The Biggest obstacle to Victor Wembanyama running away with DPOY is clear

Victor Wembanyama is going to win a lot of awards by the time he is finished. He's already placed First Team All-Defense, Rookie of the Year, and an Olympic Silver medal on his resume at the young age of 20 years old.

'The sky's the limit' is one of the most overused phrases in sports, but sometimes a player comes along who completely embodies a cliche, and Wemby breaches that category.

By now, you've likely memorized Wemby's defensive statistics from last season. For those of you with a fleeting memory or somehow missed the biggest story in the NBA last season, he finished the season averaging 3.6 blocks and 1.2 steals per game.

In the last three months of the season, his blocks per game went as follows: 3.9 in February, 3.8 in March, and 5.6 through the five games in April.

Wembanyama's path to DPOY isn't a sure thing

There's good reason for Victor being the runaway favorite to win Defensive Player of the Year this season. But nothing is guaranteed, and on a recent podcast episode of The Hoop Collective, ESPN sportswriter Tim McMahon brought up what could potentially be a serious obstruction to Wembanyama's DPOY campaign.

“If Oklahoma City is way above and beyond the rest of the league, it would be interesting to see how that impacts Defensive Player of the Year voting.” - Tim McMahon

To be honest, the most annoying part of this revelation is that the team that may prove to be The Alien's biggest impediment to winning is one of their biggest rivals. When you listen to that quote from Tim McMahon, you may not understand why this is so relevant right away. But the key is in OKC's depth of talent.

No matter what sportsbook you check, you'll find at least three Thunder players in the top 15-20 favorites to win DPOY. FanDuel lists Chet Holmgren as the second-leading favorite. Despite how far behind he is (Wembanyama -155, Holmgren +1100), that's a concern when he has Alex Caruso and Lu Dort to help elevate the team's defensive identity.

Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Isaiah Hartenstein, and Jalen Williams aren't slouches, either. This team is full of great defenders, and as McMahon said, if OKC is miles better than everyone else, it makes voters strongly consider that team's standout performer.

The rest of the Spurs will have to help Wembanyama secure the award by providing the support necessary to elevate this team to some semblance of a defensive juggernaut. One thing is for sure: they can't be at the bottom of the league again and expect Wemby to win.