In the wake of Tony Allen‘s jersey retirement ceremony in Memphis, John Hollinger of The Athletic revisits Allen’s six All-Defensive seasons for the Grizzlies and notes that the veteran guard wouldn’t have made All-Defense in five of those six years if the NBA’s current 65-game rule had been in place.
The 65-game rule doesn’t simply require players to appear in at least 65 games to earn end-of-season award consideration — it requires them to reach the 20-minute threshold in at least 63 games and to play 15 or more minutes in two others.
Allen came up short of 65 total games in three of his six All-Defensive seasons and had fewer than 63 games of 20-plus minutes in two additional seasons, despite making more than 65 appearances in each of those two years. His résumé isn’t unique among All-Defensive honorees. As Hollinger points out, the entire All-Defense second team in 2021/22 would have fallen short of the 65-game requirement.
With defensive standouts like Victor Wembanyama and Anthony Davis on track to play fewer than 65 games this season, there could be some spots on this year’s All-Defensive teams up for grabs for less obvious candidates. But a few of the league’s most impactful defensive role players are already ineligible for award consideration.
Hollinger singles out Clippers guard Kris Dunn as a prime example. Dunn leads the NBA in defensive box plus-minus and ranks second in the league in steal percentage, behind Dyson Daniels. He also ranks third among qualified players in deflections per 36 minutes and has been a driving force behind a Clippers defense that has the third-best defensive rating in the NBA.
Dunn has also played in 60 games this season, putting him on pace to exceed the 65-game minimum, but he has played 20-plus minutes in just 44 of those contests. With only 14 games left in the Clippers’ season, Dunn will fall short of the games-played requirement for award consideration, despite a strong case for All-Defense.
Kings guard Keon Ellis is in the same boat, Hollinger observes. Another player with high marks in categories like defensive box plus-minus, steal percentage, and deflections per 36 minutes, Ellis has appeared in 64 games but reached the 20-minute mark in only 41 of them, so he won’t reach the required minimum either.
Cason Wallace, one of the Thunder‘s best defenders, will need to play 20-plus minutes in 10 of the team’s final 14 games to qualify for award consideration. Rockets wing Amen Thompson, currently sidelined due to an ankle sprain, is still seven 20-minute games shy of the required minimum.
Pistons big man Jalen Duren recently argued that his frontcourt mate Isaiah Stewart deserves a spot on an All-Defensive team, and Fred Katz of The Athletic agreed. However, Stewart has long been ineligible for consideration — he has logged at least 20 minutes in just 24 of his 62 outings this season.
The 65-game rule currently only applies to certain awards. A player doesn’t have to meet the criteria in order to qualify for Rookie of the Year, an All-Rookie team, or Sixth Man of the Year.
In Hollinger’s view, All-Defense should get the same treatment, with the 65-game rule either relaxed or eliminated, since players who receive All-Defensive consideration often play much different roles than players who get votes for awards like MVP and All-NBA.
What do you think? Should the requirements of the 65-game rule apply for All-Defensive candidates? Head to the comment section below to weigh in with your two cents.
How about this: create a two-tiered system, one for players who average starter minutes (say, 28-30mpg+) over the course of a season and one for everyone else. The former group should be held to the current standard (although I would lower the required games played total from 65 to 60) while the latter group should be held to the same games played standard but without a minimum minutes requirement.
No reason this should be a difficult issue to solve.
It is kinda already in place. They already have a 1st and 2nd defensive teams.
Kinda hard to get worked up about something like that either way TBH
And yet, you took the time to read the story (I assume) and comment.
Does that mean he’s worked up about it?
All these rules on awards are so stupid. Do we think guys like Kris Dunn and Keon Ellis not meeting awards thresholds really what these player participation initiatives seek to solve?
I would argue them not meeting the thresholds is EXACTLY what it was out to solve. Plenty of more deserving players once you sit down and list them all out.
Yes for all NBA. No for all defense. Read the article
Shea, those are excellent suggestions. I see the benefits of a two-tiered system.
But… I argue that anybody that doesn’t average >20 mpg in the games that they DO play shouldn’t be considered for an All-Defense or All-NBA award. These awards are not given for “specialists” that get played situationally, but for players that deliver value for at least 1/2 of every game.
Players that give lots of bad fouls are too often given credit as great defenders. Draymond gets a lot of fouls, but he uses them intelligently, so his minutes are rarely limited for this reason. Isiah Stewart is the opposite. Stewart gets way too many fouls, especially *bad* fouls, and that limits his minutes. (Only Pistons’ teammate Jalen Duren gets more bad fouls than Stewart). Stewart needs to be smart enough that he can play an entire game before he can be considered a great defender.
I agree, but how often have guys won who average less than 20mpg over a full season? Can’t imagine it would be many. But if I would be wrong about that then yeah, you’d definitely want to introduce that as a minimum floor in terms of average.
Your point about Stewart shows that the voters need leeway, not restrictions. Make the calls case by case
Imo there should be a minimum number of games played that can overrule a “not meeting the minutes played” minimum. I don’t know exactly what is the correct number for both but something like 65-70 games played and no minutes restriction or 50-55 games but a total minutes played minimum. The total minutes played minimum (instead of having to play x amount of minutes for x amount of games) will also help for guys who played heavy minutes but suffered a late season injury.
I was trying to get the Spurs to draft Dunn but they said they are competing for a championship and said naw. Spurs management is no longer top notch
Anyone else remember Monta Ellis? Thought this article was about him for all minute and I was like what? Lol
A comeback to the NBA somewhere to win more titles than Steph Curry to finally prove that GS should traded Curry instead.
I liked Ellis a lot though. Drafted out of highschool
Time goes quick kind of sad
Players who DO qualify for All-Defense Teams
PG: Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Jrue Holiday, Chris Paul
SG: Lu Dort, Dyson Daniels, Derrick White, Jaylen Wells, Christian Braun, Andrew Nembhard
SF: Jalen Williams, Jaden McDaniels, Amen Thompson, Jayson Tatum, Jaylen Brown, OG Anunoby, Derrick Jones Jr
PF: Evan Mobley, Jaren Jackson Jr, Draymond Green, Toumani Camara, Giannis Antetekounmpo, Pascal Siakam
C: Rudy Gobert, Jarrett Allen, Ivica Zubac, Bam Adebayo, Brook Lopez, Nic Claxton, Myles Turner
The system is working as intended by eliminating players like Dunn (Zubac should be getting the credit) and Keon Ellis (who is a backup guard on a team 20th in DRTG).
Players who PLAY should be taking priority over second unit role players.
Players like Dunn would only sniff the team if they still restricted by positions (he’s at best what, the #5-6 guard?). There is no plausible argument he should get any votes ahead of ten of the numerous frontcourt players who play substantial roles.
Good point that plenty of high level players are also high level defenders – certainly at least ten of them. There are plenty of specialists in that group, too, who are good enough on offense to stay on the court.
Not that I necessarily disagree with the premise, but there are a few players on your list who either won’t meet the minimum requirements (Nembhard) or are very close to falling short if they have to miss more than a game or two down the stretch (Jrue Holiday, Draymond Green, maybe Amen Thompson depending on when he returns, etc.). Obviously still more than enough good defenders to compile two quality teams, but there’s still time for the field to get smaller.
As long as I’m playing devil’s advocate, I’ll also mention that the fact Derrick Jones (24.8 MPG, 58 games of 18+ minutes) is on track to meet the requirements while Dunn (24.0 MPG, 56 games of 18+ minutes) won’t come close could be an argument in favor of “these cutoffs are sort of arbitrary” rather than “this system is prioritizing the right players.”
Ah Nembhard was one of the ones I didn’t vet, forgot he was hurt earlier in the year.
Jones is at the lowest possible end of consideration. That he is similar to Dunn is not a bad thing, more of a technicality – he is at the lowest possible end of consideration. Neither should realistically be getting votes. Ivica Zubac (66 games, 32.6 MPG) is the one who should get every bit of the Clippers credit when it comes to Defensive Awards.
Jrue Holiday playing 13 fewer games than Derrick White is reason enough for him to not make a team.
As I understand it, Draymond needs to play 10 of the next 14 games to qualify. He’s played 20 consecutive, probably with this in mind.
If the positional restrictions were still in place this would maybe be a bigger deal as you might run out of quality guards in a given year. In 2012 when Tony Allen made the 1st team, Tim Duncan didn’t make ANY team which is way worse IMO.
I believe it’s 12 of 14 for Draymond, since he has three sub-20-minute games.
Agreed re: the lack of positional restrictions. That’s a bigger factor that will reshape All-Defensive teams going forward than the game/minute requirements.
What I’m curious about is the NBA’s intent with the 65-game rule — it was framed when it was introduced as being another tool aimed at reducing instances of load management. If that’s the case, does the league view players like Dunn and Ellis falling out of contention for this kind of award as an added bonus of the rule or an unfortunate side effect? If it’s the latter, they’re more likely to consider tweaking it (though I expect they’ll want at least a couple more years to increase the sample size before they consider that).
I had factored the 3 games for Draymond – he’s played 54 total games and as I understand it he’s allowed to have two of those sub 20 games count (i.e. his target is 64).
The rule calls for at least 63 games of 20+ minutes, plus two of 15-20 minutes. Games below 15 minutes don’t count at all.
Draymond has 51 games of 20+ minutes and two of 15-20, so he still needs 12 more games of 20+ minutes to reach 63 of those.
We came to the same conclusion, I am just bad at Math haha.
Dunn has been a great story turning his career around. But sometimes these writers need to be protected from themselves. His STOCK rates are higher because he can afford to take more chances knowing he’s only playing half the game (hence why he also has a high foul rate).
It’s a much different assignment than say, OG Anunoby playing 37 MPG and having to stay out of foul trouble while covering the opposing team’s best wing.
Keep it coming, you’ve got one convert right here. If OG gets shafted for one of these bench punks I’ll be pissed
And to a lesser extent an energy expenditure consideration, too. It’s a lot easier to wreak havoc via deflections when playing half as many minutes over the course of a full season.
I don’t want awards to go to often injured players. It’s that simple. Awards are for people who play consistently.
To play devil’s advocate though, should a guy be discounted because he played 64 games at an All-NBA level and heavy minutes, but suffered an injury at some point of the season that knocked him out for the remaining 18 games? Total games played should hold a little bit of weight but legit injuries do happen that because of the games minimum just immediately takes a guy out of the race. Its a case-by-case scenario but thats why, imo, a total minutes played minumum would make more sense than the current system. Like if you have a guy who averaged 35mpg but only played 50 games (1,750 minutes), he still played more minutes than the guy who played all 82 games but only averaged 20mpg (1,640 minutes).
Yeah but the problem isn’t the 20/82 players qualifying over the 35/50 guys.
It’s that these voters would give Victor DPOY on half a season irrespective of how many more games Mobley/Jaren play.
(The 20/82 guys in your example also wouldn’t qualify because they’d have numerous games under 20 minutes. You’re mostly looking at players getting starters minutes with the current criteria).
All Defense is a seasonal award, and thus should be about seasonal impact over 82 games (regardless of how many the player plays). The league put in the PT thresholds because the voting media lost their understanding of that, or just lacked the discipline not to be led astray from it. Adjusting the thresholds downwards would only add to the wrongheaded notion that the “best defenders” (2k or metrics) have some entitlement to the award, regardless of their impact on the league that year.
I think the 65 rule game is good for these awards as they effect the paydays…
All of these crippled teams over the years because they’ve given a Zion massive contracts due to their rookie contract performances in breif stints…
Those who can’t do the most important thing in sports, be available, shouldn’t get the big paychecks or the accolades that triggers those clauses in the CBA…
I was curious about the 2022 All-Defense Team (since the entire 2nd team wouldn’t have qualified).
1st: Smart (DPOY), Bridges, Giannis, JJJ, Gobert
2nd: Jrue, Thybulle, Draymond, Bam, Robert Williams
Players who would have qualified:
PG: Chris Paul (PHX), DeJounte Murray (SAS), Davion Mitchell (SAC)
SG: Jaylen Brown (BOS), Kentavious Caldwell-Pope (WAS), Devin Vassell (SAS)
SF: Andrew Wiggins (GSW), Herb Jones (NOP), Jayson Tatum (BOS)
PF: Evan Mobley (CLE), Aaron Gordon (DEN), Dorian Finney-Smith (DAL), Al Horford (BOS), Pascal Siakam (TOR), PJ Tucker (MIA), Jae Crowder (PHX)
C: Joel Embiid (PHI)
I think Thybulle and Robert Williams were given a lot of credit due to how unique they were. There weren’t really players in the league who replicated their style.
Thybulle was controversial because much like Toumani Camara he actually wasn’t keeping players in front, he was contesting from behind (to mixed results – he was not a lockdown defender despite his high STOCK rate). Both were covered by ThinkingBasketball videos that broke this down. Embiid should have been All-Defense this season due to his rim protection and health (career high 68 games) and Thybulle ultimately made it moreso due to positional scarcity.
Williams was high impact and this was easily the healthiest season of his career. Ironically he probably torpedoed his career coming back from injury too quickly for the playoff run.
Three rookies appear here: Mobley, Herb, Davion. Mobley & Herb were regarded as the best defensive rookies ever. Mobley made it the following season, while Herb made it in year three. I think it’s very fair to suggest they should have made 2nd team as Rookies. Mobley’s defense in particular was a core reason why the Cavs improved by 23 wins. I would take Mobley > Williams and not lose any sleep.
Wiggins would earn his stripes in the playoffs en route to GS’s championship, I don’t think many would argue retroactively swapping him and Draymond.
I really do like that the requirements seem to phase out the “reputation” guys and force voters to actually look at who had the better season. We actually don’t have a shortage of players as there are players like Gordon & DFS who have never been recognized.