Mikal Bridges Listed as Pick-Six Defensive All-Star

Suns forward Mikal Bridges and his ability to transition from his stellar defense does not go unnoticed.

Phoenix Suns forward Mikal Bridges is one of the best defensive players in the game. 

Bridges finished as a runner-up in Defensive Player of the Year voting behind Marcus Smart last season before landing on the NBA's All-Defensive first team. He was also one of a handful of players to play 82 games last season in the league.

There's no denying his impact on one end of the floor, but how does his defense translate to points on the other end for the Suns? 

In a recent mailbag, ESPN's Kevin Pelton received the following question to answer on Twitter. 

I have a theory that Mikal’s defense leads to offense more than any of the other DPOY candidates (ie high value pick 6 steals) - is there any data on that kind of thing?

— Giggs (@Gareth_giggs) May 11, 2022

"This is something Second Spectrum's Insight tool allows us to quantify. Here were the leaders during the 2021-22 regular season in "pick-six" steals that led immediately to scores by the player who came up with the steal unassisted," said Pelton:

PLAYER PICK-SIXES

Dejounte Murray 31

Jayson Tatum 28

Anthony Edwards 27

LeBron James 27

Devin Booker 25

Scottie Barnes 24

Terry Rozier 24

Ayo Dosunmu 24

Mikal Bridges 23

(Source: Second Spectrum tracking)

"Mikal Bridges finished in the top 10 in this category and was the leader among the 11 players who received votes for Defensive Player of the Year last season (Matisse Thybulle of the Philadelphia 76ers was next among that group with 21 pick-sixes, while winner Marcus Smart had just nine).

"Although the likelihood of turning into a fast-break score on the other end is one of the reasons I think steals are generally undervalued, I'm not sure this should be a big consideration in Defensive Player of the Year voting. After all, rim protection is still the defensive skill that translates most consistently into strong team defense, and there's nothing magical about pick-sixes as compared to steals that lead to teammates scoring in transition.

"It is interesting to note that Smart's steals yielded the worst offensive rating on the subsequent possession (1.2 points per possession) among the 14 players with at least 100 steals in the regular season, per my analysis of play-by-play data. But Thybulle (1.5 points per possession) was atop this group ahead of his former college teammate Dejounte Murray despite being outside the top 10 in pick-sixes."

Smart was the only person to finish ahead of Bridges in the league's Defensive Player of the Year voting.

For what it's worth, Bridges also lead the team in blocks last postseason with one averaged per night. 

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