When the Washington Mystics visited the Atlanta Dream in early June, the scouting report was easy for head coach Karl Smesko when it came to his defensive assignments: put Rhyne Howard on Sonia Citron and don’t have her leave her side.
It was a recipe for success for the Dream, as she was the primary defender on Citron for 94% of the plays where they shared the floor.
Citron ended up scoring just six points against Howard in the game – three of them via a transition bucket.
That’s not a one-off sample, either.
In a May matchup against the Wings, Howard drew the coverage on sophomore sensation Paige Bueckers 90% of the time. She held her to just seven points on the night – her fewest in her short career.
Howard already holds a share of the WNBA record for made threes in a game – she’s made nine in a game, twice – but she continues to play at an elite level.
After the Dream’s win over the Mercury on Aug. 5, Howard posted her second career game with five-plus three pointers, two-plus steals, one-plus block, and seven-plus assists in her career.
She was already one of three players to achieve those numbers in a game in league history.
Howard’s a bucket. We know this. She thrives in the spacing that Smesko’s offense provides her, and even with her late July offensive struggles in the first half of games.
“I feel like I’ve been in a slump because I was. I’m very aware of what was going on, so we don’t have to pretend like that wasn’t a thing,” Howard told reporters after the Dream’s win over the Mercury. “Even if I’m not scoring, I do other things. I assist, I defend, I get steals, just having a continuous impact on the game. But I get blocks, too. They never lost confidence in me. They always continue to give me the ball, and it’s just a matter of what I do and how I turn it around.”
Smesko has that same confidence in Howard that she has in herself. Even when she’s struggling offensively, he knew that the team could turn to her on the defensive side of the ball to lock down the opposition.
Because for him, there’s no question that Howard is a first-team all-defensive player.
“I don’t think there’s any question about that. Her defense has been just outstanding this season, and she’s making elite defensive plays,” Smesko told The IX Sports after that June game against the Mystics. “She had the toughest assignment, and she got in a little bit of foul trouble. We were talking about moving somebody else on Citron, so she wouldn’t get her fifth foul, and she said, ‘I’ll guard her,’ and it’s like, “OK, you guard her.’
“She didn’t pick up the foul, so that’s part of building the trust in those situations, and she did great with it, and you know she’s just a good two-way player that there is in the league right now.”
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While it’s hard to argue with Smesko’s assessment of Howard, it does beg the question of whether or not the recognition will come with Howard’s play. Making an all-defensive team – something Howard has done in the past – wouldn’t be a shock. But could Howard make a push for Defensive Player of the Year?
If she did, Howard would break a run that goes back to 2018 with each and every Defensive Player of the Year Award going to a big. At 5’11, Alana Beard was the last guard to win the award, repeating in 2017 and 2018.
It’s not just Howard who is getting that recognition across the league as a potential award winner, either.
Howard, according to getting odds at FanDuel, is listed at +5000, with the fifth-best odds. While it’s not her, it is a wing player who leads the way with the best odds at -195: Gabby Williams of the Golden State Valkyries.
That, in and of itself, is part of the larger shift in focus when it comes to the conversation around the top defensive players. It’s no longer just the bigs, but it’s the guards and smaller wings who are getting the attention.
And it’s a shift that is welcomed by Williams.
“When you have guards like Ryne and I, there are no guards who are never mentioned in the conversation for Defensive Player of the Year,” Williams told The IX Sports. “I’m hoping that we start seeing more players like us and others like Allisha Gray in there, as well. We are players who just want to win and want to win on the defensive end. I just hope that it brings some light to it, and that we’re not just counting blocks.”
A part of the conversation with the guards who lock down on defense is that they also have to facilitate on the offensive side of the ball. We saw that in that June matchup between Howard and Citron.
So, who better to understand what that’s like than the person who was on the receiving end of the lockdown defense of Howard?
“There’s just a lot of really good wing defenders in the league right now,” Citron told The IX Sports. “Rhyne and Gabby stand out, and I think I feel like people are just seeing the versatility of wing defenders and their ability to guard really one through four, but yeah, I don’t know. I think there’s just a lot of good players right now that are bringing attention to it.”
Citron plays a similar role for her team in Washington. She knows that she can’t take a play off, even when she isn’t guarding the opposing team’s best player, because the level of play in the WNBA is too good.
“Even if you’re not guarding the main assignment, you have other roles,” she said. “You might need to help, you know what I mean? Whether it’s helping with the roller or helping to take away lanes. You’re just always doing something on defense.
“I don’t really think, especially as a team defense, there’s not really a play that you can take off because in this league, the players are just too good.”
She doesn’t take a play off offensively, either. She’s tasked with helping Georgia Amoore facilitate the offense by playing the off-ball role for the Mystics offensively. But as soon as the ball goes to the opposing team, she draws the toughest assignment on the court.
“I think defense kind of fuels me. Like if I feel like I’m doing well on the defensive end, that kind of helps me offensively, and also I think you kind of get used to it,” Citron said about guarding the best player each night. “It comes down to conditioning and stamina. The more you do it, the more you just get better at it. But being really intentional on both sides of the ball is what I like to do.”
Being intentional is one word for it. There are a number of words you can use for it, though. Preparedness. Anticipation. Practice.
Maybe there’s a simpler term, though.
“I would say that I think defense is mostly effort, how hard you’re trying, and who wants it more,” Azzi Fudd told The IX Sports. “So when I go out there, it’s like that’s one of my controllables. Obviously, I’m not going to get a stop every time playing against the best women in the world, but just being aggressive, not giving up, trying to be relentless, and trying to make things difficult.”
While Fudd won the three-point contest during All-Star weekend and her offense has come along as the season has progressed, it’s been her defense that has stood out as being league-ready from Day 1.
While Fudd mentioned that it’s the effort on the defensive side of the ball that can help separate good defenders from great defenders, she also said that there are some things that take place that may go unnoticed.
“I think that positioning plays a big part. We’ve been talking a lot about and harping on boxes and elbows, and sometimes just if you’re presenting yourself in the right spot, then you don’t even need to be guarding the ball,” Fudd said. “But if I’m on the help side in the right spot at the right time, that might deter someone from driving to the rim. That’s not something that’s a stat in there. It’s just little things I think that go a long way.”
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Fudd was talking about her defensive approach, but she said that she, too, has seen a rise in conversations around wing defenders getting more and more recognition around the league as not just being great defenders, but being the best defenders in the league.
“I don’t want to say that it goes unnoticed, but it definitely can go a little unnoticed of just how good defense wings can play,” Fudd said. “Because going up and down, having to guard the opposing guard, that’s a difficult thing. You look around and look at different names. Players like Gabby and Rhyne are incredible defenders.”
For the Dream, Howard isn’t the only player who is having a standout defensive season. Point guard Jordin Canada has been going back and forth with Howard all season long for the league lead in steals per game.
“We rely on our defense a lot. It’s nice to have three Atlanta Dream players in the top five in steals per game, but it just speaks to our aggression on the defensive end,” Canada told The IX Sports. “Coach talks about DEALs a lot, getting deflections and steals, and so we pride ourselves on that. I know me and Rhyne go back and forth to see who can get the most DEALs. But Angel’s right in there, too, and with her long arms, she can defend one through five.”
Smesko has preached not only DEALs for his team, but surgical strikes, as he calls them. That’s the terminology that the team uses to describe looking for the opportunity to strike the ball as a defender to get a steal.
“I think Karl knows that I love defense so much, and he wants to continue to get me better in that area,” Reese told The IX Sports. “I don’t think you have to give me any confidence playing defense. Offensively, he gives a lot of confidence to me, but defensively, I take my matchups very personally. I don’t think anybody in front of me is going to bust my ass, so that’s just kind of the mindset I have.”
While Reese can defend one through five, like Canada mentioned, she’s a traditional big who is the last line of the defense. Seeing her get recognition for Defensive Player of the Year isn’t a surprise, but seeing her rank in the top five in steals is.
Reese fits the mold of the players who have won the award in recent history. Players like Napheesa Collier, A’ja Wilson, and even Alanna Smith, who shared the award with Wilson from a season ago.
During that year, Smith averaged 1.9 blocks per game and 1.3 steals, helping her en route to the award.
“You think of it like a chessboard. Like your guards are like your pawns, like the first line of defense, and then your bigs are your queen,” Smith told The IX Sports. “They are the last line, and the one that you fall back on when all else fails. So I think that’s why bigs get a lot of recognition, because it’s like the last chance effort to defend. Whereas guards are just as important, and I think it’s really cool that those guys are getting the recognition because it’s a tough job to be that first person to rely on, and if you can do it well, it goes a long way.”
Smith knows what it takes to play elite defense. Even in a season that’s been one to forget for her after signing a max contract with the Wings and struggling offensively, she still is playing solid defense with a 102.5 defensive ranking.
While the Dream thought that she would be the defensive anchor for their team, it’s actually been her teammate, Fudd, which, despite her youth, doesn’t surprise Smith to see.
“No, I think she came from a really good college program, with a really smart coach, and you can tell she’s super strong,” Smith said of her rookie teammate. “A lot of defense comes down to sheer will, as well, and so I think she’s really determined to be a good defender, too. So she’s got a lot of things that add up into making a great defender. And it’s scary because she’s so young, so she’s going to get even better.”
Using the defensive metric JUNKIE (Joint Unified Noise-Kontrolled Impact Estimate), which estimates how many fewer or more points a player allows per 100 possessions compared to a league-average defender, we can see a lot of these names toward the top of the leaderboard.
There’s also looking at defensive RAPM (Regularized Adjusted Plus/Minus), which leans slightly toward bigs, as well.
While their names don’t show up as highlighted, Fudd, Williams, and Howard are all just left of the center line, still grouped in with the near-elite level of defenders in the league.
These are not catch-alls, of course. There’s no true defensive metric that can break down all that a player does on the defensive side of the ball to make an impact.
Sometimes, you have to look at bigs and wings separately in your evaluation.
“It’s twofold, right? In my experience here, in college, and in WBC All-America, we talked about defensive players,” Wings head coach Jose Fernandez told The IX Sports. “The guards being lockdown defenders and being able to take away the other team’s best perimeter player, whether it be limiting touches on perimeter players, getting deflections, and creating steals. Then, for a guard like Azzi Fudd, having steals and blocks.
“Now, post players, they are protecting the rim, helping outside the lane, cleaning the glass, blocking shots, limiting the other team to one shot and out. I think that’s how positionally players get evaluated and judged.”
Fudd has had to adjust to the speed of the game at the professional level quickly. She’s been tasked, often nightly, with drawing the top defensive assignment for the other team.
I asked her, candidly, how difficult it was if she’s playing on the wing against an elite three-point shooter like Allisha Gray, and she is able to balance in real time, stepping in to the lane to make driving more difficult for her teammate who may have gotten beat versus not leaving a shooter like Gray wide open.
She took a second, let out a breath, and shot off a smile before answering.
“Yeah, it definitely is difficult, but that’s why it’s so important in watching film, knowing your personnel, knowing tendencies, knowing the players that you’re playing against, and then also, with that, trusting your teammates, knowing like, ‘all right, my defender or my teammate just got beat,’” she said. “I know that if I’m going to step up, the person behind me is going to help and rotate. So making sure that you build that chemistry and that trust is in practice to be able to rotate. With defense, you have to give it your all. But at the end of the day, it’s hard to stop a great offense. You’re just trying to make things difficult for them.”
It’s an insightful breakdown from a rookie who carries herself like a seasoned vet as opposed to a player with about 30 games to her name at this level.
Despite her being so insightful about how she approaches the defensive side of the ball, the question doesn’t come down to Fudd feeling that a wing should – or could – win the top defensive award in the league.
It comes down to the voters.
“I feel like in the last few years that there have always been talks of that, but you know, it always seems that a post player wins the award,” Canada said. “Granted, blocks are important, too, but I do think that guards have a really hard job, as well, having to defend and get steals and stealing possessions from a team.
I don’t know. Clearly, blocks outweigh steals at this point, but I just think that, the last few years, there have been talks of guards being in the discussion of Defensive Player of the Year. This is out of our control about who wins it, but I think the discussion has never stemmed away from guards being in the conversation.”
Canada has a point. Blocks are seen as more important, but it’s not because they are truly more valuable, but it’s also because, well, they are fun to watch.
“There are a lot of really good wing defenders,” Fudd said. “Obviously, when you’re a big and you’re protecting the paint, you get a lot of blocked shots, and that is like the more theatrical, more exciting thing to watch.”
We are a few months away from knowing who will walk home with the award. Last year, the voters decided that Wilson and Smith were both worthy of winning it.
A joint award could happen this year, too. But instead of two bigs walking home with it, maybe, just maybe, a wing will stake their claim to it.
Hell, maybe two of them will.
