#3 Ben Simmons – Philadelphia 76ers
From the time he entered the league in 2016, Ben Simmons has always been known to be a really great defender and since his rookie season, he has only grown better defensively! In fact, Simmons is now one of the best one-on-one defenders in the NBA and while he may not be a pure scoring threat, he has still been named a All-Star for three years straight.
Simmons is only averaging 1.6 steals and 0.7 blocks per game, which do not seem like Defensive Player of the Year like numbers, but he has the 6th best Defensive Rating in the league (min. 1000 minutes played).
Given that he is about 7-feet tall and that he is classified as a guard, Simmons can virtually play any position and guard virtually any position.
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Whether it is matchup with a guy like James Harden or stepping out on the wing to guard a guy like Paul George, or maybe even being in the low-post guarding a big guy like Julius Randle, Ben Simmons finds success with whoever he is guarding, which is why he is one of the favorites to win the Defensive Player of the Year award this year.
There really are no weaknesses to Simmons’ game on the defensive-end of the court and as a result, he is one of the best defensive players in the entire league. Good luck going one-on-one against Ben Simmons because it will likely end up with the ball being in somebody else’s hands!
