Rudy Gobert has spent enough years in the NBA to recognize the difference between losing an award and feeling erased by it. Victor Wembanyama was the unanimous and historically inevitable choice for 2025-26 Defensive Player of the Year, collecting all 100 first-place votes, but Gobert’s frustration was not really about finishing behind him. It was about finishing outside the finalists altogether, then landing fourth in the final voting despite another season in which he remained one of the league’s defining interior defenders. The official results placed Gobert behind Wembanyama, Chet Holmgren and Ausar Thompson.
Gobert did not hide how he felt about that outcome.
“Not the first time I get disrespected, probably not the last. I’m gonna keep being myself. If they wanna disrespect greatness, take it for granted, whatever, sooner or later they’ll realize the impact.”
Rudy Gobert on not being named a finalist for Defensive Player of the Year: “Not the first time I get disrespected, probably not the last.”
Asked about how he stopped Jokic late. Joked that “I got lucky.” pic.twitter.com/RTl1xVgaWg
— Chris Hine (@ChristopherHine) April 21, 2026
The quote is pure Gobert in that way: wounded, defiant and entirely convinced that time will do his arguing for him. His reaction made clear that he viewed the result as another entry in a career-long pattern of being undervalued, even after building one of the strongest defensive résumés of his generation.
That is what gives the comment more weight than ordinary post-award bitterness. Gobert is not some fringe candidate grasping for attention. He is a four-time Defensive Player of the Year winner, already one of the most decorated defenders the league has seen, and he is speaking from the perspective of someone who believes the league grows used to his effect and then mistakes familiarity for decline. Even some coverage sympathetic to Wembanyama’s runaway victory still noted Gobert’s omission from the finalist list as notable.
There is also a larger truth buried underneath the irritation. Defensive awards are often voted through a mix of impact, visibility, team identity and narrative momentum. Wembanyama had all of it this season, and the unanimous result reflects that. But Gobert’s complaint points to the other side of the process: once a player’s excellence becomes expected, it can stop feeling urgent to reward. In that sense, his use of the word “disrespected” is not just emotional. It is philosophical. He is arguing that the league has normalized his standards to the point of taking them for granted.
