Jay Huff secures G-League Defensive Player of the Year award

Huff secures G-League Defensive Player of the Year award originally appeared on NBC Sports Washington

If Jay Huff thought his next accolade would be hard to come by after winning a national championship with the Virginia Cavaliers, he would one day find out that he was quite wrong. On Tuesday, Huff was named the 2022-23 KIA NBA G League Defensive Player of the Year.

After redshirting and then playing four seasons of collegiate basketball at Virginia, Huff declared for the NBA Draft but would soon realize that getting to the big leagues was easier said than done. Huff ended up going undrafted in the 2021 NBA Draft but would eventually join the Wizards during summer league.

Soon after Huff was waived by the Wizards and found his way to Los Angeles where he had a brief stint with the Lakers, playing a majority of this season for their G League affiliate, South Bay Lakers. Fast forward to March of 2023, Huff found his way back to D.C. by signing a two-way contract with the Wizards and Go-Go.

This past season with South Bay and Capital City, Huff played in a total of 28 games in the regular season, leading the G League with 3.1 blocks per game and ranking second in block percentage at 65.9% (players with at least 20 games played).

At the end of the regular season, Huff averaged 15.0 points, 7.8 rebounds, 1.5 assists and 3.1 blocks per game. In the first round of the G-League playoffs following a 101-87 win over the Fort Wayne Mad Ants, Huff tallied 16 points and 20 rebounds (tying the Go-Go franchise record for most rebounds in a single game) and five blocks.

In the next round the Go-Go fell 104-99 to the Delaware Blue Coats, their second season in a row exiting the playoffs in the second round. Despite the loss, Huff put up another impressive performance adding another double-double with 11 points, 16 rebounds and added another game with five blocks.

When it comes to his time with the Wizards, Huff has played in five games this season. Counting Tuesday's impressive performance vs. Milwaukee Bucks, Huff posted 17 points and nine rebounds in 27 minutes of action (all career-highs). It was only fitting Huff put on a show, since ahead of Tuesday's game he was honored at Capital One Arena with the G-League DPOY Award.

“It meant a lot,” Huff said. “I wanted to be able to cut it into thirds or fourths just because I got some teammates that I owe most of that to…If I could I would cut it up but it’s kind of glass.”

“It felt awesome, obviously it felt good to see a few threes go down,” Huff said. “That might’ve been the most threes I’ve taken in a professional game actually, that was fun. Coach was drawing up a couple of plays for me, so I appreciate him for that and it was just great being out there.”