JJ Redick Reveals Why AD Didn’t Get His All-Defensive Team Vote

It was an awkward turn of events when JJ Redick became head coach of the Lakers after leaving Davis off his media list of 10 players 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 was the reason Redick removed Davis from his ballot, he recently explained.

“There’s a big difference between being a top-10 defender and being 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 defenders in the NBA. … I’ve done this the last two years, explaining all of my votes. And you certainly have to take the stats into account, the advanced stats and then of course the team’s performance on defense. And both years I’ve weighed heavily on how the team performed defensively.”

Although not selected by Redick, Davis was still named to the All-Defensive First Team after receiving 151 of a possible 198 votes.

The big man also finished fourth in NBA Defensive Player of the Year voting, behind Bam Adebayo in third place, Victor Wembanyama in second place and Rudy Gobert in first place.

Redick thinks AD is at a level where he can earn DPOY honors.

“I thought Anthony was in fantastic form this year and I think he personally had a really good defensive season,” he said NBA.com recently. “He’s one of the top five defenders in the NBA, period. I’d love to coach him if he wins 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 improved only slightly (113.4) during the postseason.

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