Rudy Gobert wins his career’s 3rd NBA Defensive Player of the Year

NBA announced Utah Jazz centre Rudy Gobert has won the 2020-21 Kia NBA Defensive Player of the Year. He wins the DPOY award ahead of Draymond Green (Golden State Warriors) and Bin Simmons (Philadelphia 76ers).

This isn’t the first time that Gobert has earned the honour. He also won in the 2017-18 and 2018-19 seasons making this year his third. The 7’1″ French player has also joined an elite list of players who have won the award at least 3 times, including Dikembe Mutombo (4), Ben Wallace (4), and Dwight Howard (3).

Here are the top three rankings for this season’s DPOY Award:

1. Rudy Gobert (Utah Jazz): 464 points – 84 first-place votes
2. Bin Simmons (Philadelphia 76ers): 287 points – 15 first-place votes
3. Draymond Green (Golden State Warriors): 76 points

The voting consisted of a global panel of 100 sportswriters and broadcasters and the players were awarded 5 points for every first-place vote, 3 points for every second-place vote, and a point for every third-place vote.

Rudy Gobert Stats

Gobert recorded 6 games with at least 15 defensive rebounds and 8 games with at least 5 blocks. He also grabbed a season-high 20 defensive rebounds against the Golden State Warriors this season. Gobert blocked a career-high 9 shots playing against the Chicago Bulls.

NBA Advanced Stats suggest Gobert ranks 2nd (in the NBA) in defensive win shares. This is a measure of a player’s defensive impact on the winning. He has defended the most field goal attempts in the NBA (549) that too at the rim. He also held his opponents to 50.1% shooting on those shots. This impact also earned him the third-lowest mark among the 27 players who have defended at least 300 shots at the rim in NBA this season.

Gobert has been selected as an NBA All-Star for the second time now and he averaged 14.3 points and 13.5 rebounds in 71 games this season. He also topped the charts in NBA in total rebounds (960) while ranking second in rebounds per game. He led the league shooting an NBA-high 67.5 percent from the field for the 2nd time in the last 3 seasons. A machine!