The Memphis Grizzlies have solely had one Defensive Player of the Year winner — Marc Gasol (2013) — however that might change this 12 months. Right now, ahead Jaren Jackson Jr. is the favourite to win the 2023 DPOY Award regardless of solely enjoying 33 video games this 12 months. He’s an enormous favourite really. His odds presently sit at -110 on FanDuel whereas the next-best odds lie with Brooklyn heart Nic Claxton at +350. There’s little doubt that Jackson is having an outstanding defensive season. He deserves quite a lot of reward, however his stats aren’t as nice as they appear. According to a viral Reddit thread — which on the time of penning this story had greater than 56,000 upvotes — Jackson’s numbers are being inflated when he performs at residence.
A take a look at Jackson’s home/highway splits
JJJ’s residence/highway splits are eye-popping to say the least. In 16 video games at residence this 12 months, Jackson has 22 steals and 66 blocked photographs. Through 17 video games on the highway, Jackson has solely 12 steals and 37 blocked photographs. That’s a 1.95-to-1 steal home-to-road ratio and a 1.9-to-1 block ratio when enjoying at FedExForum. It is smart for gamers to play higher at residence. However, discrepancies of this magnitude are questionable at greatest.
Previous Defensive Player of the Year winners
Let’s check out the final 30 Defensive Player of the Year winners. That’s a large pool of knowledge, no? It doesn’t matter what number of complete steals or blocks that they had. The solely factor we’re taking a look at is the ratio at which these gamers accrued their blocks and steals at residence versus on the highway. Here’s each former DPOY to accrue even a 1.5-to-1 home-to-road ratio for both steals or assists:
2022 Marcus Smart – 1.62 block ratio
2005 Ben Wallace – 1.83 block ratio
2003 Ben Wallace – 1.51 block ratio
1999 Alonzo Mourning – 2.09 steal ratio
That’s everybody. Only one in every of these guys really had a steal ratio higher than Jackson’s, and that occurred 24 years in the past throughout a shortened season of solely 50 video games. With that few video games performed, it’s not arduous to imagine that ratio would’ve come again all the way down to Earth over the course of a complete season. Meanwhile, no DPOY winner within the final 30 years has surpassed Jackson’s 1.9 block home-to-road ratio. Only three males have even come shut, and one in every of them was a guard who recorded solely 18 blocks your entire season. Essentially, the statistical ratios we’re seeing from Jackson this season are unprecedented. Even in the event you don’t suppose there’s foul play occurring, these numbers warrant additional investigation.
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A closer look
Jackson is currently on pace to play 55 games this season, but let’s assume he’ll play 60 by the end of the year. After all, since returning to action on Nov. 15 Jackson has solely missed two video games. Sixty video games performed is a protected assumption. Given his present tempo, Jackson ought to end the season with roughly 62 steals and 187 blocks, or 1.03 steals per sport and three.12 blocks per sport. About 41 of these steals (1.37 per sport) and 124 of these blocks (4.13 per sport) ought to come at residence, which means 21 of the steals (0.7 per sport) and 63 of the blocks (2.1 per sport) ought to come on the highway. At residence, Jackson could be 18th in steals per sport and first in blocks by over 1.4 blocks per sport over second-place Claxton (2.7). On the highway, Jackson would fall to fourth in blocks and one hundred and twentieth in steals. Those numbers don’t sound very changing into of a Defensive Player of the Year candidate, do they? So, if Memphis theoretically needed to create an NBA Defensive Player of the Year, it will make sense why they’d need his base defensive statistics to look higher than they really are.
The Memphis Grizzlies are the Twenty ninth-most invaluable franchise within the NBA, and regardless of their stellar season — sure, by way of Friday, they’d misplaced 5 straight, however gained 11 straight prior — they’re exterior the highest 20 within the league in attendance. They need followers in seats, and the final two occasions the Grizzlies completed higher than twentieth in attendance have been 2015 and 2013. While these seasons noticed the Grizzlies win 55 and 56 video games respectively, the Grizzlies didn’t get the identical type of attendance (in relation to the remainder of the NBA) after they gained 56 video games in 2022. The distinction? I’m reaching, however possibly Marc Gasol’s Defensive Player of the Year Award in 2013 had one thing to do with it. Could the Grizzlies be seeking to replicate these circumstances from a decade in the past with the intention to improve attendance shifting ahead?
Analysis
Now, the subsequent query in your thoughts might be “Where are all these steals and blocks coming from? The scorekeeper can’t manifest steals and blocks from thin air. People would notice.” That’s true, however apparently the Grizzlies’ scorekeeper is an authorized genius. Allegedly, these additional steals and blocks are added when Jackson does something on protection that might even be imagined as a block or steal. Social media has already discovered quite a few examples from video games earlier within the season.
For the sake of transparency, there are others who imagine no foul play was concerned.
In the tweet above, ESPN NBA analyst Kirk Goldsberry claims that, though 66 blocks is loads, solely two to 6 of them are literally questionable, which means at worst, JJJ would nonetheless have 60 blocks at residence on the 12 months (3.75 per sport).
Only three of the ahead’s 66 residence blocks have been mis-recorded by a scorekeeper, in keeping with Kevin O’Connor, a senior basketball author at The Ringer.
There is motive to suppose the Grizzlies could possibly be taken with padding Jackson’s stats, however there’s additionally motive to suppose the NBA would have caught this sooner had this been true. The league has already refuted the Reddit publish, with NBA spokesperson Tim Frank stating:
“In order to ensure the integrity of our game statistics, auditors, independent of the statisticians on-site, review all plays and stats decisions in real-time during NBA games.
“If changes are necessary, they are made at that time or following a postgame review. All of the plays questioned in the post on Memphis games were scored consistently within the rules set forth by the NBA statisticians manual.”
Furthermore, because the publish was initially made, Reddit has since labeled it “misleading.” Does that imply it’s incorrect? Not essentially, nevertheless it does imply that the writer of the publish was talking as if his findings have been reality when that very effectively will not be the case. All in all, it appears nothing will come of those probably fraudulent Jackson steals and blocks, and if that’s the case, possibly throwing cash on Jackson’s block and steal numbers at house is one of the best wager you can also make for the remainder of the season.