Shawn Marion has an NBA championship, four All-Star games and two All-NBA selections on his resume, but he believes his defensive impact went unjustly unrecognized.
“Think about it, though. I never made an all-defensive team. I never was defensive player of the year, which I should have been, couple years, honestly,” Marion told Michael Lee of The Athletic. “Defensive player of the year, possibly, I should’ve been, maybe once or twice in my career. But I didn’t get that. All defensive team? I definitely should’ve been all-defensive team, four or five years, easily. Why is that?”
The closest Marion came to winning DPOY was in 2006-07 when he finished fourth on the ballot, but he was left off the NBA All-Defensive teams. Mike D'Antoni's “Seven Seconds or Less” Phoenix Suns were certainly not known for their defense, which likely hurt Marion in awards voting.
The Matrix compared his versatility with that of Golden State Warriors forward Draymond Green, who won DPOY in 2016-17 and has made five All-Defensive teams.
“I’m not knocking, but how do you justify giving Draymond Green, defensive player of the year?…I guarded way more people than he did. It’s easy to play small ball now and guard people. It’s not hard now.”
Marion noted that he played small-ball big “when it was really hard” and “when the most dominant position in the league was power forwards.”
“Tim Duncan. Kevin Garnett. The guys that just got elected into the Hall of Fame. I’m guarding these guys every night,” the ex-NBA star said. “How many people actually play defense now?”
Shawn Marion contributed 61.3 Win Shares over the course of his NBA career, including a peaks of 6.4 (2000-01) and 5.9 (2005-06). For what it's worth, Green's single-season best is 5.4 DWS (2016-17).
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