Chet Holmgren finds himself putting forth a career-best campaign here in his third season with the OKC Thunder, and appears to be on track to earn his first All-Star nod as a result.
However, considering his truly elite level of play, there seems to be an even bigger accomplishment waiting for him that, despite only being halfway through the year, seems to already be his for the taking.
Per DraftKing's Sportsbook, Holmgren is currently the odds-on favorite to take home the 2026 NBA Defensive Player of the Year award at -120, a significant distance between his closest threats to the honor in Victor Wembanyama at +650 and Rudy Gobert at +300.
Thunder big Chet Holmgren is on a collision course toward earning DPOY
The numbers simply speak for themselves when it comes to this particular conversation.
Through 34 games played, Holmgren ranks sixth in the league in total blocks (62) and second in win shares (minimum of 25 games played) while boasting a ridiculous defensive rating of 102.4 and holding opponents to a mere 43.5 percent shooting from the floor and just 53.2 percent shooting when within five feet from the rim.
On top of this, the Thunder, who sport the top-ranked defense in the entire league by a landslide this year with a rating of 105.4, find themselves dipping to their fourth-lowest rating with the big man off the floor and have managed to fall into the 90 percentile in opponent effective field goal percentage (51.5), the 96 percentile in opponent turnover percentage (18.3), and the 98 percentile in opponent points per 100 possessions (103.2) with him on the court.
Throughout the offseason, it was widely believed that Holmgren would be a heavy favorite to take home the illustrious DPOY honor should he remain healthy, and that his path to the hardware would become even clearer should Wembanyama once again be bitten by the injury bug.
So far, through 40 games played, both have seemingly already come to fruition, as Chet has missed just six games in 2025-26 while Wemby is just three missed games away from being disqualified from contention, what with the league's new 65-game minimum policy.
Though there's still a full second half of the campaign to play through and, in turn, a lot could theoretically happen to shake up this particular race, assuming Holmgren and the Thunder continue on their current pace, it's hard to think that the 23-year-old doesn't already have the Hakeem Olajuwon Trophy virtually on lock.