Despite not receiving as many first place votes as the Warriors Draymond Green did, San Antonio Spurs small forward Kawhi Leonard has been named the NBA’s defensive player of the year for the 2014-2015 season. This is the first of many defensive awards Leonard could win in his young NBA career, and he beat out some pretty stiff competition to do so.

Voting results:

1: Kawhi Leonard (333 points)

2: Draymond Green (317 points)

3: DeAndre Jordan (261 points)

4: Anthony Davis (107 points)

5: Rudy Gobert (33 points)

6: Andrew Bogut (31 points)

7: Tony Allen (29 points)

8: Tim Duncan (12 points)

9: Michael Kidd-Gilchrist (9 points)

10: Jimmy Butler (7 points)

11: Marc Gasol (7 points)

12: Joakim Noah (4 points)

13: LeBron James (3 points)

14: Trevor Ariza (3 points)

15: Patrick Beverley (1 point)

16: DeMarre Carroll (1 point)

17: Nerlens Noel (1 point)

18: Chris Paul (1 point)

19: Hassan Whiteside (1 point)

Kawhi Leonard is the first perimeter defender win the award since 2004 when Ron Artest won. Leonard also lead the league in steals per game, finishing the regular season averaging 2.3 steals.

Like The Game Day Report on Facebook

[twitter-follow screen_name='TheGD_Report' show_count='yes']