Every NBA Defensive Player of the Year Winner

The NBA has named a Defensive Player of the Year every season since 1982-83 — 44 awards, won by 27 different players. Three men have won it four times: Dikembe Mutombo, Ben Wallace and Rudy Gobert. The most recent winner is Victor Wembanyama, who in 2025-26 became the first unanimous choice in the award's history at age 22.

Below is the complete list, plus what the list actually tells you: why centers own the award, the handful of players who paired it with an MVP, and the 65-game rule that now decides who is even eligible.

The Award at a Glance

Every NBA Defensive Player of the Year, 1982-83 to 2025-26

This page is refreshed each spring, after the NBA announces its regular-season awards in April.

The Four-Time Winners

Nobody has won Defensive Player of the Year five times. Three players are tied at four:

Mutombo is the only one of the three to win with three different franchises, and he won his last one at age 34 after being traded from Atlanta to Philadelphia in the middle of the 2000-01 season. Ben Wallace's four are the most unlikely: he went undrafted out of Virginia Union in 1996 and became the defensive centerpiece of a Detroit team that won the 2004 title — one of the more surprising entries on the list of NBA champions by year. Gobert's four came across two teams and seven seasons, and his 2023-24 win — his first in Minnesota — made him the first player to win it for two different franchises since Mutombo.

One step below them is Dwight Howard, the only player to win three in a row (2009, 2010, 2011). Six players have won twice: Sidney Moncrief, Mark Eaton, Dennis Rodman, Hakeem Olajuwon, Alonzo Mourning and Kawhi Leonard.

Why Centers Dominate the Award

Of the 44 awards handed out, 27 have gone to centers — 61 percent. The full breakdown:

There are two reasons for the tilt, and only one of them is about basketball.

The basketball reason is real: a rim protector's job produces the most valuable defensive possessions on the floor. A center who deters shots at the basket changes where the entire opposing offense is allowed to score. Team defensive ratings move more with a center's presence than with anyone else's, and the on/off numbers that voters now lean on tend to reward the biggest man in the lineup.

The other reason is measurement. Blocks and rebounds are counted; a wing fighting through screens for 40 minutes is not. Defensive Player of the Year has always been a blocks award at the margins, and the block leaderboard is a list of centers. Only eight perimeter players have ever won it — Sidney Moncrief, Alvin Robertson, Michael Cooper, Michael Jordan, Gary Payton, Ron Artest, Kawhi Leonard and Marcus Smart — and only two of those, Payton in 1996 and Smart in 2022, were point guards.

That 26-year gap between Payton and Smart is the clearest statement the voting has made. It is also why height keeps showing up on the list: for a sense of just how tall the modern rim-protector archetype has gotten, see the tallest players in NBA history.

Winning DPOY and MVP in the Same Season

Three players have taken both awards in one year:

Jordan's 1987-88 is still the only time a guard has done it. He won the scoring title at 35.0 points per game and led the league in steals at 3.2 the same season.

Olajuwon's 1993-94 goes further than either of the others. He won MVP, Defensive Player of the Year, Finals MVP and the championship in the same season — the only player who has ever done all four. The award he won is now named after him. His run is one reason his name shows up on both the Finals MVP list and this one.

Antetokounmpo's 2019-20 double came in a pandemic-shortened season, and he won DPOY as a power forward rather than a center — one of only five power forwards to take the award.

The NFL runs an award with the same name and the same basic problem — one position tends to dominate the ballot because its production is the easiest to count. The full NFL Defensive Player of the Year list is a useful comparison.

A separate and rarer double is Rookie of the Year plus Defensive Player of the Year at any point in a career. Only three players have done it: Michael Jordan, David Robinson and Victor Wembanyama. You can find all three on the complete Rookie of the Year list.

The 65-Game Minimum, Introduced in 2023-24

Starting with the 2023-24 season, the collective bargaining agreement made a games-played threshold part of award eligibility for the first time. To be considered for Defensive Player of the Year, a player must:

• Play at least 65 regular-season games, where a "game" means at least 20 minutes on the floor; and
• He is allowed a maximum of two games of 15 to 19 minutes to count toward that total.

There is one exception. A player who reaches 62 games, then suffers a season-ending injury, can still qualify if those games represent at least 85 percent of his team's games up to that point.

The rule applies to MVP, Defensive Player of the Year, Most Improved Player, All-NBA and All-Defensive teams. It does not apply to Rookie of the Year, Sixth Man of the Year or the All-Rookie teams.

The stated purpose was to discourage load management — the practice of resting healthy stars in a schedule that runs 82 games across roughly six months. Its practical effect on this award has been to remove candidates before the voting starts: a defensive anchor who misses 18 games is simply off the ballot, no matter how good the 64 games were. It has been controversial since the day it landed, and it has already cost real candidates real hardware.

International Winners

Six of the 27 winners were born outside the United States: Hakeem Olajuwon (Nigeria), Dikembe Mutombo (DR Congo), Marc Gasol (Spain), Rudy Gobert (France), Giannis Antetokounmpo (Greece) and Victor Wembanyama (France). A seventh, Joakim Noah, was born in New York City but played internationally for France.

Two of the last nine awards have gone to French centers, which is a reasonable summary of where the sport's best rim protection currently comes from.

There is a nice family footnote in there too: Marc Gasol won Defensive Player of the Year with Memphis in 2013; his older brother Pau won Rookie of the Year with the same franchise in 2002.

Victor Wembanyama, 2025-26

Wembanyama's win on April 20, 2026 was the first unanimous Defensive Player of the Year in the award's 44-year history — every voter on the 100-member global media panel put him first. Chet Holmgren and Ausar Thompson finished behind him, both receiving DPOY votes for the first time.

The supporting numbers:

• 3.08 blocks per game, leading the NBA for a third straight season
• San Antonio allowed 10.1 fewer points per 100 possessions with him on the floor than off it
• The Spurs finished third in the league in defensive rating

He was 22 years and 98 days old on the final day of the regular season, making him the youngest Defensive Player of the Year ever, and the first player to win it within his first three seasons since David Robinson in 1991-92. He is also the only player to have won both Rookie of the Year and Defensive Player of the Year unanimously.

Wembanyama is the fourth Spur to win the award, after Alvin Robertson (1986), David Robinson (1992) and Kawhi Leonard (2015 and 2016) — no franchise has more distinct winners. San Antonio reached the 2026 Finals that season and lost 4-1 to the New York Knicks.

FAQ

Who won the most recent NBA Defensive Player of the Year award? Victor Wembanyama of the San Antonio Spurs, for 2025-26. He was the first unanimous winner in the award's history and, at 22, the youngest.

Who has won Defensive Player of the Year the most times? Dikembe Mutombo, Ben Wallace and Rudy Gobert, with four each. No one has won it five times.

When did the NBA start giving out Defensive Player of the Year? The 1982-83 season. Sixth Man of the Year was introduced the same year. Sidney Moncrief of the Milwaukee Bucks was the first winner and won again in 1983-84.

Has anyone won MVP and Defensive Player of the Year in the same season? Three players: Michael Jordan (1987-88), Hakeem Olajuwon (1993-94) and Giannis Antetokounmpo (2019-20). Olajuwon also added Finals MVP and the title that year, which no one else has done.

Why do centers win Defensive Player of the Year so often? Twenty-seven of 44 awards have gone to centers. Rim protection is the highest-leverage defensive job on the floor, and it is also the easiest to measure — blocks and rebounds show up in a box score in a way that perimeter defense does not.

How many guards have won Defensive Player of the Year? Seven awards have gone to guards: Sidney Moncrief (twice), Alvin Robertson, Michael Cooper, Michael Jordan, Gary Payton and Marcus Smart. Payton and Smart are the only point guards.

What is the 65-game rule? Since 2023-24, a player must appear in at least 65 games — with at least 20 minutes in each, allowing two exceptions of 15 to 19 minutes — to be eligible for DPOY, MVP, Most Improved Player, All-NBA and All-Defensive teams.

Which trophy is the Defensive Player of the Year award? The Hakeem Olajuwon Trophy, renamed in December 2022 when the NBA rebranded its major individual awards after Hall of Fame players.