SACRAMENTO – As a couple of his Oklahoma City Thunder teammates yelled out, “DPOY!” their defensive specialist Luguentz Dort humbly smiled, accepting those verbal flowers at a recent morning shootaround.
The Thunder guard has been nicknamed “The Dorture Chamber” for his suffocating defense, but his Thunder teammates have also been calling him “DPOY” of late to bring awareness to their belief that he should win the 2025 NBA Defensive Player of the Year award. Dort, who has never won any NBA defensive award, appreciated the support from his teammates.
“Oh, I mean it’s nice,” Dort told Andscape about the compliment hours before the Thunder defeated the Sacramento Kings 121-105 on March 25. “Obviously, my teammates, they are wanting for me to get [recognition] for what I do on the court. But it feels good. At the end of the day, I’m it still putting my head down and going out there and doing my job.”
Golden State Warriors forward Draymond Green appears to be the frontrunner for the 2025 NBA Defensive Player of the Year award. Other candidates include Dort, Cleveland Cavaliers forward Evan Mobley and Atlanta Hawks guard Dyson Daniels. Dort believes his elite defensive play on the NBA team with the best regular-season record merits consideration for the top award.
“They can all guard. I’m pretty sure they all have great numbers,” said Dort, about the other Defensive Player of the Year candidates. “But I take a lot of pride in my matchup every time and I’m doing everything I can on my side to help my team win.”
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A panel of NBA sportswriters and broadcasters from the United States and Canada vote for the seasonal awards — that includes the Defensive Player of the Year award and the NBA All-Defensive teams. The NBA’s defensive awards may be the most challenging to vote on because defense is hard to quantify statistically. Dort agreed.
“This is just not numbers,” Dort said. “You got to be able to watch the games and see exactly what the players are doing on the court. I don’t think I have the most steals or the most blocks or whatever. But I know that every time I have a matchup, my matchup is in Hell. So, it is hard to [define] because if you just go based on the numbers, I probably won’t be in a conversation. But if you watch the [other] games and watch our games the whole season, you could see that I take a lot of pride [in defense].”
The Thunder’s defense led the league in steals, deflections and points off turnovers in the regular season. Opposing players scored 30 points against the Thunder an NBA-low 12 times this season. Stars like Devin Booker, Cade Cunningham, Luka Doncic, LeBron James and Donovan Mitchell have been held to scoring lower than their season averages against Dort this season. Milwaukee Bucks guard Damian Lillard described Dort as the league’s best NBA defender due to his “perfect balance of strength, quickness, speed and desire to do it.”
So, what’s the recipe for Dort defensive success?
“For me, I just make everything tough,” Dort said. “There’s a lot of great players in this league. I feel like they know how to make a lot of tough shots. So, all I got to do is make everything tough and I always use my physicality. I feel like for my body and my seat, I can contain a lot of guys. So, if I use those two tools, it is hard to score on me.”
This season, Dort averaged career-bests of 1.1 steals per game and 41.2% 3-point shooting while also averaging 10.1 points per game. Dort believes he should be receiving more respect for his defensive play.
“Obviously, I’m saying that because I haven’t been rewarded in all my years,” said Dort, who has played his entire six-year career with the Thunder but has never made an NBA All-Defensive team. “I’ve been in the league and I’ve been doing same exact stuff. But at the same time, I’m not playing for that. I’m doing my job every day to help my team win. And then if I get awarded one day I’ll be happy.
“I’ve never got a first-team [All-Defense award]. Never got a second-team.”
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The Thunder finished the regular season with a league-best 68-14 record. Oklahoma City also has one of the leading candidates for the NBA’s Most Valuable Player award in Shai Gilgeous-Alexander; a star trio in Gilgeous-Alexander, Jalen Williams and Chet Holmgren; talented perimeter defenders in Dort, Cason Wallace, Alex Caruso, Gilgeous-Alexander and Williams; and size at center in Isaiah Hartenstein.
But there is reason for caution with Oklahoma City. Last season, the Thunder went from being the Western Conference’s top seed in the playoffs to losing to the Dallas Mavericks in the second round of the 2024 NBA playoffs. Oklahoma City is also currently the youngest team in the NBA at an average player age of 24.1 years old and 2.56 seasons of experience.
So, is it time to believe in the Thunder this time around or does their age and lack of experience bring caution? Dort believes the Thunder are a title team, but did make a point that their record is an afterthought once the postseason starts.
“We’re trusting the work. We’re in this position for a reason,” Dort said. “We know what we’re capable of and know what we’ve been doing all year. So, we can’t let that type of success distract. But I feel like the postseason is a whole different season. So, it don’t matter where you ended up. I feel like it’s like a [start from] zero mentality really.
“We just got to go out there and still do the job. And I feel like with all the work that we’ve been doing all year, we are confident that we can do it.”
One thing that the Thunder are confident in as well is the “DPOY” type of defense Dort can bring nightly in the postseason. While most NBA players get ecstatic on dunks and 3-pointers, this Canadian gets his high from stopping the best offensive players and making clutch defensive plays.
“I feel like it’s like a game-winner,” said Dort about a clutch defensive play. “I feel like I just did something crazy or a half court short or whatever. That’s the feeling that I get when I get a huge stop. It just gives me a lot of joy and trust in the team and myself. It’s always good when you have a team behind you that supports you at the same time.”