Erik Spoelstra’s Miami Heat teams have always been built on a gritty defensive mindset. As Pat Riley begins to re-tool the ...

Jalen Williams - the Oklahoma City Thunder's do-it-all guard/wing/occasional small-ball center - made a bold proposal. "I ...

Defensive Player of the Year What to know ... or power forward has won the award 17 of the last 20 years. Kawhi Leonard won it in 2014-15 and 2015-16, and Marcus Smart won it in 2021-22.

When the Spurs announced that Victor Wembanyama would miss the rest of the season with a blood clot in his shoulder, he was -2000 to win Defensive Player of the Year. The French phenom was the largest ...

The Decline of Marcus Smart and Lessons from Westbrook . The dramatic shift in Marcus Smart's career trajectory is a cautionary tale in th ...

Who would have told Marcus Smart just two years ago that he would end up playing for the team with the worst record in the ...

With award frontrunner Victor Wembanyama sidelined for the season, the chase for the Hakeem Olajuwon Trophy is wide open.

WASHINGTON — Marcus Smart’s new teammates ... He was named the 2021-22 NBA Defensive Player of the Year, becoming the first guard to win the award since Gary Payton in the 1995-96 season.

Marcus Smart lived in a perfect world before being traded to the Washington Wizards. In the beginning stages of his NBA career ... He even won the Defensive Player of the Year there in 2022.

Rarely is it fair to say that an award race is over in February, but had Wembanyama remained healthy, he was going to win Defensive Player of the Year ... That's how Smart won in 2022.

On this edition of The Big Number, Tom Haberstroh and Dan Devine take a look at every single front-runner for each of the NBA ...