Thunder’s Isaiah Hartenstein takes jab at Draymond Green after Lu Dort DPOY snub
The NBA award finalists were recently announced, and the Defensive Player of the Year finalists had some people confused, more specifically, the Oklahoma City Thunder. Lu Dort has been one of the best defenders in the league all season, but he did not make the final list for the award. Isaiah Hartenstein recently spoke about Dort getting snubbed, and he through in a jab at one of the finalists, Draymond Green.
“I might need to get a podcast with Lu,” Hartenstein said.
Throughout the second half of the season, Green has continued to vouch for himself as the Defensive Player of the Year, and his odds have gone up since then. He’s also been in press conferences talking about how much he thinks he deserves the award, and it’s obvious that he’s helping his own case.
As for Dort, he’s let his play do the talking, and the stats speak for themselves. Opposing teams don’t have their best games when Dort is on the floor, and he’s been the key to the Thunder’s defense this season.
There’s also the thing of guards not having much of a chance of winning the award. Dyson Daniels made the cut for one of the finalists of the award, but even he thinks that the award is mostly for big men.
“I feel like it’s a big man’s award,” Daniels said via Michael Scotto of HoopsHype. “If you look at the big men in the NBA today, usually the past few years, it’s been a big man in that conversation who protects the rim and gets blocks. Obviously, before Wemby (Victor Wembanyama) went down, he was the frontrunner for the award.
Of course, Hartenstein is going to advocate for his teammate to win an award, but it’s not like Dort didn’t have a compelling case to be a finalist this season.
