LeBron James has almost everything.
Four championships. Four MVPs. Four Finals MVPs. 22 All-NBA selections. Olympic gold medals. Scoring records. Longevity records. A résumé so large it sometimes feels less like a career and more like an NBA museum wing.
But there is still one award missing from his house, and it still bothers him.
“That’s the only award that I don’t have in my house, that kind of stings,”
LeBron said, talking about never winning Defensive Player of the Year. And honestly, this is not just a superstar complaining for the sake of complaining. The specific season he keeps coming back to is 2012-13, when he finished second in the voting behind Marc Gasol.
LeBron’s frustration is simple.
“The year I finished second in Defensive Player of the Year, the guy who won didn’t even make First Team All-Defense,” he said.
That part is true, and it remains one of the strangest award contradictions in modern NBA history. Gasol won Defensive Player of the Year, but the coaches voted him to the All-Defensive Second Team. LeBron, meanwhile, made First Team All-Defense. Different voting groups created a weird result: the league’s official best defender was not voted as one of the top first-team defenders at his own position.
That has always felt messy.
To be fair, Gasol was a brilliant defensive anchor for the Memphis Grizzlies. He was not some random choice. He organized one of the league’s best defenses, communicated everything, protected the paint with positioning instead of highlight blocks, and made Memphis miserable to play against. But LeBron’s case was also obvious. At his Miami peak, he was a defensive monster: strong enough to switch onto bigs, fast enough to erase guards, smart enough to blow up actions before they developed, and athletic enough to turn a defensive possession into a dunk before the other team knew what happened.
That is why it still eats at him. LeBron was not just a scorer who wanted extra credit. He was one of the most versatile defenders in basketball, playing on a 66-win Heat team that overwhelmed the league. In that version, he could guard almost anyone. He could roam, switch, trap, recover and intimidate. He was not only the best player in the world. He had a real argument as one of the best defensive players in the world too.
And the award pain does not stop there for him. LeBron also brought up the 2013 MVP vote, when he came one vote away from becoming the first unanimous MVP in NBA history.
“I also had an opportunity to be the first unanimous MVP, where I got all 120 votes, but I got 119,” he said. “It was the one vote and he voted for Carmelo. It was a writer from Boston, of course. I know his name too, but I ain’t going to give him that light just yet.”
The official record is even slightly more dramatic: LeBron received 120 of 121 first-place votes, while Carmelo Anthony received the lone other first-place vote. That one ballot kept LeBron from history. Three years later, Stephen Curry became the NBA’s first unanimous MVP.
LeBron’s broader issue is not just that he lost awards. It is that he does not understand how certain voters reach their decisions.
“Why are they voting?” he asked. “That doesn’t make sense. I don’t know the answer, but why are they voting if you’re not watching the game, you’re not studying the game, and you’re not listening to the peers in the game who are telling you, he’s the best player.”
LeBron James says never winning Defensive Player of the Year still bothers him
“That’s the only award that I don’t have in my house, that kind of stings. It don’t make sense. The year I finished second in Defensive Player of the Year, the guy who won didn’t even make First Team… pic.twitter.com/zr5LnovoIb
— dank (@cptdankkk) July 7, 2026
That is the real frustration behind the quotes. LeBron is not asking people to rewrite his career. He already has one of the greatest careers in sports history. He is questioning the process. He is questioning how a player can win DPOY but miss First Team All-Defense. He is questioning how one voter can block a near-perfect MVP season. He is questioning whether awards always reflect what the league itself knows.
And that is what makes this fun. LeBron has won so much that the only thing left to bother him is the stuff he somehow did not win.
Most players would build an entire legacy around one MVP, one title, one All-Defense selection or one iconic season. LeBron has stacked all of that for more than two decades. Still, the missing DPOY sits there like a tiny scratch on a perfect car.
It does not ruin the résumé. It does not change his place in history. It does not make him less than what he is.
But it clearly still stings.
