Victor Wembanyama’s unanimous NBA Defensive Player of the Year should be first of many

San Antonio Spurs star Victor Wembanyama is the 2025-26 NBA Defensive Player of the Year, the league announced Monday. Wembanyama is the first NBA player to win Defensive Player of the Year unanimously, as he received all 100 first-place votes. The Thunder’s Chet Holmgren finished second, and Pistons star Ausar Thompson finished third. In just his third NBA season, Wembanyama is the youngest winner of the NBA’s most prestigious defensive award, taking home the trophy at age 22. 

Wembanyama came close to doing so far earlier. He grabbed 19 first-place votes and finished in second place as a rookie during the 2023-24 season, ultimately losing to French National Team teammate Rudy Gobert. Last year, he was the heavy betting favorite for most of the season but failed to reach the NBA’s 65-game awards minimum, so he was not eligible to win the trophy.

In 2026, thanks to a cameo in San Antonio’s penultimate regular-season game, he was able to hit the 65-game mark and take home the award without facing much competition. Wembanyama appeared in 64 games and also gets credit for playing in the NBA Cup title game for San Antonio.

Wembanyama didn’t just lead the NBA in blocks with 197. He did so by a margin (44 blocks) wider than the difference between second-place Jay Huff and ninth-place Evan Mobley (40 blocks). He additionally racked up 66 steals, 168 deflections and 597 contested shots over the course of the season. 

NBA blocks leaders: 2025-26 season

Wembanyama finished the season having contested only the 12th-most shots in the NBA, but that is actually a major argument in his favor. Watch any Spurs game, and you’ll immediately notice the shots opponents don’t take for fear of challenging him near the basket. Only the Thunder allowed opponents to take shots within 6 feet of the rim less frequently than the Spurs.

That’s the Wembanyama effect, and it makes scoring against the Spurs nearly impossible. Spurs opponents scored only 103.6 points per 100 possessions when he was on the floor this season. For reference, the Thunder allowed 106.5 points per 100 possessions. No team has registered a full-season defensive rating lower than San Antonio’s with Wembanyama on the floor since the 2019-20 Milwaukee Bucks. That made him an extremely easy choice for this award.

The Defensive Player of the Year award had never been won unanimously before Wembanyama. The closest a player came previously was Ben Wallace during the 2001-02 season, in which he claimed 116 of the 120 possible first-place votes. So, in a year during which Wembanyama was the youngest player to ever win the award, he was also the first to ever do so by claiming every first-place vote. Not a great sign for any defenders who hope to challenge him in the years to come.

Wembanyama is the fourth Spur to win the Defensive Player of the Year award. Kawhi Leonard did so twice last decade, taking home consecutive wins in the 2014-15 and 2015-16 seasons. David Robinson claimed his trophy in 1992, and before him, Alvin Robertson won back in 1986. This is the first major accolade that Wembanyama has earned that his predecessor among superstar San Antonio big men, Tim Duncan, never won.

Why Wemby is primed to break DPOY records

Duncan is the benchmark in San Antonio, and if the first three years of Wembanyama’s career are any indication, he has a chance to match and exceed the greatest player in franchise history if he continues on his present trajectory. Defensively, he’s capable of things no NBA player has ever done before. 

So long as he reaches 65 games, he would seem to be a near lock to win this award every year for the foreseeable future. This is the most dynastic of the NBA’s individual trophies. There are three four-time winners (Rudy Gobert, Ben Wallace and Dikembe Mutombo), a three-time winner (Dwight Howard) and four more two-time winners (Leonard, Alonzo Mourning, Hakeem Olajuwon and Mark Eaton). 

Assuming he’s healthy enough to do so, Wembanyama setting a new record with five wins and then making his new record untouchable feels downright inevitable. If he’s the best defender in the NBA at 22, there is a very real chance that by the time he hits his apex, he’s the best defender in the history of the sport.