Can Josh Richardson capitalize on his defense in his fourth season with the Miami Heat?
The NBA’s decision to switch to a televised awards ceremony in 2017 was simultaneously one of the league’s best and worst decisions.
In one sense, gathering the league’s best and brightest stars in late June serves as the perfect night cap for another season of groundbreaking moments. Seeing the NBA on TNT crew rip on each other or Bill Russell give a cheeky grin and flip off Charles Barkley, embodies the close-knit, wildly competitive nature of professional basketball.
However, the ceremony is also pegged by the same award show apathy and full scale awkwardness, that has led to a number of award-giving bodies to retool their yearly pageants.
Having Drake give a thinly veiled joke about slavery is the exact reason why award shows are more times bogus than enjoyable.
What’s worse, especially for the Miami Heat, is that the NBA Awards continue to illuminate the team’s scarcity on the national stage.
Since the award show started, the Heat have been nominated for just there awards – Erik Spoelstra for Coach of the Year and Hassan Whiteside for #BlockoftheYear in 2017, and Bam Adebayo for #BlockoftheYear in 2018 – and won none.
The Heat are a team in transition.
Regularly plagued by injury and lacking the solidified rotations of teams like the Toronto Raptors, Miami was a lock to be snubbed from most of the evenings’ spectacle.
But 2019 should be different.
For a team brimming with optimism, the 2018-19 NBA season should prove fruitful for Miami to grace the stage for the third annual NBA awards. At least a handful of players should be ripe for taking home some hardware.
And if they don’t, something went horribly wrong.
Defensive Player of the Year
From the jump: this is a lofty expectation.
Richardson is near-universally heralded as a defensive messiah, capable of notching arbitrary, cherry-picked records that are usually reserved for retired players.
Last season, he was one of three players to record at least 120 steals and 70 blocks. The other two? A pair of 6-foot-10 behemoths from the Philadelphia 76ers named Ben Simmons and Robert Covington.
But, transforming from an overlooked guard on a bottom-11 Eastern Conference team, to the consensus best defensive player in the league, would be a pleasant surprise and formidable challenge.
On paper, Richardson is built in the vein of successful defensive players of the year.
His sinewy frame caters to intercepting passing lanes and switching on an as needed basis. Kawhi Leonard, winner of the 2015 and 2016 awards, is his closest analog among DPOY successes.
Also working in Richardson’s favor is Miami’s already stellar defense.
Currently a top-10 team in defensive rating, the Heat are constructed such that no cover is too difficult. At his best, Whiteside fortifies the paint, allowing players like Richardson to reap the benefits of risk-taking on the perimeter.
The Heat’s supporting cast further accentuates Richardson’s talents by providing useful opportunities for conversion. Defense is only successful when it converts into offense. No number of defensive stops can win a game if buckets aren’t logged in the process.
In a stroke of synergy, Miami also rates in the top-10 in percentage of points off turnovers. A shade over 16 percent of the Heat’s buckets come from their opponents’ offensive mishaps – plays in which Richardson usually has a hand.
Really, the biggest blockade to Richardson’s success is the dense field of competition. Historically, Defensive Player of the Year favors those with more vertically empowered than Richardson.
Of the 36 past winners, only five – Sidney Moncrief (twice), Alvin Robertson, Michael Jordan and Gary Payton – have been pure guards. Forwards and centers, usually relying on monstrous block and rebound averages, overpower perimeter players in the selection process.
While Richardson played at forward much of last season, most would argue his true position and greatest impact is at the two-guard. He flings himself into the ball’s trajectory like he is affixed to a slingshot, bounding around the court more frantically than most centers are capable.
Quite possibly, the resulting effort (while incredibly useful on defense) makes less of a statement, than reels of momentum reversing rejections and calamitous, mid-air bouts at the rim.
Following the trend, in the last four seasons, Whiteside is the only Heat player to receive recognition for his defensive talents. He earned votes each season between the 2014-15 and 2016-17 seasons.
Not all hope is lost though.
Ironically, each season, Whiteside fell short came at the wingspan of a shorter vote getter, namely Leonard and Draymond Green.
Though 2017-18 saw the reversion to a resident giant, with Rudy Gobert taking home the grand prize, Richardson could surely be next on the list of upsets.
As a consolation prize, Richardson could always make the jump to one of the two All-Defensive teams. With 10 total spots and his ability to be recognized as either a guard or forward, similar to Jimmy Butler, Richardson’s work could be more readily acknowledged.
"“I think unquestionably, he’s an All-NBA defender,” Spoelstra said last April. “I think it’s a shame. I don’t think his name out there. I don’t think people recognize the kind of defender he is except for the teams that he plays against. I think they see it.”"
But with or without any award reception, Richardson’s continued defensive effort is imperative to Miami’s success.