The 2022-23 NBA All-Defensive team includes a pair of Milwaukee Bucks: Jrue Holiday and Brook Lopez. For Holiday, it was his third appearance on the team as a member of the Bucks, while Lopez was chosen as a Bucks representative for the second time. Both Lopez and Holiday were chosen to be on the first team this season. Giannis Antetokounmpo was notably absent and may have had some displeasure with that.
Here are eight stats you may not know about Milwaukee Bucks players voted to the NBA All-Defensive teams (Note: the NBA All-Defensive team consists of First Team and Second Team. The selection of this team began with the 1968-69 NBA season.)
8 stats you may not know about Bucks on the NBA’s All-Defensive teams
One: For the third time in five seasons, the Bucks had two players chosen to the first team. In 2018-19, it was Giannis Antetokounmpo and Eric Bledsoe; in 2020-21, Giannis and Holiday were first-team selections; in 2022-23, Holiday and Lopez. The other two seasons when two Bucks were chosen as first-team All-Defensive were 1984-85 (Paul Pressey and Sidney Moncrief) and the following year (1985-86) when Pressey and Moncrief again were first-team choices.
Two: In the 2019-20 season, three Bucks were chosen to the All-Defensive teams: Giannis (first team) and Lopez and Bledsoe (second team). It is the only time three Milwaukee players made the team in the same season. The last NBA team to have three players selected to the All-Defensive team was in 2020-21 with the Philadelphia 76ers (Ben Simmons, Joel Embiid, and Matisse Thybulle).
Three: This was the fifth straight year that two members of the Bucks were chosen to the NBA All-Defensive team (first or second team), the longest active streak. In addition to the pair chosen to the first team in the list above, in 2020-21, there were three Bucks chosen to the team: Antetokounmpo (first team), Lopez, and Bledsoe (second team) and in 2021-22 when Giannis was a first-team selection and Holiday was a second-team choice.
Four: From 1992-2016 no Milwaukee players were selected to the NBA All-Defensive teams (first or second team).
Five: Giannis and Sidney Moncrief have the most All-Defensive appearances as a Bucks player with five apiece. A total of nine Milwaukee players have made the All-Defensive team since the franchise began in 1968-69: Giannis Antetokounmpo and Sidney Moncrief (five selections), Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Quinn Buckner (four selections), Jrue Holiday and Paul Pressey (three selections), and Eric Bledsoe, Brook Lopez and Alvin Robertson (two selections).
Six: Antetokounmpo and Moncrief have the most first-team All-Defensive selections to the first team with four each.
Seven: There have been four times when a Bucks’ player has been selected to the first team in consecutive years: Jabbar (1973-74 and 1974-75), Moncrief (1982-83, 1983-84, 1984-85 and 1985-86), Pressey (1984-85) and Antetokounmpo (2018-19, 2019-20, 2020-21 and 2021-22).
Eight: Quinn Buckner has the most second-team selections as a Bucks player with four. He was never selected for the first team.
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