The deep vein thrombosis that ended Victor Wembanyama’s second season at the All-Star break did more than scuttle the San Antonio Spurs’ hopes of reaching the postseason and temporarily deprive the NBA of its most heralded young star.
It also upended the league’s 2024-25 Defensive Player of the Year race.
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Wembanyama, who had finished as the runner-up one year ago as a rookie, seemed like the clear frontrunner this time around. But because the league’s collective bargaining agreement requires candidates for most major awards to play in at least 65 regular-season games (or a minimum of 62 games in a case of a season-ending injury), Wembanyama, who only played 46 regular-season games before being shut down, is ineligible for the award this year.
The games-played threshold also eliminated other defensive standouts from consideration, including the Oklahoma City Thunder’s Alex Caruso (54 regular-season games played), the Dallas Mavericks’ Anthony Davis (51 games), the Los Angeles Lakers’ Dorian Finney-Smith (63), the Denver Nuggets’ Aaron Gordon (51), the Boston Celtics’ Jrue Holiday (62), the Orlando Magic’s Jalen Suggs (35) and the Detroit Pistons’ Ausar Thompson (59).
In addition, players like Orlando’s Jonathan Isaac, who played enough games (71) to qualify, were tripped up by an additional criterion that requires players to play at least 20 minutes in at least 63 games (and two other games between 15-20 minutes).
Which got us to thinking: With the Defensive Player of the Year (DPOY) field as wide open as it’s been in years, who should win when the official results are announced Thursday night on TNT?
The three finalists for the 2024-25 Kia NBA Defensive Player of the Year Award:
▪️ Dyson Daniels of @ATLHawks
▪️ Draymond Green of @warriors
▪️ Evan Mobley of @cavs pic.twitter.com/32gTy5KMXi— NBA Communications (@NBAPR) April 20, 2025
To gain some insight, we spoke with 13 NBA head and assistant coaches and asked them how they would have voted for first, second and third place. We granted them anonymity to give them full freedom to vote their consciences, without fear of reprisals and because teams typically don’t allow assistant coaches to speak with members of the media. The coaches we surveyed were asked not to vote for their own players and to pick only from the field of players eligible for the league’s official awards.
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A panel of 100 sports writers and broadcasters who regularly cover the NBA vote for league awards, but we chose to poll coaches because they’re the ones who are most well-versed with how well defenders wreck teams’ game plans and because of the complexities involved with defense. The coaches pore over video of every game and monitor players’ tendencies.
The coaches’ choice was clear: Atlanta Hawks guard Dyson Daniels finished first in The Athletic’s polling, receiving 42 total points and six first-place votes. Daniels finished well ahead of the second-place choice, Oklahoma City’s Luguentz Dort, who had 24 total points and four first-place votes. The Golden State Warriors’ Draymond Green, with 18 total points and two first-place votes, finished third.
Acquired from New Orleans last July in the trade that sent Dejounte Murray to the Pelicans, Daniels led all qualified players in steals at 3.01 per game, the highest average since the 1990-91 season, when Alvin Robertson led the league with 3.04 steals per game. At 22, the Australian was a revelation with an impeccable nickname — “The Great Barrier Thief.”
“Dyson Daniels has established himself as one of the elite perimeter defenders in the league, leading the league in steals and doing some things we haven’t seen in a long time,” a coach who gave his first-place vote to Daniels said.
“He has good instincts, he’s opportunistic and he operates within the team defensive scheme. He picks his spots, and as you operate offensively, you have to be cognizant of where he is and how you protect the ball.”
As another coach said of Daniels: “That guy is a walking steal. He’s so disruptive.”
Another coach who voted Daniels first said: “We were always on high alert when he was on the ball. Certain things that he does, you just can’t really teach. He just has these catlike instincts that make an incredible impact for his team.”
Dort, though, had some strong support, too, as the key man on Oklahoma City’s top-rated defense (a 106.6 defensive rating this season).
Luguentz Dort is the key player on Oklahoma City’s top-ranked defense. (Alonzo Adams / Imagn Images)
“Draymond and Evan Mobley, their teams are very good defenses, a lot because of them,” said a coach who picked Dort first. “I just think Lu Dort individually takes the challenge on the other team’s best player, which I think from a coaching perspective is super important.”
The coach cited Dort’s ability to guard any of the five positions on the floor.
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“There’s times he’s guarding point guards. There’s times when, due to injuries or guys out, they go small and he’s guarding bigs,” the coach said. “So, I think his versatility plays a huge role in that, and his ability to just guard so many positions, I think, is super unique and super impactful in the modern NBA. Because of five-out offenses, there’s a lot of (defensive) efforts that have to be made, (and) I think him being on the perimeter helps in a lot of different ways.”
An assistant coach who picked Dort said, “OKC has the best defense in the league, and he’s a key piece to that. He’s a great point-of-attack defender. He’s so physical; he wears offensive players down.”
But Green, looking for a second DPOY award after winning it in 2016-17, also has supporters.
Draymond Green, shown here contesting a shot by Zion Williamson, is the ‘heartbeat’ of the Golden State Warriors’ defense, a coach said. (David Gonzales / Imagn Images)
Said one assistant coach of the now 35-year-old Green: “He’s the heartbeat of their team, and he brings a level of physicality and toughness that is contagious for their group. I think his defensive versatility probably sets him apart, where we can literally guard one through five, and there are very few people in the NBA that are capable of doing that.”
Among the others who received votes, the 23-year-old Mobley got some love for his role in anchoring the Cavaliers’ eighth-ranked defense.
“I like the impact that he makes for Cleveland,” an assistant coach said. “There’s a lot of things that he does that do not show up in the stat sheet. Let’s take away steals on the defensive end. Let’s take away blocks. Let’s take away defensive rebounds. Let’s take away all those stats and just watch him switch on a guard, guard the ball, be off the ball and be in protection spots and basically take up one side of the floor.”
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(Top photo of Dyson Daniels: Jeff Hanisch / Imagn Images)
