NEW YORK – Milwaukee Bucks’ Giannis Antetokounmpo has been named Kia NBA’s Defensive Player of the Year 2019-20, the NBA announced today. This marks the first NBA Defensive Player of the Year award for Antetokounmpo, who finished in second place last season.
Antetokounmpo, the 2018-19 Kia NBA Most Valuable Player, becomes the fifth player selected as both NBA MVP and NBA Defender of the Year in a career, joining Michael Jordan, Hakeem Olajuwon, David Robinson and Kevin Garnett.
The 6-11 Greek forward joins Sidney Moncrief as the only players to win the Kia NBA Defensive Player of the Year award with the Bucks. Moncrief played for Milwaukee when he earned the honor in both 1982-83 and 1983-84 seasons, the first two seasons in which the award was awarded.
Antetokounmpo received 75 first-place votes from a global panel of 100 sports reporters and broadcasters and earned 432 total points. Los Angeles Lakers forward Anthony Davis (200 points; 14 votes in first place) and Utah Jazz center Rudy Gobert (187 points; six votes in first place) finished in second and third place respectively. Gobert was honored as Kia NBA Defender of the Year in each of the previous two seasons.
Players were awarded five points for each vote for first place, three points for each vote for second place and one point for each vote for third place. The voting was conducted on the basis of the regular season games played up to 11 March. The seed matches, which were played from July 30 to August 14 as part of the 2019-20 season reboot, did not count towards the vote for the Kia NBA Defender of the Year Award or the other traditional season-ending awards of the year. championship.
In games played through March 11, Antetokounmpo led the Bucks to the NBA’s best defensive score as they allowed 101.6 points per 100 possessions. With Antetokounmpo on the field, Milwaukee conceded just 96.5 points for 100 possessions, the lowest defensive score among the more than 300 players who averaged at least 15.0 minutes per game.
From the start of the season through March 11, Milwaukee opponents shot a 41.3% NBA low from the field. Antetokounmpo kept his matchups at 36.5% shooting from the field, the lowest percentage among the more than 250 players who have faced at least 300 shots.
Antetokounmpo recorded an average of 11.5 NBA high defensive rebounds in games played through March 11, highlighted by nine games with at least 15 defensive rebounds. He also averages 1.04 steals and 1.02 blocked shots, making him one of six players to mediate one or more in both categories.
In addition to being named Kia NBA Defensive Player of the Year, Antetokounmpo is a finalist for the 2019-20 Kia NBA Most Valuable Award after averaging 29.6 points, 13.7 rebounds and 5.8 assists in games played up to on March 11 while helping Milwaukee post an NBA – best record of 53-12 during that time. TNT will announce the winner of the Kia NBA MVP Award during coverage of the 2020 NBA playoffs.
Below are the voting results for the Kia NBA Defensive Player of the Year 2019-20 award. The vote was tabulated by the independent accounting firm Ernst & Young LLP. Full ballots for each voter will be posted on pr.nba.com after all end-of-season awards are announced.
