i love defense, anyways:

defensive player of the year:
ben wallace

1st all-defensive nba team:

jason kidd
kobe bryant
bruce bowen
ron artest
andre kirelinko
ben wallace

(there are 6 players on the 1st defensive all-nba team b/c bowen actually TIED with wallace for being on the 1st all nba team; bowen actually had more points selected(55 to 54), but 1 of those points was on the 2nd all-nba defensive team(3 to wallace's 2); take that as what you may)

2nd all-defensive nba team:

chauncey billups
tayshaun prince
kevin garnett
tim duncan
marcus camby

comments:

for the most part, i agree with these ranks. ak's a tremendous defensive player, i love the guy; most deserving of the 1st team. i'm surprised ron's still on the 1st team, but he's really good, perhaps he's just leagues above everybody else on the kings, and most of the games he just presents matchup problems for the others he's guarding. kobe's kobe, can't deny that. jason kidd does everything BUT score, so yeah.

on the 2nd team: i think for chauncey and tayshaun to get into the 1st team, they need to really start tightening up. i get the feeling that tayshaun doesn't seem as dominant as his 1st 2 years on the defensive end; maybe that's cause ppl are getting used to him, but he used to just make ppl miss shots in his 1st 2 years. he doesn't seem to do that anymore. maybe if detroit started concentrating upon their defense again. imo a lotta the players on the 2nd team should be 1st IF they weren't injury-prone; marcus camby and tim duncan come to mind. i'm still kinda torn about kg being on the defensive team. for some reason, he's not really striking me. maybe that's cause everybody around him sucks.

other ppl who i think should be considered, but maybe aren't because the ppl ahead of them are too good:

alonzo mourning - i dislike the heat except for 2 players; one of them is dwyane wade, the other is this guy. for a guy who comes off the bench and is getting old, his defense never ceases to amaze me. his defense is leagues above everybody else's on the heat, simply because his actually shows up night in and night out. (posey isn't bad btw, and wade's is improving though he's not quite there yet)

gerald wallace - stat-wise a lot like ak

rasheed wallace - sam actually believes rasheed is the best 1-on-1 post defender in the nba right now.

elton brand

shaun marion

there's probably more...

one last thing regarding bowen vs wallace:

i'm sure you probably know this, but bruce bowen is a TREMENDOUS defender; he guards ppl his size, but also ppl not his size or bulk. however, like i said, i wonder how much of that has to do with what he gets away with when he plays on the court. almost like what the refs are going by on him are ol skool nba defensive rules and everybody else has to abide by new skool nba rules. that being said, i'm still amazed; this guy can guard dirk. that's unreal. centers can't guard dirk, guys outta proportion can't guard dirk. tayshaun's my favorite perimeter defender in this day and age obviously, but he wasn't able to guard tim duncan when larry went small last year in the finals. for the number of guys that bruce guards that are out of proportion, it's unreal. that's imo what puts him above ron artest, kobe bryant, tayshaun prince, ak and all the other good perimeter defenders in the nba; good defense isn't about stuffing your stats, but just giving the opponent 1 really bad look without fouling and no chance to rebound. no other perimeter defender does that as well as bowen right now.

ben wallace is probably the best help defender in the nba, no questions asked. man, i wish i had old school clips of bill russell so i could watch this guy wreck and compare him side by side to ben. ben doesn't get assigned to other ppl a lot, but because he has the height of a small forward, but the bulk of a center, he can guard a lotta guys outta proportion to him(or should i more properly say, out of position). combine that with his huge hops and quick feet, and you know what's going to happen on the boards. he isn't necessarily the best 1-on-1 center defender, but you have to realize his height is a mismatch a lotta times. his bulk more than compensates though(fyi, guys w/small height but huge bulk give shaq problems, so you can understand how even ben can be good 1-on-1). basically all his shot swat antics are limited to ppl who are not 5's, b/c if he tried that against centers he would foul out way too fast. but b/c of his speed, you can't beat the pistons by forcing a pick and roll situation, nor get any really open looks when driving in. ben is the original real reason i started liking defense in the nba(yes, i know, i loved the mj bulls, but i never really tried to watch mj and scottie and rodman d it up; now i wished i had)

rasheed's an interesting case, i'll give you that.

probably very misunderstood.

i think the reason is you THINK he's this troublemaker. with that past history in portland of t's and weed. he's not, although i won't discredit the t's.

he's just very vocal. and even then, not a smartass towards the other team and its other players.

he still gets the t's occasionally just cause he's so emotional on the court and complains to the refs when something doesn't go his way, but you have to realize he's almost like the vocal leader of the pistons, and i believe without him, even if they got the same talents that he has in a trade(excellant 1-on-1 post defender, spot-up 3-pt shooter), his motivational fire of making them always think they're the underdogs is irreplacable; i'd say close to 10-15 of their wins every season is gotten because he's in the locker room, making them think the world is rooting for the other team. and he's a great teammate both in terms of how he plays and how he supports the other guys.

watching last night's cleveland game, although he was never mic'd up, i always heard his yelling picked up over the mics. it was so funny.

doc rivers said it best IMO when he was commentating during the 2k4 finals: "rasheed just wants to win so badly." that's why he's so vocal. you could say that about all the other guys who get technicals, but i can't remember the last time rasheed was in a pistons uniform that he actually got into a fight. granted, the number of fights in the nba has drastically cut down compared to the past, but even the number of minor altercations he's gotten is very few. he had that nasty cut with cleveland's "z," but that was just 1 incident. and he's one of those guys you always see joking on the court, not necessarily to his teammates.

so i have a problem with ppl who think he's bad for this game just because he picks up technicals. kobe bryant was either 2nd or 1st in technicals this year, do you think he's a bad person too(in general; let's leave the grizzlies incident outta this)? what about carmelo anthony? think he's a bad ass cause of those t's as well?

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btw, what was up w/kobe going soft in game 7? i thought he was way over this in the past in that game vs the kings where he did not take a single shot. it's OK, KOBE; if you're down 20 and time's running out, and kwame and lamar haven't gotten it going, it's OK to go off. seriously, sometimes i think kobe does things that are detrimental to his team in order to prove something about himself at times.

but it's alright; watching how everybody in la suddenly jumped from the lakers to the clippers in the 2nd round is priceless. PRICELESS; WHAT'S A HARDCORE CLIPPERS FAN? never heard of one(except for david)

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meh.

i seriously wonder how bowen gets away with stuff other defenders don't get away with. i'm not hating on him, but i'm just wondering. are refs really that gullible just because you're holding your hands up? cause what bowen likes to do is hold his hands up. and yet, he's still running into the guy he's defending.

i wonder how many things i learn from watching tim duncan do stuff offensively in the low post. cause it's a fairly long list. screening to switch to a smaller defender, then posting up, trying to go inside, and only using baseline if you fake inside, using a linear floater. using your arms to brush away the opponent's arms to get into position.

detroit...

looked...

disgusting...

it seriously looked like game 4 vs the spurs during the finals last season when they lit it up... lindsey hunter isn't supposed to connect all those 3s without any screens... tayshaun isn't supposed to go 4 for 4 beyond the arc... and detroit doesn't shoot 92% from the arc even when they're on fire... but it happened...

i was loving it...