Cavaliers' Evan Mobley Wins NBA Defensive Player Of The Year Award For 2024-25
Mobley won the award in a season where he was an All-Star for the first time and set a career high for scoring.
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.
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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.
“It just feels great to finally get this award," Mobley said.
Saying “finally" might be a bit of a stretch. Mobley is only 23 — the fifth-youngest player to win the award, joining fellow 23-year-olds Dwight Howard, Jaren Jackson Jr., Alvin Robertson and Kawhi Leonard as winners of the Hakeem Olajuwon Trophy.
Mobley won the award in a season where he was an All-Star for the first time and set a career high for scoring.
“That was going hand-in-hand all year," Mobley said. “I was trying to figure out how I could be more offensively productive and still maintain my defensive style and prowess. So, I feel like I did a good job this year and it clearly shows."
But the case Cleveland coach Kenny Atkinson made for Mobley was how different the Cavaliers’ defensive numbers were with Mobley on the court and without. Put simply, with him on the court, they were airtight.
“It’s a huge dip, like 12 places or something," Atkinson said. “That really screams out, to me. Probably the No. 1 stat that I look at."
It was a wide-open race with seven players getting at least one first-place vote and Mobley getting the top spot on only 35% of the ballots. There was a consensus, however, that he was a top-three player — Mobley was listed somewhere on 85% of ballots, by far the most of anyone in the DPOY chase.
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.
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