Victor Wembanyama is about to face a problem only all-time greats encounter

Victor Wembanyama's path to Defensive Player of the Year may have a few forks in the road. Well, that's if the coaches of other DPOY contenders had any say in the matter. Timberwolves head coach Chris Finch gave his center Rudy Gobert a vote of confidence this weekend, saying, "I think he's far and away the leader for Defensive Player of the Year."

To be fair, Gobert has been superb this season. He's the anchor of the Timberwolves stout defense, and in most other seasons, he probably would be the leader for the award. But this isn't most other seasons — Victor Wembanyama has arrived, and (assuming he hits the 65 game threshold) is the runaway favorite for the award, his first of likely many.

And Finch, for the record, should vouch for his guy. Gobert will probably finish top-three in DPOY voting, and he has four of the trophies for a reason. But him calling Gobert "far and away" the leader for the award does make me think that Wemby is about to deal with something that LeBron James and other all-time great players have experienced in their careers; when someone is clearly the best at something every year, they have to stand out even more from the crowd to be considered for an award. For James, it was MVP. For Wemby, it could be DPOY.

Wembanyama is almost good enough to win DPOY every year

I know, surely I'm getting ahead of myself by basically talking about voter fatigue before Wemby has won even one DPOY. But he's already pretty clearly the best defender in the league. Something crazy would need to happen for that to no longer be the case. It already feels silly talking about anyone else as the DPOY, and when someone is consistently miles ahead of the competition, they actually have to re-prove themself annually to be seriously considered for the award they should always be the frontrunner for.

It didn't take long for Wemby to enter "so good you actually forget about him" territory as a defender, but at the tail end of year three, he's just about there. It's assumed that he's going to be a historically good deterrent around the rim every night... Because he is.

It's a nice problem for Spurs fans to have. Whatever Wemby's future holds regarding actual DPOY awards, he's already established himself as the preeminent defender in this league. Spurs fans won't ever forget that, even if the rest of the league gets numb to it.