It was an awkward turn of events when JJ Redick became the Lakers’ head coach after he left Davis off his 10-player media ballot for the 2024 NBA All-Defense awards.
Davis had one of his best defensive seasons to date in 2023-24, averaging 12.6 rebounds, 2.3 blocks and 1.2 steals per game during the regular season.
But the Lakers’ poor defensive performance as a whole was the reason Redick left Davis off his ballot, he recently explained.
“There’s a big difference in being a top-10 defender and making an All-Defense team,” Redick said on SiriusXM NBA Radio. “There’s a distinction between the two. Anthony Davis is one of the two or three best defensive players in the NBA. … I did this the last two years where I explained all of my votes. And you certainly have to factor in the stats, the advanced stats and then, of course, the team performance on defense. And in both years, I weighed heavily on how the team performed defensively.”
Despite Redick not voting him in, Davis was named to the All-Defensive First Team, after getting 151 voting points out of a possible 198.
The big man also was fourth in voting for NBA Defensive Player of the Year, behind Bam Adebayo in third, Victor Wembanyama in second and Rudy Gobert in first place.
Redick thinks that AD is at a level where he can take out DPOY honors.
“I thought Anthony was in fantastic shape this year, and to me, he personally had a really good defensive season,” he told NBA.com recently. “He’s to me one of the five best defensive players in the NBA, full stop. I’d love to coach him when he gets a Defensive Player of the Year. I think he’s that level of defender.”
The Lakers ranked 17th in the league in defensive rating (114.8) and were 11th in both blocked shots per game and defensive rebounding percentage in 2023-24. The franchise’s rating only improved ever so slightly (113.4) during the postseason.