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Cleveland Cavaliers forward/center Evan Mobley has been named the recipient of the Hakeem Olajuwon Trophy as the 2024-25 Kia NBA Defensive Player of the Year, the league announced on Thursday night.
As a result of receiving more votes than Golden State Warriors forward Draymond Green and Atlanta Hawks guard Dyson Daniels for the award, Mobley became the first player in Cavs history to achieve such a feat.
No player in Cavaliers history had ever won the NBA's Defensive Player of the Year award before this season.
This is just the third time in the last 10 seasons that a player from the Eastern Conference has won the award, as Mobley joins Marcus Smart (BOS, 2021-22) and Giannis Antetokounmpo (MIL, 2019-20).
The Cavs put together one of their best seasons in franchise history this year. With Mobley anchoring their defense, Cleveland finished the regular season with a 64-18 record, their best since the 2008-09 season when LeBron James led them to 66 wins and a trip to the Eastern Conference Finals.
Mobley received 35 of the 100 first-place votes for DPOY. Daniels finished second with 25 first-place votes, followed by Green in third with 15 first-place votes.
Evan Mobley's Defensive Player of the Year campaign
The Cavaliers won 64 games this season and earned the 1-seed in the Eastern Conference for the first time since the 2015-16 season. Cleveland went on to win their only championship in team history that year.
For the vast majority of the 2024-25 NBA season, San Antonio Spurs big man Victor Wembanyama was the clear favorite for this year's Defensive Player of the Year. However, after being diagnosed with a deep vein thrombosis in his right shoulder, Wembanyama was shut down for the remainder of the year after the All-Star break.
Since Wemby only played 46 games and did not cross the league's 65-game plateau that the league instituted for awards and honors with its last CBA, he was deemed ineligible for postseason honors.
Mobley, who was in the running for DPOY throughout the season, immediately became one of the frontrunners for the award with Green and Daniels. Led by Mobley, the Cavs ranked eighth in defensive rating and held their opponents to just 45.4 percent on average from the floor, the third-best mark in the league.
This season, Mobley averaged 18.5 points, 9.3 rebounds, 3.2 assists, and 1.6 blocks per game while shooting 55.7 percent from the floor and 37.0 percent from 3-point range. He finished the season tied for fifth in total blocks (113) and tied for 12th in defensive win shares (3.8). Mobley also owned the 12th-best individual defensive rating (108.4) in the league.
Due to his defensive heroics and helping lead the Cavs during this historic season, Mobley's teammates backed his Defensive Player of the Year campaign.
“Evan is Defensive Player of the Year. Should be a no-brainer,” Cavs guard Darius Garland said of Mobley in March. “You’ve seen it for however many games we are at right now. He’s definitely the best defender in the league by far. Switching onto guards and bigs.
“Contests. Steals. Blocks. Isolation defense. Defensive efficiency. On/off. There’s no 7-footer that is doing that right now in this league.”
Tristan Thompson, a long-time veteran center for the Cavs, also made his DPOY case for Mobley, stating that he is the “key” to Cleveland's defensive success.
This has been the best season of Mobley's career, as the 23-year-old was named a first-time All-Star before receiving this award. Earning the DPOY award also means that Mobley's extension jumps from $224 million to $269 million through the 2029-30 season.
After claiming this award, Mobley will most certainly be named to the All-Defensive First Team when that list is announced later in the postseason. Should he be selected for the All-Defensive First Team, that will mark the second time in Mobley's career that he has earned such a distinction.
