Too Many Trophies to Display

Link winning the Defensive Player of the Year award was undoubtedly a shock to everyone.

After all, most people believed that an award like Defensive Player of the Year should belong to a big man.

The last player to break that tradition had been Artest ten years ago. Before that, they had to go all the way back to "The Glove," Gary Payton, in the 1995-96 season. And eight years before Payton won it, there had been Jordan. The gaps alone showed just how difficult it was for perimeter players to win this award.

What was more, the league hadn't lacked elite defensive big men this season. Chicago fans and Clippers fans had been campaigning for Noah and DeAndre Jordan for a long time, just waiting for the two of them to win it.

Yet the Grizzlies had quietly pulled off another upset. And it was an even bigger upset than Joerger winning Coach of the Year!

With the Defensive Player of the Year award, Link also became the third player in history, after Jordan and Hakeem Olajuwon, to win both NBA Finals MVP and Defensive Player of the Year.

Jordan won Defensive Player of the Year in the 1987-88 season, and he won Finals MVP in all six of his championship runs. Hakeem Olajuwon won Defensive Player of the Year in 1992-93 and 1993-94, while winning Finals MVP in 1993-94 and 1994-95.

Both of them had won Defensive Player of the Year first, then NBA Finals MVP. Link, meanwhile, had won NBA Finals MVP before Defensive Player of the Year. From that perspective, he seemed to have made history yet again.

He had added another weighty stroke to an already overflowing collection of individual honors this season.

Of course, it also sent the league's hatred toward him skyrocketing.

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