Though OKC Thunder star Chet Holmgren certainly had a case for the honor himself, Monday evening, it was revealed that Spurs wunderkind Victor Wembanyama had been crowned as the 2026 NBA Defensive Player of the Year.
In the process, the big man became both the youngest player to take home the honor and the first unanimous recipient.
While Holmgren may not have been able to hold his Western Conference frontcourt rival off from taking home the DPOY, as he finished second in the running with 259 total points, the Thunder as a whole are in a prime position to make sure he doesn't now go on to enter into a truly exclusive category of past winners.
Throughout the league's 79 years of existence, only five Defensive Player of the Year winners have gone on to win an NBA title that same season: Michael Cooper (1987), Dennis Rodman (1990), Hakeem Olajuwon (1994), Kevin Garnett (2008), and Draymond Green (2017).
Needless to say, Wemby is actively looking to become the sixth member of this club, and, based on the current odds, it appears more than likely that the team that poses the biggest threat to stopping him short of achieving such a goal is the reigning champion Thunder.
Chet Holmgren continues to dominate on defense for Thunder in playoffs
Though he may not have received the ultimate stamp of recognition that Wembanyama did for his efforts on the less glamorous side of the ball, Holmgren was without question a worthy candidate for the illustrious honor.
After all, he wrapped up the 2025-26 campaign ranking third in the entire league in total blocks (131), second in defensive rating (102.3), and fourth in opponent field goal percentage (42.7) among those who played a minimum of 50 games on the year while also anchoring the league's top-rated defensive unit.
Here in the early stages of the playoffs, he finds himself producing just as effectively as he has all season, holding opponents to an astonishingly bad 33.3 percent shooting from the floor while swatting away two shots in roughly 25 minutes of play during OKC's 119-84 rout over the Suns in Sunday's Game 1 opener.
A year ago, his defense played one of the biggest roles in the Thunder taking home their first title in franchise history.
During these early stages of the 2026 potseason, it appears that not only are these skills back to that same title-winning level of play, but his offensive production has caught up with it as well.
All things considered, with the way Chet and this Thunder team are producing to kick off the playoffs, it seems Wemby's chances of adding to his growing collection of DPOY firsts are a tad slim.
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