Evan Mobley said his goal coming into the season with the Cleveland Cavaliers was to win the NBA Defensive Player of the Year award.
He got it done.
The Cavs consider Mobley to be their best defensive player, and the league thought even more highly of him. Mobley held off fellow finalists Dyson Daniels of Atlanta and Draymond Green of Golden State for the award, the results being announced Thursday night in a broadcast on TNT.
Green won the award in 2017, was a top-three finisher for the fifth time, and was bidding to become the 11th player in NBA history to win it at least twice. Mobley won it for the first time, after finishing third in the voting in 2023. Daniels was a finalist for the first time.
Based on Daniels, Green and Mobley all being finalists, it's reasonable to think that they will be on the All-Defensive team when it is released by the NBA later this spring. It would be the ninth All-Defensive selection for Green, the second for Mobley and the first for Daniels.
Minnesota's Rudy Gobert won the award last season, his record-tying fourth DPOY trophy.
The award was voted on earlier this month by a global panel of 100 writers and broadcasters who cover the league. The NBA releases a list of three finalists for its seven major individual awards — MVP, Most Improved Player, Coach of the Year, Clutch Player of the Year, Rookie of the Year, Sixth Man of the Year and Defensive Player of the Year — after the votes are counted but keeps the order of finish a secret until the results are broadcast.
Earlier this week, Boston’s Payton Pritchard won sixth man of the year and New York’s Jalen Brunson won clutch player of the year.
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AP NBA: https://apnews.com/nba
Tim Reynolds, The Associated Press
