Jaren Jackson Jr. had emotional reaction to winning Defensive Player of the Year
Jaren Jackson Jr. on Monday won the NBA’s Defensive Player of the Year award, and he was quite moved by the honor.
The Memphis Grizzlies shared a video via Twitter showing Jackson’s reaction to winning the award. His mother was pretty pumped about it and very vocal, while Jaren soaked things in.
DPOYYYYY @jarenjacksonjr 🏆 pic.twitter.com/SSVBCYmcKJ
— Memphis Grizzlies (@memgrizz) April 17, 2023
Jackson won the award pretty easily. He received 56 first-place votes, which was more than second-place finisher Brook Lopez, who received 31 votes. Evan Mobley was third, Draymond Green was fourth and Bam Adebayo finished fifth.
Full breakdown of DPOY voting: https://t.co/evATs8obPw pic.twitter.com/PF1UvNJ0NI
— Marc Stein (@TheSteinLine) April 17, 2023
Jackson led the NBA with 3.0 blocks per game and also averaged 1.0 steals per game.
The No. 4 overall pick in the 2018 draft became the second player in Grizzlies history to win the honor, following Marc Gasol, who won it in 2012-2013.