The NBA announced its All-Defense teams Friday night, and the league’s latest defensive honor roll was topped by the same player who already owns the season’s top individual prize: Victor Wembanyama. The San Antonio Spurs center made the first team after winning Defensive Player of the Year, becoming the first rookie in NBA history to claim one of the five coveted first-team spots in 2023–24.
Wembanyama led the NBA with 3.1 blocks per game, a number that only hints at how much ground he erased around the rim. Ausar Thompson and Chet Holmgren also earned first-team All-Defense selections, finishing behind Wembanyama in Defensive Player of the Year voting after both made strong cases of their own.
The league names two All-Defense teams each season to recognize the 10 best defenders in basketball, and this year’s first team reflected a changing of the guard as much as a celebration of elite rim protection. Holmgren was the best rim protector in the NBA outside of San Antonio for the Thunder, while Thompson took a big step forward in his third season and emerged as a true game-changer on defense.
The second team carried its own weight, with Rudy Gobert taking one of the final two spots after another season of tremendous paint protection. Gobert’s place on the list pushed him closer to a career marker few players have ever reached: with one more All-Defense nod, he will become only the seventh player in league history to collect 10 selections. Michael Jordan finished his career with nine All-Defense selections.
That gives Friday night’s announcement a sharper edge than a routine awards release. Wembanyama’s rise was already clear in the regular season, but the first-team nod confirms how quickly he has shifted from promising rookie to the league’s most feared defensive presence. And for Gobert, the next selection is no longer just another accolade. It would put him in a club so small that even Jordan fell one short of it.
The NBA’s defensive honors rarely settle every debate, but this year’s list drew a clear line: the game’s most disruptive defenders are no longer only established veterans. They include a rookie who made history, a third-year forward who changed games, and a big man in Holmgren whose value was impossible to miss in Oklahoma City. The next question is whether any of them can keep this pace long enough to turn one award into a lasting era.
