NBA announced on Tuesday that Milwaukee Bucks’ superstar Giannis Antetokounmpo won the Defensive Player of the Year Award for 2019/20 season. Antetokounmpo received 75 first-place votes from 100 voters, edging out Los Angeles Lakers’ Anthony Davis (14 first-place votes) and Utah Jazz’s Rudy Gobert (six first-place votes).
By being voted the best defender in the league, Antetokounmpo became only the fifth player in NBA history to have both MVP and DPOY honors next to his name. Only Hall of Famers Kevin Garnett, Hakeem Olajuwon, Michael Jordan, and David Robinson managed to do this before him.
“At the end of the day, when you go out there and compete and when you have guys behind you and next to you that compete as hard, awards like this can come,” said Antetokounmpo after receiving the award. “At the end of the day, what I get from this is that you have to win. You have to do whatever it takes every day to go out there and put yourself in a position, put your team in a position to win, and good things are going to happen, and everything is gonna take care of itself.”
Giannis Antetokounmpo, who won the MVP award in 2019, was an integral piece in the best defense in the league over the course of 2019/20 regular season. With the 25-year-old Greek on the floor, Bucks only allowed 96.5 points per 100 possessions, which is well below the NBA average.
Antetokounmpo also led the NBA in defensive win shares, while limiting the players he guarded to an impressive 39.9 field goal percentage. Stats-wise, he contributed with 11.4 defensive rebounds (13.6 total), 1.0 steals, and 1.0 blocks per game.
The DPOY presumably won’t be the only award for Antetokounmpo this year, as he is the front-favorite to repeat as MVP. If this turns out to be the case, he would only be the third player alongside Olajuwon and Jordan to win DPOY and MVP in the same season.
