{"id":620197,"date":"2026-04-20T23:50:08","date_gmt":"2026-04-20T23:50:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/620197\/"},"modified":"2026-04-20T23:50:08","modified_gmt":"2026-04-20T23:50:08","slug":"victor-wembanyama-becomes-first-unanimous-nba-defensive-player-of-the-year-at-age-of-22-victor-wembanyama","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/620197\/","title":{"rendered":"Victor Wembanyama becomes first unanimous NBA defensive player of the year at age of 22 | Victor Wembanyama"},"content":{"rendered":"

There had never been a unanimous NBA<\/a> defensive player of the year. Until now.<\/p>\n

Victor Wembanyama \u2013 as expected \u2013 was announced Monday as the league\u2019s top defensive player. The San Antonio center was second in the voting for DPOY as a rookie, was the favorite last season until a medical condition ended his season prematurely<\/a>, but left no doubt this year. At 22, he\u2019s the youngest winner of the award.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe real struggle might have been getting to 65 games,\u201d Wembanyama said \u2013 referring to the number of appearances he needed for award eligibility \u2013 on NBC Sports Network. \u201cBut I\u2019m super, super happy to win this award and actually super proud to be the first-ever unanimous.\u201d<\/p>\n

Oklahoma City\u2019s Chet Holmgren was second and Detroit\u2019s Ausar Thompson was third after both helped their teams secure No 1 seeds for the playoffs. But this was never in doubt, not after the 7ft 4in \u2013 or maybe taller \u2013 Wembanyama led the NBA in blocked shots for a third consecutive season and terrorized opponents any time they attempted to score.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\u201cBest player in the world,\u201d Spurs forward Keldon Johnson said.<\/p>\n

Wembanyama is also a finalist for MVP, with the winner of that trophy not set to be revealed until next week at the earliest.<\/p>\n

First, the league got this announcement out of the way. And Wembanyama\u2019s win was accompanied by a slew of milestones.<\/p>\n

\u2013 Every other winner of the award had been at least 23. Wembanyama doesn\u2019t turn 23 until next January.<\/p>\n

\u2013 The Spurs became the first franchise with four players to win DPOY, which was first handed out in the 1982-83 season. The others were Alvin Robertson in 1986, David Robinson in 1992 and Kawhi Leonard in 2015 and 2016.<\/p>\n

\u2013 Wembanyama joins Robinson and Michael Jordan as the only players to win both rookie of the year and DPOY.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve had the chance to have great coaches over my career who have taught me great habits on defense,\u201d Wembanyama said.<\/p>\n

The biggest accomplishment may be this: Wembanyama got every voter to agree.<\/p>\n

Golden State\u2019s Stephen Curry was the unanimous MVP in 2016. In the 10 seasons that have followed, there have been only two instances of a player collecting 100% of the first-place votes for a major NBA award. Those were Wembanyama for rookie of the year in 2024, and now this.<\/p>\n

\u201cI feel like he is one of the hardest workers that I\u2019ve ever been around,\u201d Johnson said. \u201cHe takes his craft very seriously. I feel like this is just a small token of what\u2019s to come for Victor. He\u2019s a special player now. He\u2019s a special player on the court and even more special person off the court as well. This is just a small token, small flowers that\u2019s given to him for defensive player of the year.\u201d<\/p>\n

Wembanyama is an MVP finalist (along with Oklahoma City\u2019s Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, the reigning MVP, and three-time winner Nikola Joki\u0107 of Denver), which almost certainly means he\u2019ll be an All-NBA first-team selection. And the DPOY win means he\u2019ll also be on the All-Defensive team, so the Frenchman is assured of no fewer than four trophies from this year\u2019s award season.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe often overlook the team aspect,\u201d Wembanyama said. \u201cI\u2019m sitting here. I happen to be the guy who\u2019s put in the spotlight, but I am part of a system and I couldn\u2019t get this award and I couldn\u2019t do what I do if it wasn\u2019t for my teammates … and my coaching staff.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"There had never been a unanimous NBA defensive player of the year. Until now. Victor Wembanyama \u2013 as…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":620198,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[557],"tags":[64,63,590,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-620197","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nba","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-nba","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/620197","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=620197"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/620197\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/620198"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=620197"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=620197"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=620197"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}