Wembanyama unanimous Defensive POY

Victor Wembanyama became the first unanimous Defensive Player of the Year in NBA history when the league announced the 2025-26 award on April 20. (nba.com) The San Antonio Spurs center got all 100 first-place votes and finished ahead of Oklahoma City Thunder big man Chet Holmgren and Detroit Pistons wing Ausar Thompson. (espn.com) At 22 years and 106 days old, Wembanyama also became the youngest player to win the award. The previous winners had all been at least 23. (nba.com 1) (nba.com 2) The vote closed a two-year climb. Wembanyama finished second for Defensive Player of the Year as a rookie in 2023-24, then missed eligibility last season after deep vein thrombosis in his right shoulder cost him 36 games. (nba.com) (espn.com) This season, he anchored a Spurs defense that ranked third in defensive rating at 110.4. San Antonio finished 62-20 and reached the playoffs for the first time since 2019. (nba.com) Wembanyama led the NBA in both blocks per game, at 3.08, and total blocks, with 197. He also ranked first in opponent field goal percentage at 40.7 and contested 9.3 shots per game. (nba.com) He appeared in 64 games, which made the 65-game award threshold the only thing he said he really worried about. “The real struggle might have been getting to 65 games,” Wembanyama said on NBC Sports Network after the result. (espn.com) The win also added to a short list of unanimous NBA awards. NBA.com said no player in at least the last 50 seasons had won two league awards unanimously until Wembanyama, who was also a unanimous Rookie of the Year in 2024. (nba.com) For the Spurs, it was the franchise’s fourth different Defensive Player of the Year winner after Alvin Robertson, David Robinson and Kawhi Leonard. Leonard won it twice, in 2015 and 2016. (nba.com) Wembanyama called himself “super proud to be the first-ever unanimous.” The award landed exactly where his rookie-season warning pointed: “after that, it’s no longer” Rudy Gobert’s turn. (espn.com)