how could he be a better defensive player than George when George is also elite defensively, and starts every night?
George still has a very good 110.3 defensive rating, which is obviously worse than Thybulle’s. However, considering George took on big-time defensive assignments every night for 33.7 minutes per night and Thybulle only even played for 20 minutes every night, I’m not putting a ton of stock in Thybulle’s numbers being better.
It’s a lot easier to play aggressive and high-level defense when one can have fresh legs regularly whenever they come into the game. Part of basketball is being able to succeed despite these players’ conditioning, and mental and physical toughness constantly being tested.
Thybulle is an outstanding defensive player, but he wasn’t tested the way PG was throughout this year.
Besides, George still averaged over a steal per game, and the Clippers are a great defensive team. There are a lot of steals to go around, and competing for stats while Kawhi Leonard and Marcus Morris were in the starting lineup with George naturally makes his stat sheet not look as good.
Stats simply don’t tell the whole story. It’s frustrating because Kawhi got snubbed from the first team because of stats as well.
Next. 1 reason Kawhi should have been First-Team All-Defense. dark
Paul George missed time this year due to injury, but still played and started in 54 games. He played elite defense in those 54 games, and deserved the nod over someone who Doc Rivers was able to pick and choose what times to bring him into the game to play top-level defense.