Marcus Smart May Have Thrown Some Shade At Rudy Gobert To Make His DPOY Case, But He Also Didn't Lie

I love it. If you aren't going to hype yourself up who will? Well, I suppose when it comes to Marcus Smart's DPOY case pretty much all of us will hype him up. It's well deserved. All you have to do is watch 5 seconds of Smart play. 

I get it, people love to take shots at Rudy Gobert. NBA players really don't like that guy. I'm not someone who thinks Gobert's defense is overrated and all that stuff. He's a monster. There's a reason he has multiple DPOYs and I think the whole "he got played off the court" in the playoffs is a little bit of an exaggeration because people love to shit on Gobert. 

With all that said, where did Marcus lie? You could make the case he's the most versatile defender in the NBA. There is not a position he can't handle by himself with no help. That includes centers and big men on the block. He's been doing it for years

I would make the case that Smart does better against bigs than Gobert does against smaller guys. I don't feel like that's some sort of insane hot take. There's a reason you could look at the current DPOY odds in the BarstoolSports Book App and see that it's Marcus Smart as the current betting favorite for the award at +125. In fact, Rudy is 4th at +400. 

In my opinion, Smart's biggest challenger to this award is probably Bam, but he doesn't have the games played to warrant getting it over Smart. Depending on how things shake out, Bam could have around 15 fewer games (currently Smart 66 vs Bam 52). Considering the defensive performance Smart just put on the Heat last night, it's pretty obvious he should be the leader in the clubhouse at the moment. 

Look, Smart may say things you don't like to hear, but he doesn't lie. In November when he called out the team for playing like shit at the end of games and not passing the ball, he was right. That was proven to be true. He got crushed at the time, but he told the truth. Same shit here. Smart is not lying. I know Jazz fans will probably get defensive and upset about it, but nothing here is a lie. 

If the only reason to not give Smart DPOY is "no guard has it since 1996" that doesn't make too much sense to me. If anything, it's overdue. You can pick whatever test you want to measure defense. Eye test, advanced analytics, impact, whatever. They all point to the same thing which is Marcus Smart being the DPOY in 2021-22. 

Will he get it? I sure hope so. When you're as dominant as he's been for literally the entire year, that should be rewarded. It shouldn't matter what position you play. This isn't the "best defensive big man award", it's possible that the most valuable defensive player can play another position. All you have to do is look at the best defender on the best defense in basketball. Seems pretty easy imo.