Brittney Griner named 2015 WNBA Defensive Player the Year, center sets new records

Phoenix Mercury center Brittney Griner was named the 2015 WNBA Defensive Player of the Year. It is the second straight DPOY for Griner. Last season she was the first player in Mercury history to win the honor. Even though she missed the first seven games of the summer, she finished the season with a league-best 105 blocked shots.

Griner highlights:

• Became the first player in WNBA history to average more than 4.00 blocked shots per game for a season.
• Is only the sixth time in WNBA history a player finished the season with more than 100 blocked shots.
• Her average of 4.04 blocks per game was the highest in league history; she topped Margo Dydek’s average of 3.80 set in 1998.
• She blocked season-high nine shots on August 30 at Minnesota.
• Holds the WNBA single-game record of 11 blocks in a game set on June 29, 2014 at Tulsa.
• Holds the WNBA single-season record for average blocks per game (4.04, 2015) and the single-season record for blocked shots in a season (129, 2014).
• Is the first player to win the DPOY award in back-to-back seasons since Tamika Catchings in 2009 and 2010.

Griner and the Mercury begin their best-of-three Western Conference Semifinal series against the Tulsa Shock tonight at 8 p.m. ET at Talking Stick Resort Arena (TV: ESPN 2).

DPOY voting results

Points	Player	Team
33	Brittney Griner	Phoenix Mercury
2	Kiah Stokes	New York Liberty
1	Tina Charles	New York Liberty
1	Briann January	Indiana Fever
1	Angel McCoughtry	Atlanta Dream
1	Maya Moore	Minnesota Lynx