A Cavs player has never won Defensive Player of the Year

The Cleveland Cavaliers have had some downright dominant defenses over the year, anchored by really talented defensive players. That included this season, when Jarrett Allen and Evan Mobley spearheaded the league’s seventh-ranked defense. Yet even so, in the 40 years that the Defensive Player of the Year award has existed, it has never gone to a member of the Cleveland Cavaliers.

Occasionally the award has gone to players who would later play with the Cavs, such as Ben Wallace, but no Cavs player has even won. That was again the case this year, when neither Allen nor Mobley earned so much as a single vote for the award. Marcus Smart of the Boston Celtics took home the 2022 edition of DPOY.

The Cleveland Cavaliers have had a number of good teams and talented defensive players, but no Cavs player has even won Defensive Player of the Year

Three times a Cavs player has finished in the Top 5 of the voting, most recently in 2016-17 when LeBron James tied for fifth place. The other two finishes also belong to him, as he placed fourth in 2010, and in 2009 he came in second place. That is the highest a Cavalier has ever finished, although it was a distant second; Dwight Howard received 105 first-place votes to LeBron’s four.

That’s it. Hot Rod Williams, Zydrunas Ilgauskas, Larry Nance — none ever managed to crack into significant consideration for the award. Going further back, Jim Brewer and Jim Cleamons both made second-team All-Defense, but wouldn’t have won the award even if it had existed in the 1970s.

Now, however, things could be changing for the Cavs’ chances. Their defense ended up at seventh, but it was top-3 for most of the season, anchored by two young bigs in Jarrett Allen and Evan Mobley. As both continue to improve the Cavs will likely have a perennial top-5 unit on defense, the underlying foundation to a Defensive Player of the Year case.

Evan Mobley is an incredibly talented defensive player, a truly special big man who can defend every inch of the court. He is a superb rim protector already, but he also can float out to defend in space in both switch situations and as the centerpiece of a zone. His versatility allowed the Cavs to deploy different defensive looks against a variety of teams.

It’s not an exaggeration to say that Mobley had the best defensive season for a rookie since Tim Duncan, and Duncan was named to 15 All-Defense Teams; the fact that he never won Defensive Player of the Year is one of the great travesties in NBA award history. If Mobley is even 75 percent of the defender Duncan was, he will be in the mix for defensive awards for years.

Mobley represents the Cavs’ best chance to bring home a Defensive Player of the Year award. He will experience stiff competition, as every elite defender has, trying to rise to the top against aging veterans like Rudy Gobert and Draymond Green and against young bigs like Bam Adebayo and Jaren Jackson Jr.

The Cavs can’t ignore defense across the rest of their roster; having a strong defensive identity is how this team can contend for playoff victories moving forward. Yet having a player like Evan Mobley gives them the flexibility to place talented offensive players at other positions who don’t have to bear the heaviest of defensive burdens.

The Cavs are one of 12 teams to never win Defensive Player of the Year, but they have a player in Mobley who represents a better chance to win the award than any of those other teams possess. A generational talent on defense, Mobley has an excellent chance to bring home the league’s top prize for that end of the court.