FanHouse's Defensive Player of the Year

It's trophy time in the NBA, and the FanHouse crew has submitted its ballots. Find out which players deserve to take home the hardware and which ones don't, in our NBA Awards series. Next up: Defensive Player of the Year.

Some awards are tough to figure out, but with the Defensive Player of the Year, it was an easy choice. While the Superman thing has definitely run its course, it's appropriate at least one more time to describe the season that Dwight Howard had on the defensive end of the court.

Here's how the voting shook out:

1. Dwight Howard
2. LeBron James
3. Dwyane Wade

Howard was a unanimous choice, getting all six first place votes. And considering he led the league in rebounds and blocked shots, it was kind of a no-brainer, especially with Kevin Garnett missing so many games in the second half of the season.

Howard was such an obvious choice, in fact, that Matt Moore had a suggestion for those that were thinking of voting for anyone else:

"Anyone that disagrees should have to drive at him."

Now there's an All-Star weekend event I'd pay to see.

The battle for second was a little more hotly contested, with Wade receiving three second place votes to James' two, however LeBron racked up more points, after appearing on five ballots to Wade's three.

Other players receiving votes were Kevin Garnett, Rajon Rondo, Nene, Kobe Bryant, and ... Rane Battest. Who? Tom Ziller explains:

"Someone on Houston needs credit for the great defense (non-Lakers division). It's hard to decide."

I agreed with Ziller, and had the Shane Battier-Ron Artest mythical combo-player fourth on my ballot as well.