CLEVELAND — In a season where the clear-cut choice for NBA Defensive Player of the Year didn’t appear on any ballots, the Cleveland Cavaliers’ Evan Mobley was recognized Thursday as the league’s top defender following a solid statistical campaign made stronger by the visual of watching him anchor his team’s defense. He becomes the first Cavalier ever to be recognized for the award.
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Mobley, 23, beat out the Golden State Warriors’ Draymond Green and the Atlanta Hawks’ Dyson Daniels as the NBA’s best defensive player, according to results from voting by 100 media members released by the league. As a result, Mobley is a substantially richer young man — the maximum contract extension he signed last summer called for a raise over the life of the five-year deal worth about $45 million if he won top defensive honors.
Mobley’s victory was announced on TNT before Game 3 of the first-round playoff series between the New York Knicks and the Detroit Pistons.
Mobley averaged 1.6 blocks per game, which was fourth among all players who appeared in at least 65 games, the minimum number to qualify for most awards. Mobley was the only player in the NBA to average at least 1.5 blocks and fewer than two fouls per game, and is just the eighth player in history to average that many blocks on two or fewer fouls per game while also contributing at least 0.8 steals per game.
In all likelihood, the San Antonio Spurs’ Victor Wembanyama was cruising toward the first of what could be many Defensive Player of the Year awards to come, but his season was cut short after 46 games by a blood clot in his shoulder. He was averaging 3.8 blocks per game, easily the best in the league, to go with 1.1 steals and 11.0 rebounds while changing countless shots as a roving, 7-foot-4 menace.
But with Wemby out of the awards race because he was well short of the required 65 games, the vote came down to who got more credit serving as the backbone for his team’s defense — Mobley or Green — and Daniels, the Hawks guard who easily led the league with 3.0 steals per game.
Mobley is a 6-11 power forward who can protect the rim, but his true value as a defender is his quick feet, hands and intelligence that allow him to guard any position on the court. He was fifth in the NBA in contested shots (10.4 per game) and seventh in contested 3s (3.2 per game). The Cavs, who had the 8th-rated defense overall and were third in the NBA in opponent field-goal percentage (.454), often used a switching scheme for all five players made possible by Mobley’s ability to defend smaller players on the perimeter and recover to help at the rim.
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The Cavs were also a much better defensive team when Mobley was on the court (seventh in the league at 111.7 points per 100 possessions allowed) versus when he was on the bench (17th, 114.3 points per 100 possessions allowed).
Mobley was a runner-up for the league’s top defensive award in 2023 and was voted to the All-NBA defensive first team that season. He is one of four players to compile at least 400 blocks and 200 steals over the last four seasons.
Green, 35, anchored a Warriors defense that was actually rated one slot better than Cleveland’s defense. The 2017 NBA Defensive Player of the Year averaged 1.5 steals and 1.0 blocks while tying for the team lead with 6.1 rebounds per game — significant on a roster void of many impact-making bigs. Green, 6-6, has been, and still is, a switchable defender capable of guarding any position.
Daniels, 22, is a 6-7 wing who led the league not only in steals (by a wide margin), but also deflections. The Hawks are not a good defensive team (rated 18th), but Daniels’ presence made them better at that end of the court.
Earlier this week, the league announced Boston’s Payton Pritchard as Sixth Man of the Year and New York’s Jalen Brunson as Clutch Player of the Year. The announcements for NBA MVP, Coach of the Year, Most Improved Player, and Rookie of the Year are still to come.
This story will be updated.
(Photo: David Richard / Imagn Images)
This news was originally published on this post .
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