Celtics’ Derrick White Wins 2025/26 Sportsmanship Award

Celtics guard Derrick White has own the Sportsmanship Award for the 2025/26 season, the league announced today (Twitter link). It marks the second straight year in which a Boston guard has won the award, with Jrue Holiday taking it home a year ago prior to being traded to Portland.

The NBA’s Sportsmanship Award has been presented annually since 1995/96 and “honors a player who best represents the ideals of sportsmanship on the court.”

Each of the league’s 30 teams nominated one of its players for the award, then a panel of league executives narrows that group to six finalists (one from each division) and current players voted for the winner. The trophy for the Sportsmanship Award is named after Joe Dumars, the Hall-of-Fame guard – and current Pelicans head of basketball operations – who won the inaugural award back in ’95/96.

In addition to White, this year’s other finalists were Heat big man Bam Adebayo, Spurs forward Harrison Barnes, Warriors big man Al Horford, Thunder guard Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, and Pacers guard T.J. McConnell.

McConnell finished as the runner-up and actually earned the most first-place votes, receiving 83 to White’s 77. However, the Celtics guard had the significant edge in second-place votes (113) over McConnell (72) and finished with 2,827 total points, comfortably beating out McConnell’s 2,566.