Wembanyama has locked up the Defensive Player of the Year award with 2 months to go

An interesting subplot has emerged for the San Antonio Spurs this season with first-time all-star Victor Wembanyama seemingly having locked up the Defensive Player of the Year award with two months to spare. That has taken some of the suspense out of the award race, though the league's recent addition of a 65-game played requirement is a looming threat.

Wembanyama has missed six of the team's first 52 games and can only afford to miss 10 more and still be eligible for the award. The long all-star break should undoubtedly help his case, with Wembanyama looking noticeably tired in recent games.

There were even several instances where he was slow to react to a drive, uncharacteristically giving easy shots in the paint. Nevertheless, teams are still wary about challenging him at the rim, and there are stats to prove it.

Wembanyama is the Defensive Player of the Year frontrunner

With 3.8 blocks per game, he is on pace to swat the most shots per game since 1995-96. To further put that into perspective, if he were to only play 70 games, he would still block more than 260 shots. For reference, that's far more than Spurs Hall of Famer Tim Duncan ever rejected in even an 80+ game season, despite Duncan being fifth all-time in blocked shots.

As Wembanyama's conditioning improves and he continues to learn the finer points of defensive positioning, he could get even better on that end of the floor. Think of it this way: he may be getting by on his raw skill, length, and size but is still dominating on the defensive end.

That bodes well for the Spurs, who could craft a superior defense around Wembanyama if and when they decide to start Stephon Castle alongside De'Aaron Fox. If the perimeter players stay at home on shooters, it makes the defense much more difficult to score on.

Having an athletic backcourt could make life easier on Wemby since his presence should allow them to be aggressive in an effort to force turnovers with his rim protection deterring drives even if they miss a steal.

All in all, this year's Defensive Player of the Year race is seemingly a foregone conclusion with Wembanyama dominating on that end of the floor. Wembanyama is still improving, and the Spurs have the potential to get better around him defensively. As a result, he could win the first of many Defensive Player of the Year awards this season.