#1 Rudy Gobert – Utah Jazz
Only 10 players in NBA history have won numerous Defensive Player of the Year awards, only 9 players have won the award back-to-back times, some doing it more than once, and only four players have won 3+ times.
Rudy Gobert has done every single one of these things and he has a chance to join Dikembe Mutombo and Ben Wallace, two of the best defenders in NBA history, with four Defensive Player of the Year awards if he can win the award again.
Seeing as he is only 29-years-old and has won the award three times already, I think the chances of Gobert tying Mutombo and Wallace at some point in his career is very high, but can he do so during the 2021-22 season?
The Utah Jazz were the best team in the league last year record-wise in large part because of the contributions that Gobert supplied them with on the defensive-end of the floor.
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Rudy Gobert averaged 2.7 blocks per game last season and he has averaged 2.0+ blocks per game for seven consecutive years now! The guy is an absolute monster when it comes to contesting and blocking shots in the paint, which is why Gobert should once again be the favorite to win Defensive Player of the Year.
The Los Angeles Clippers exposed him last year in the playoffs, forcing him to switch onto smaller guys out on the perimeter and taking Gobert out of his comfort zone, so it should definitely be interesting to see what improvements Rudy Gobert makes to his game, but overall, he is still an elite-level rim-protector.
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Myles Turner, Ben Simmons, Giannis Antetokounmpo and Draymond Green all had strong defensive years last year, yet Gobert still took in 84 of the total first place votes for Defensive Player of the Year, so it will be hard for someone to knock him off of his pedestal right now.
