Victor Wembanyama just became the first unanimous Defensive Player of the Year in NBA history. Every single first-place vote went to the 22-year-old Spurs forward. Chet Holmgren finished second. Ausar Thompson finished third. Nobody was within shouting distance.
This is the rare award where the result was a formality the second the season started. Wembanyama has been the most disruptive defender in basketball since the day he stepped on an NBA floor, and his sophomore season was the moment the rest of the league had to admit it out loud.
Here is what the numbers do not capture. Wembanyama is the only player in the league who changes the geometry of an offense by his very presence. Teams stop running pick and roll. They stop attacking the rim. They settle for contested jumpers because the alternative is a Wembanyama block that ends up in the second row. He averages more than three blocks a game because he chases shots from across the court that would be uncontested for any other defender.
The advanced metrics back it up. Opponent field goal percentage at the rim drops by 17 percentage points when Wembanyama is contesting. Defensive Box Plus-Minus is in territory that has not been seen since prime Dikembe Mutombo. The Spurs are a top-three defense in basketball, and that ranking lives or dies on Wembanyama being on the floor.
Holmgren had a great case. The Thunder were the best defensive team in basketball. Holmgren is one of the most versatile bigs in the league. His shot-blocking is elite. His mobility is elite. In any other year, he wins this award and nobody complains.
Ausar Thompson made a serious push too. The Pistons forward is the best perimeter defender in basketball, full stop. He guards point guards, wings, and small-ball fours interchangeably. He is the rare wing who genuinely impacts a team’s defensive identity by himself.
But neither was going to beat Wembanyama. The voters got this right.
The fact that the vote was unanimous is the bigger story. Nobody has ever gotten every first-place vote for DPOY. Not Hakeem Olajuwon. Not Dikembe Mutombo. Not Dwight Howard. Not Kawhi Leonard. Not Rudy Gobert. The fact that Wembanyama did it at age 22, in his second season, against legitimate competition, is the kind of historical context that gets repeated for the next 30 years.
What makes this even more impressive is that Wembanyama is also a top-three MVP candidate. He is one of three finalists alongside Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and Nikola Jokic. Most players would be exhausted carrying the defensive load Wembanyama carries, but he also leads the Spurs in scoring and is a top-five passer at his position. It is genuinely unfair how complete his game already is.
SGA is the heavy favorite to repeat as MVP. The Thunder won 64 games. SGA is averaging something like 31 points on top-level efficiency. The voters love MVP narratives that line up with team success. Wembanyama probably finishes third. Jokic is in his usual second-place territory.
That is fine. Wembanyama has time. He is 22. He is going to win multiple MVPs. He is going to win multiple DPOYs. He is probably going to win at least one championship before he turns 28. The only question right now is how high the ceiling actually goes.
The Spurs got Wembanyama in 2023 and have spent every minute since then building the perfect roster around him. They are about to be measured against the New York Knicks in the NBA Finals. That stage is the only one big enough to fairly evaluate where Wembanyama actually stands in the league right now.
The DPOY is locked. The MVP is probably going to SGA. The championship is up for grabs. And the league has its newest defining star.
A longtime sports reporter, Carlos Garcia has written about some of the biggest and most notable athletic events of the last 5 years. He has been credentialed to cover MLS, NBA and MLB games all over the United States. His work has been published on Fox Sports, Bleacher Report, AOL and the Washington Post.
