San Antonio Spurs star Victor Wembanyama has been unanimously named the 2025-26 NBA Defensive Player of the Year, per Shams Charania.
San Antonio Spurs' Victor Wembanyama has won the 2025-26 NBA Defensive Player of the Year award. He is the youngest player in league history to win the award.
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— Shams Charania (@ShamsCharania) April 20, 2026
Not only is Wembanyama the youngest player ever to win the award, he’s also the first player ever to win it unanimously.
For the second straight year, Wembanyama led the NBA in blocks while anchoring a Spurs defense that ranked near the top of the league. Not only was he the league’s best rim protector, he singlehandedly altered the way other teams ran their offenses.
He received all 100 first-place votes while OKC’s Chet Holmgren finished in second and Detroit’s Ausar Thompson finished in third place.
Wembanyama joins Alvin Robertson, Tim Duncan and Kawhi Leonard as the four players in Spurs history to take home a DPOY. He also joins Michael Jordan as the only two players every to win both the DPOY and the Rookie of the Year.
“I feel like he is one of the hardest workers that I’ve ever been around,” Spurs wing Keldon Johnson said. “He takes his craft very seriously. I feel like this is just a small token of what’s to come for Victor. He’s a special player now. He’s 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’s given to him for Defensive Player of the Year.”
As a finalist for the MVP award as well, Wembanyama will almost certainly be on the All-NBA first team as well as the All-Defensive team.
At just 22 years old, he’s already a generational defender and is well on his way to being one of the league’s all-time great defensive players.
James Parker contributed to this story.
