By Eurohoops team / info@eurohoops.net
Panathinaikos Athens center Mathias Lessort apparently disagrees with the selection of Olympiacos Piraeus guard Thomas Walkup as EuroLeague Best Defender of 2024.
Instead, Lessort picks his teammate Jerian Grant as the one who should’ve been voted as the Defensive Player of the Year. “DPOY on the left” Lessort posted on his Instagram as a caption to a picture that shows Grant on the left and Walkup on the right.
Grant finished fifth in the voting behind Real Madrid center and reigning DPOY Edy Tavares (2nd), AS Monaco forward John Brown (3rd) and Maccabi Tel Aviv center Josh Nebo (4th) apart from Walkup.
Something similar happened last year when Panathinaikos guard Kostas Sloukas, then with Olympiacos , tweeted that Walkup deserved to win DPOY instead of Real Madrid center Edy Tavares who got the award. The Greek superstar analyzed why, tagging EuroLeague and both players in his tweet.
Walkup was voted DPOY as the leader of the “top-ranked scoring defense, which allowed a league-low 74.4 points per game,” per EuroLeague. He became the first guard to win the award after six-time winner Dimitris Diamantidis in 2011 and the first Olympiacos player to earn the honor following center Bryant Dunston’s back-to-back DPOY trophies in 2014 and 2015.