New Orleans Pelicans center DeAndre Jordan has been named the 2025-26 Twyman-Stokes Teammate of the Year.
Presented annually since the 2012-13 season, the Twyman-Stokes Teammate of the Year Award recognizes the player deemed the league’s best teammate, based on selfless play, leadership on and off the court as a mentor and role model to other NBA players, and commitment to the team.
A panel of league executives selected 12 finalists (six from each conference) for the honor. Current NBA players then selected the winner from that group of finalists. The complete voting results are available here.
Jordan has won the Twyman-Stokes Teammate of the Year Award for the first time. The 18-year NBA veteran is a three-time Kia All-NBA Team selection, a two-time Kia NBA All-Defensive Team honoree and a 2017 NBA All-Star. He won an NBA championship with the Denver Nuggets in the 2022-23 season and a gold medal with the USA Men’s National Team at the 2016 Summer Olympics.
The Twyman-Stokes Teammate of the Year Award is named for Jack Twyman and Maurice Stokes, whose storied friendship transcended their Hall of Fame accomplishments.
Twyman and Stokes were teammates on the Rochester/Cincinnati Royals for three seasons from 1955-58. In the final game of the 1957-58 regular season, Stokes sustained an injury that led to his falling into a coma days later and becoming permanently paralyzed. He was diagnosed with post-traumatic encephalopathy, a brain injury that damaged his motor control center. Twyman became his legal guardian and lifelong advocate.
Twyman helped organize the NBA’s Maurice Stokes Memorial Basketball Game, which raised funds for Stokes’ medical care and, after his death in 1970 at age 36, for other players in need. After years of lobbying by Twyman, Stokes was enshrined in the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame in 2004. Twyman, inducted in 1983, died in 2012.
READ MORE:Pelicans’ DeAndre Jordan named NBA Teammate of the Year
