The race for the Defensive Player of the Year award is quite close this year, with A’ja Wilson, Angel Reese, and Gabby Williams all battling it out.
Rachel DeMita has now thrown her own ballot into the mix. Being a Caitlin Clark fan, DeMita recently chose A’ja Wilson as her MVP this year, and she has another interesting pick for the DPOY award too.
Rachel DeMita Snubs A’ja Wilson For Angel Reese
On her show, DeMita named Atlanta Dream star Angel Reese as her Defensive Player of the Year.
“With Angel Reese, she’s leading the league in rebounds. She gets steals, she gets blocks, and the thing with Angel is, like we have seen so many times even throughout this season, she’s a great isolation defender as well. Not only on a post player, but also on a guard. Like, we have seen her get stuck on a guard and slap the floor and be ready to guard them, and she’s gotten steals off of that,” she said.
“We see her on the fast break getting steals. Like, I think Angel’s been great defensively, and she changes the landscape of the game when she is in the game. And so that’s why I have her as my Defensive Player of the Year,” DeMita added.
Reese won her second rebounding title and finished with 521 boards, making her the first player in WNBA history to grab 500 rebounds in a single season. She also averaged 1.8 steals per game and piled up 77 steals.
Her impact goes past the numbers too. Reese led the league in defensive win shares at 3.4, and opponents scored 15.8 fewer points per 100 possessions with her on the floor. Atlanta finished 30-14 and grabbed the No. 4 seed, which gave the Dream home-court advantage against the Washington Mystics in the first round.
DeMita did not leave Wilson out of the conversation, though. The Las Vegas Aces star landed at No. 2 on her ballot.
“And second, I have A’ja Wilson, because her presence on the floor just kind of changes everything, and you just can’t deny that,” and then she rounded off her top three with Gabby Williams.
That is hard to argue with. Wilson led the league in blocks for a fifth straight season, and she already owns three Defensive Player of the Year trophies.
Williams, on the other hand, averaged 1.7 steals per game, led the league in steal percentage at 3.5, and anchored a Golden State Valkyries defense that finished with the best defensive rating in the WNBA. She also picked up Best Defensive Player honors at the 2026 FIBA World Cup this month.
It would be interesting to see who ends up with the honors: Reese, who has turned out to be the defensive prodigy in recent years, or Wilson, who has been undoubtedly dominant on both ends of the floor.
This article originally appeared on Pro Football Network.