The last guard to win the NBA Defensive Player of the Year Award was Gary Payton, way back in 1996, when the Seattle Supersonics were a dominant team annually while New Orleans was still over six years away from hosting the Hornets/Pelicans franchise.
Fast forward to today and Jrue Holiday is making a strong bid for his candidacy early here in the 2018-19 season to end the long-standing drought which has exclusively praised forwards and centers for the last 22 years.
Coming off a campaign where he was named to the All-NBA First Defensive Team, Holiday is no longer flying under the radar.