The long drought for guards winning the NBA Defensive Player of the Year Award is officially over with Marcus Smart’s victory for the 2021-22 season. It was only fitting too for Smart to be presented with the award by the last NBA guard to win it nearly three decades ago.
The Boston Celtics guard Smart was announced on Monday to have earned DPOY honors this season. Retired Hall of Famer Gary Payton traveled to the Celtics facility in Boston to present Smart with the trophy. It was a touching (and also hilarious) moment where Payton threw it back to an old Smart tweet joking that no guard without the initials “GP” was allowed to win Defensive Player of the Year.
Somewhere in the fine print for winning this is…
𝚁𝚞𝚕𝚎 𝟺𝟽.𝟷𝙰
“𝙽𝚘 𝙽𝙱𝙰 𝚐𝚞𝚊𝚛𝚍𝚜 𝚠𝚒𝚝𝚑𝚘𝚞𝚝 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚒𝚗𝚒𝚝𝚒𝚊𝚕𝚜 𝙶𝙿 𝚊𝚛𝚎 𝚊𝚕𝚕𝚘𝚠𝚎𝚍 𝚝𝚘 𝚠𝚒𝚗 𝙳𝙿𝙾𝚈” https://t.co/aOzQFwmXco— marcus smart (@smart_MS3) March 8, 2022
Payton actually arrived at the Celtics facility with Smart’s tweet printed out and blown up. He also shared some cool words about how deserving Smart was of the DPOY award. Check out the great moment.
After Marcus Smart tweeted only guards with the initials GP could win #KiaDPOY, Gary Payton showed up in person to present him with the award 🙌#NBAAwards pic.twitter.com/mafUsQOHNF
— NBA on TNT (@NBAonTNT) April 18, 2022
Payton won Defensive Player of the Year when he was with the Seattle SuperSonics in 1995-96. Since then, every single DPOY winner has been a big man (except for Ron Artest in 2003-04 and Kawhi Leonard in 2014-15 and 2015-16). Smart is the very first guard to win DPOY since Payton.
Smart definitely earned the award with his versatile and tenacious defensive impact for the 51-win Celtics this season. He also earned the respect of Payton, who tends to be tough on today’s generation of guards.
