Michael Cooper, 1987 Defensive Player of the Year
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The league didn’t have this award until the 1982-83 season, and in the early going voters made some highly dubious decisions. The craziest was Cooper, who had a reputation as an elite one-on-one defender. But he didn’t have the impact of Mark Eaton, who led the league with 4.1 blocks and a defensive box plus/minus of 6.1, according to Basketball Reference. Alvin Robertson led the league with a crazy 3.2 steals per game, a season after setting records for total steals and steals per game.