The NBA opened award season by naming the first finalists for its regular-season honors, and Victor Wembanyama was front and center. He was one of three finalists for Defensive Player of the Year, alongside Ausar Thompson and Chet Holmgren.
Wembanyama, 21, was described as the prohibitive favorite to win the award after averaging 25 points, 11.5 rebounds, 3.1 assists, one steal and a league-leading 3.1 blocks per game in the 2025-26 season. That kind of production has turned defense into the defining part of his case, and it has also kept him in the conversation for the league's biggest prizes, including in a recent column that picked him over Nikola Jokić in a tight MVP race.
The finalists matter because the Defensive Player of the Year race is not crowded by accident. All three men represent teams with top defenses, but the omission that jumped out most was Rudy Gobert, who had won the award four times and was widely viewed as the biggest snub. The NBA's choices made clear that the panel was looking forward as much as backward, with Wembanyama's season-long impact outweighing the past excellence of a player whose resume is already full of trophies.
The league also named its finalists for Sixth Man of the Year: Keldon Johnson, Tim Hardaway Jr. and Jaime Jaquez Jr. Jaquez appeared to be the favorite, but Johnson's inclusion stood out because his candidacy leaned heavily on team success. He played all 82 games, averaged 13.2 points, 5.4 rebounds and 1.5 assists, and shot 52 percent from the floor, a useful bench line on a team that needed reliable production night after night.
More award finalists were due later at halftime of the Pistons-Magic game, when the league planned to announce the finalists for Coach of the Year, Rookie of the Year and Most Valuable Player. Mitch Johnson and Wembanyama had decent chances of showing up in two of those categories, while Dylan Harper was expected to miss the cut for Rookie of the Year. The next announcement will sharpen the picture around the league's top individual honors, but the first wave already says plenty about where the NBA thinks the season's best stories began.
