Wembanyama: unanimous DPOY
- San Antonio center Victor Wembanyama was named the 2025–26 Kia NBA Defensive Player of the Year. - He won the award unanimously and is the youngest recipient at 22. - The unanimous vote has stirred early conversation about his larger role in MVP debates. (x.com)
Victor Wembanyama is the NBA’s Defensive Player of the Year, and the vote was unanimous. (nba.com) The league announced the award Monday, April 20, after a 100-member global media panel gave the San Antonio Spurs center all 100 first-place votes. He is 22, making him the youngest winner since the award began in 1982-83. (nba.com) No player had ever swept Defensive Player of the Year voting before this season. Wembanyama finished ahead of Oklahoma City’s Chet Holmgren and Detroit’s Ausar Thompson, the other two finalists. (apnews.com) (sports.yahoo.com) The award closes a loop from a year ago, when Wembanyama was on pace for the same honor before a blood clot ended his 2024-25 regular season at 46 games. He returned this year, met the games-played threshold, and turned a near-miss into a clean sweep. (sports.yahoo.com) Wembanyama’s case was built on production as much as reputation. He averaged 25.0 points, 11.5 rebounds and 64 regular-season games, while leading the NBA in blocks again, according to season stat pages cited by national outlets covering the award. (espn.com) (nbcsports.com) San Antonio’s season also gave the award more weight than a rebuilding-team stat line usually gets. The Spurs opened the playoffs on April 19 with a Game 1 win over Portland, and Wembanyama scored 35 points in that opener. (espn.com) (usnews.com) The unanimous result has already shifted the conversation toward bigger awards. Yahoo Sports and USA Today both framed Monday’s vote as an early test of whether a player can build a Most Valuable Player case around elite defense as well as offense. (sports.yahoo.com) (usatoday.com) For the Spurs, the win also reconnects the franchise to an older identity. ESPN noted that San Antonio had not had a Defensive Player of the Year winner since Kawhi Leonard took the award in 2014-15 and 2015-16. (espn.com) At 22, Wembanyama now owns the youngest DPOY mark and the first unanimous one. The next vote people around the league will watch is the one that asks whether the best defender in basketball can also be the season’s most valuable player. (nba.com) (sports.yahoo.com)
