Kawhi Leonard Wins NBA Defensive Player of the Year Award

by

It’s been a helluva 10-month run for Kawhi Leonard.

The 2014 NBA Finals MVP was announced as the Defensive Player of the Year Thursday morning, narrowly edging out Draymond Green of Golden State, who actually finished with more first-place votes than San Antonio’s small forward. Leonard is the first Spur to win the award since David Robinson did it during the 1991-92 season.

At 23 years old, Leonard is tied for the youngest player to ever win the award — though Dwight Howard and Alvin Robertson were both several months younger at the time they won.

When Kawhi was on the court this season, the Spurs held opponents to 97.1 points per 100 possessions, a number that would’ve led the league. When he was off the floor, San Antonio’s defense was league-average.

But the interesting thing to note: Kawhi played just 64 games this season, which is the lowest total number of games played by any previous DPoY award winners, and he did so without winning the most first-place votes. His surge over the last two months of the season left enough of a mark that voters included him more often on their ballots than they did Green, which is kind of crazy.

The NBA’s leading thief put on a show down the stretch of the regular season, and the terror he cast over opposing offenses was a remarkable thing to watch. Man, the last 12 hours have been something else, and the playoffs have only just begun.

Somewhere, Brian Elfus (Leonard’s agent) is popping bottles, as he should be. His client is exploding on the NBA scene.


  • John T.

    Get your checkbook out Mr. Holt…who knows maybe this is a sign Curry is the MVP and voters balked at the idea of Golden State sweeping the top two individual awards.

    It didn’t hurt that Kawhi shined the last 20 games of the season with a tough schedule showcasing his abilities against Curry, Harden etc, while Golden State was largely in cruise control down the stretch.

    I fully expect a one hour award ceremony speech, with tears, mothers, and a shout-out to Bryce Cotton…or just a brief and awkward acceptance of the award. Congrats Kawhi indubitably well deserved!

  • GlassofOrangeJuice

    With kawhi, it will be brief and awkward ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

  • Chok.

    “…I don’t feel no certain way about it”.

  • CarpeDiemCras

    Hope he doesn’t cry.I was watching the Coach Bud speech and he just cried through the whole thing,to the point that I starting thinking,who cries this much.

  • hoopsaf

    If Kawhi stays healthy for an entire season, he’s an MVP candidate next season. DPOY, Finals MVP, the leading scorer for the champions, every version of analytics out there (RPM, WinShares, WinsProduced, PER, etc.) loves him. And people still question whether he’s a max player or a superstar? He’s a top 5 player in the league in my book.

  • DorieStreet

    Guys are cut from different cloths, and experienced different circumstances (Budenholzer is twice as old as Leonard) in their lives to mold them to this point.
    And as far as crying goes— remember Dick Vermeil?

  • DorieStreet

    Two major individual awards in the last two of his brief 4-season career…as I recall the “this guy’s ceiling is limited” articles numerous comments that concurred with those observations, since Leonard was drafted back in June 2011.