NBA: Top 10 candidates for 2018-19 Defensive Player of the Year award

5. Kawhi Leonard, Toronto Raptors

The Toronto Raptors were the NBA’s fifth-best defense last season, and now they’ll be swapping out DeMar DeRozan‘s porous D for a two-time DPOY winner. Suffice it to say that unless Nick Nurse is an absolute disaster, this team will be good enough for its best defender to garner plenty of attention come awards season.

The problem is Kawhi Leonard has already won the award twice, so voter fatigue could be a factor here. There’s also no guarantee he’ll stay healthy, or that he’ll be 100 percent of the player he once was as he returns from a quad injury that limited him to just nine games last year.

If he does look like the pre-2017 Kawhi Leonard we all know and love, however, he’ll be one of the frontrunners for the award, not only for his rebounding, positional versatility and high steal totals, but because he might be the NBA’s most stifling defensive wing since Scottie Pippen.