Pari Nizhny Novgorod guard Evgenii Baburin was named the Defensive Player of the Year.
Evgenii played in 32 regular season games, averaging 8.3 points, 2.3 rebounds and 2.2 assists. The guard was the best in the League in steals (2.2), while Nizhny Novgorod was third best defensive team in the regular season, letting opponents score 75.3 points per game.
This is the ninth time the Best Defensive Player award has been given – CSKA center Aleksandr Kaun got the first award, another Moscow team player Andrey Vorontsevich won it in 2014/15, CSKA center Kyle Hines won in 2015/16, Nikita Kurbanov in 2016/17, Lokomotiv Kuban leader Dmitriy Kulagin in 2017/18, UNICS forward Maurice Ndour in 2018/19, the Kazan team forward John Brown III in 2020/21 and Zenit forward Jordan Mickey from last season.
Evgenii Baburin became the first Pari Nizhny Novgorod player in the League history to get this award.
