For those unfamiliar with how we roll here, at The Mongrel Punt, we have a system in place that rates the best defenders in the competition on a weekly basis.
Each week, defenders accrue points for their standout work in a number of statistical categories and those points, along with votes (both from coaches and our very own Mongrels) go into a big wheel of cheese… or a formula or something, and it spits out a total for each player.
Those numbers are collated weekly for our Inner Circle Members, and what we end up with is a running total all the way through the season, with the man standing atop the heap after Round 23 being crowned the Mongrel Punt Defensive Player of the Year.
Imaginative title, I know – I came up with it all by myself.
Last week, I didn’t publish the DPOY and I kind of felt like I shortchanged our Inner Circle Members in terms of that content this week there is an extra column for them. Oh, and this is it.
Back in another lifetime, I used to run a little trading card shop. You may remember the time – the early to mid nineties when the NBA was becoming huge on the back of Michael Jordan’s popularity (so he walked away into retirement and cost me a bomb… initially, anyway). But we still had Shaq, Chris Webber, Penny Hardaway, Grant Hill, and…. errrr, Harold Miner to tide us over until MJ returned and we got a whole heap of new Jordan cards to overprice.
Aaaaanyway, one of the sets I really liked from those days was the Thunder and Lightning cards as part of the Skybox set. The cards featured two players – one who was all about the power – The Thunder, and one all about the speed – The Lightning.
They were nice cards and I always dug the concept. So, with us already covering the best individual defenders in the caper, I thought about applying the Thunder and Lightning concept to the current defenders to see what it threw up.
And to say there were a couple of surprises would be one of the biggest understatements since Lady Godiva rode into Coventry claiming she had nothing to wear in her wardrobe.
With this, I wanted one key position defender and one non-key position player who does their best work in defence. Of course, highly-performing defenders may not have really cooperated with that thought,. Still, it worked for some teams, as we rank the best Thunder and Lightning defensive duos in the game.
Now, I know some of you will ask – I am a member; why can’t I see this? This is for the Inner Circle Member tier – always has been. This is what these people generously pay a bit extra for, so I am more than happy to dive deep for them when it comes to this content. If you’re a Mongrel Member and you’d like to upgrade, go right ahead. If not, that’s cool, as well. But this is not a new thing – has been that way for over two years now. Wanna join them?
