{"id":707407,"date":"2026-04-10T13:01:50","date_gmt":"2026-04-10T13:01:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/707407\/"},"modified":"2026-04-10T13:01:50","modified_gmt":"2026-04-10T13:01:50","slug":"2026-nba-defensive-player-of-the-year-predictions-its-victor-wembanyama-duh","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/707407\/","title":{"rendered":"2026 NBA Defensive Player of the Year predictions: It&#8217;s Victor Wembanyama. Duh."},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Every day this week, the NBC Sports NBA writing crew is breaking down the league\u2019s individual postseason awards and giving you their thoughts and predictions. We\u2019ve done <a class=\"Link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nbcsports.com\/nba\/news\/2026-nba-mvp-predictions-nbc-sports-roundtable-gives-their-full-picks-between-gilgeous-alexander-wembanyama\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">MVP<\/a>, <a class=\"Link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nbcsports.com\/nba\/news\/2026-nba-coach-of-the-year-predictions-nbc-sports-roundtable-gives-their-picks-between-mazzulla-bickerstaff\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Coach of the Year<\/a>, <a class=\"Link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nbcsports.com\/nba\/news\/2026-nba-rookie-of-the-year-predictions-nbc-sports-roundtable-shows-love-to-hornets-kon-knueppel\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Rookie of the Year<\/a> and <a class=\"Link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nbcsports.com\/nba\/news\/2026-nba-sixth-man-of-the-year-predictions-keldon-johnson-jaime-jaquez-jr-in-tight-race\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Sixth Man of the Year<\/a>. Today, let\u2019s get into Defensive Player of the Year. Here\u2019s where we stand.<\/p>\n<p>Defensive Player of the YearKurt Helin, NBC Sports Lead NBA Writer: Victor Wembanyama<\/p>\n<p>The only question here is if he will be the first unanimous Defensive Player of the Year in NBA history. He should be. Wembanyama has to play 20+ minutes in one more game this season to reach the league-mandated 65-game threshold, but that should happen Friday or Sunday. The more interesting question is what would happen if Wembanyama didn\u2019t qualify for the award? My guess is Chet Holmgren would win going away.<\/p>\n<p>Jay Coucher, NBC Sports Lead Betting Analyst: Victor Wembanyama<\/p>\n<p>Over\/under 7.5 career DPOYs for Wemby?<\/p>\n<p>Raphielle Johnson, NBC Sports Fantasy basketball lead analyst: Victor Wembanyama<\/p>\n<p>This should be the first of many DPOY awards that Wembanyama wins during his NBA career. The Spurs star has been dominant defensively, averaging 9.4 defensive rebounds, 1.0 steals and a league-best 3.1 blocks per game. And the blocks don\u2019t tell the complete story, as there has been no shortage of \u201cbusiness decisions\u201d by offensive players who choose not to shoot because of Wembanyama\u2019s presence in the paint.<\/p>\n<p>Eric Samulski, MLB\/NBA Writer, NBC Sports: Victor Wembanyama<\/p>\n<p>A written defense of this is like needing a written defense to prove that The Great Gatsby was written by F. Scott Fitzgerald. It just was. We know that. It\u2019s fact.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Every day this week, the NBC Sports NBA writing crew is breaking down the league\u2019s individual postseason awards&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":707408,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3795],"tags":[7,294,293,177,4070,6],"class_list":{"0":"post-707407","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-memphis-grizzlies","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-grizzlies","10":"tag-memphis","11":"tag-memphis-grizzlies","12":"tag-memphisgrizzlies","13":"tag-nba"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116380545457842455","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/707407","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=707407"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/707407\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/707408"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=707407"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=707407"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=707407"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}