The Miami Heat get the shaft again! Not only isn’t their big man, Bam Adebayo, going to win the NBA Defensive Player Of The Year award, but he won’t even finish in the top three of the voting.
From a pure performance perspective, it makes no sense. The only sense that can be made of it is that he missed over 20 games with the thumb injury but other than that, there is none.
As far as the award itself, the DPOY, it’s an NBA award like any other. Meaning, that it’s been given out year after year and people complain about it year after year.
“So and so should have won”, “what’s his name never should have”, and “blah blah should have been“ in the conversation—whatever that means. NBA awards, as we know, are difficult.
There are no real criteria points for how the voting is supposed to go. In judgment sports, such as figure skating and gymnastics, the judges have a given set of rules to follow, then give judgment ratings based on how well they think the athlete met those rules.
For NBA awards, ballots are given to members of the media and the media can then vote for whomever they think deserves the award. That is pretty much it.
They’re called voters, not judges and that’s by design. Because in these scenarios, it’s really more like an election than a contest.
Basically, “Who do you like the best”? The Miami Heat will always have a hard time there unless it’s as undeniable as Tyler Herro‘s illustrious Sixth Man Of The Year case, which has some critics as well.
But yea, everyone knows how that goes. Even still though, this isn’t the point of this chat.
Let’s go a little deeper.