In the 80-year history of the National Basketball Association, we’ve never seen a player quite like San Antonio Spurs center Victor Wembanyama. He’s a 7-foot-4 unicorn with the handles of a guard, who runs like a wing and still uses every bit of his frame to be the league’s biggest deterrent around the rim.
We had also never seen a unanimous Defensive Player of the Year winner until Wembanyama came along. The third-year player earned that honor on Monday, accumulating all 100 first-place votes. Voting was done by a global media panel, and Wemby is the only unanimous DPOY winner since the award’s inception in the 1982–1983 season.
At just 22, Wembanyama also becomes the youngest player to win the award, besting a handful of previous winners who were all 23 years old. He’s the fourth player ever to win the award within his first three NBA seasons, with only Alvin Robertson, who won it in his second year, doing it quicker.
All of these superlatives are certainly warranted for the season that the Frenchman had. He led the NBA in blocked shots for the third straight season, averaging 3.1 per game. Wembanyama also averaged a career-high of 11.5 rebounds per game, despite playing a career-low of 29.2 minutes per night. Considering his per-minute production, Wembanyama topped the NBA in both block percentage and defensive rebound percentage, in addition to leading the league in defensive win shares.
By leading the league in blocks for the third time, Wemby is already just one more season shy of tying the NBA record. Only Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Marcus Camby, and Mark Eaton have topped the NBA in blocks four times, something Wembanyama can accomplish at just 23.
He also had a discernible impact on San Antonio’s overall defensive success. The Spurs ranked second in rebounds per game, third in defensive rating, and fourth in field-goal percentage allowed.
If it wasn’t for a few votes as a rookie and his blood clot illness last year as a sophomore, Wembanyama could very well have just won his third straight DPOY award. He finished second in Defensive Player of the Year voting in 2023–2024 to winner Rudy Gobert. Then last season, Wembanyama appeared to be well on his way to winning the award before a blood clot sidelined him after 46 games. Thus, he didn’t meet the 65-game threshold to qualify for end-of-season awards, and Evan Mobley took home the DPOY award.
While Wembanyama received all 100 first-place votes, media members did cast second-and-third-place votes as well. With those, Chet Holmgren of the Oklahoma City Thunder finished second, followed by Ausar Thompson of the Detroit Pistons. Gobert placed fourth among the 13 NBA players who received at least one vote. Wembanyama was the only Spur to get a vote, which shows just how impactful he is, considering San Antonio’s defensive rankings.
Wembanyama, the No. 1 overall pick in the 2023 NBA Draft, is the fourth different Spur to win the award and the fifth time a San Antonio player has received the honor. Robertson was the first (1986), followed by David Robinson (1992), Kawhi Leonard twice (2015, 2016), and now Wemby. Only the Detroit Pistons, whose players have been awarded it six times, have won it more than the Spurs franchise.
Following Gobert, a four-time winner, Wembanyama is the second Frenchman to be named the NBA’s best defensive player. He’s the seventh overall international player to win the award.
This could be the first of several honors that Wembanyama receives this season, as he’s also a finalist for the MVP award, alongside Shai Gilgeous-Alexander of the Thunder and Nikola Jokic of the Denver Nuggets. Wemby is considered a longshot to take home the MVP trophy, but he’s essentially a lock to end up with All-Team honors. By winning Defensive Player of the Year, he’ll also land on the All-Defensive First-Team, and he has a great chance of also making the All-NBA First-Team. Neither of those teams are voted with regard to position, so Wembanyama just has to make the top five in voting and won’t be battling Jokic for center votes.
The award Wembanyama would likely most want to win is the Bill Russell Trophy, which is handed out to the MVP of the NBA Finals. Judging by the way San Antonio started the playoffs, the Spurs are certainly capable of advancing to the Finals as the Western Conference’s No. 2 seed. The Spurs defeated the seventh-seeded Portland Trail Blazers, 111–98, in Game 1 on Sunday, with Wemby the star of the contest, and not just on the defensive end.
He finished with 35 points, five rebounds, and two blocks, including scoring 21 points in the first half. That set an NBA record for the most in the opening half of an NBA postseason debut in the play-by-play era, which began in 1997. The 35 overall points also broke Tim Duncan’s previous mark (32) for the most in franchise history in a player’s playoff debut.
