Golden State Warriors Defense: Six Receive Votes For NBA’s All-Defensive Teams As Andre Iguodala Named To First-Team (Photo: Fernando Medina/Getty Images)
Golden State Warriors forward Andre Iguodala was named to the 2013-14 NBA All-Defensive First Team today, garnering the fifth-most votes from various beatwriters across the country, and finishing behind Joakim Noah, Paul George, Chris Paul, and Serge Ibaka.
The transparency of the voting brings forth a few interesting observations:
Draymond Green got a vote, giving the Warriors six players who received votes
The Warriors finished 4th in defensive team efficiency for 2013-14 and it showed in the voting for the two All-Defensive Teams. At one point in the season, the Warriors were ranked as high as third.
ESPN’s Mike Tirico gave Green his lone 2nd-team vote.
A regular season bench player receiving votes is not an uncommon occurrence. Reggie Jackson and Danny Granger also received votes, for example.
David Lee *gulp* got a vote!
While Green’s vote is not surprising, the one for Lee certainly is, as a player routinely badgered for his defense (or lack thereof) — although he did have one stupendous game guarding LaMarcus Aldridge.
Al McCoy of KTAR radio in Phoenix submitted Lee’s lone 2nd-Team vote.
Iguodala becomes only the second Warrior to be named to First-Team
While several Warriors have been named to the All-Defensive Second Team, the only other Warrior to have been named to the First Team is Nate Thurmond (1968-69 and 1970-71), whom we ranked earlier this season as the all-time greatest defensive player in Warriors history.
Advanced statistics may have played a role in Iguodala’s vote
Ethan Strauss wrote an article in early April about “Real Adjusted Plus-Minus”, a statistic which, in a dearth of available defensive statistics, brought to light the impact that an Iguodala or Andrew Bogut brings to other end of the court.
It’s ironic that Strauss’s post reported on Iguodala and Bogut’s disdain for advanced stats, yet here we are crowning the former as a First-Teamer, while the latter received a respectable four Second-Team votes despite missing 15 regular season games and the entire seven-game playoff round that the Warriors participated in.
Local Bay Area beatwriters didn’t necessarily vote for Warriors
The six Warriors receiving votes can’t exactly be categorized under the “homer” category like how Jim Barnett gave Bogut a first-place vote for Defensive Player of the Year and Iguodala his second-place vote.
Rusty Simmons of the San Francisco Chronicle voted for Iguodala and Bogut on the 2nd Team. Ric Bucher of 95.7 The Game (his vote was via Bleacher Report) gave 2nd-Team votes to Bogut and Klay Thompson and actually didn’t give any 1st- or 2nd-Team votes to Iguodala.
Those two were the only notable writers spending most of their time during the NBA season in the Bay Area.
Stephen Curry received a First-Team vote
Brian Davis of Fox Sports Oklahoma gave Curry a First-Team vote. Dwain Price of the Ft. Worth Star-Telegram gave Curry a Second-Team vote. Price also gave Monta Ellis a “homer” Second-Team vote.
Steve Kerr gave Iguodala a First-Team vote
‘Nuff said.
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