My would-be NBA awards ballots

I have not cast official votes on season-ending individual honors in #thisleague since the 2016-17 season ... but it's still a must to cast imaginary votes for discussion purposes

This should have been one of the most celebrated Most Valuable Player races in NBA history.

Three worthy candidates have separated themselves from the rest of #thisleague. These are three literal giants largely responsible for bringing the big man back to NBA prominence. And there are no wrong choices, really, when trying to laser in on a winner.

The reality of the race, sadly, is far more unsavory. This season's NBA debate frequently got nasty and rarely could be classified as fun. Official award ballots were due into the league office Monday at 6 PM ET, bringing a formal close to an Awards Season — until the various honorees are announced — that one suspects won't be terribly missed.

I last cast official ballots during the 2016-17 season and definitely don't miss it. During the four NBA seasons that coincided with my stint at The New York Times, I wasn't permitted to participate in league voting per the newspaper’s policy. I then decided to enact the same policy with my own Substack, preferring to analyze the news rather than help make it.

Yet I do still think there's enough value for our community here to make use of my two-plus decades casting NBA award votes and share how my theoretical ballots would have looked as a wonderful means to review the regular season. We all naturally have opinions on these things, so consider this a vehicle for group discussion on all of the various award categories.

Starting with the MVP …

I'm going with Philadelphia's Joel Embiid. It was a serious seasonlong (and, again, mostly un-fun) strain to try to separate the trio at the top — even tougher than last year — but I ultimately chose Embiid for the same underlying reason I went with Jokić last season.

Which is to say: Embiid did the most with the least.

The consensus three best teams in the NBA today are in the East. Embiid powered Philly into that upper crust alongside Milwaukee and Boston even though both James Harden and Tyrese Maxey were lost for considerable injury absences and despite being surrounded by less overall depth. He won some bonus points from me there.

I was very close to faux voting for Antetokounmpo in a nod to Milwaukee's best record in the league and the fact that the Bucks overcame the limited availability of perhaps their second-best player (Khris Middleton appeared in only 33 games) to get to 58-24. The Bucks, though, still had two more truly elite defenders (Jrue Holiday and Brook Lopez) and an excellent sixth man (Bobby Portis Jr.) to lean on as constants in support of their best player, who stated his MVP case Sunday in great detail to my podcast partner Chris Haynes.

For most of the season, truth be told, I was a Jokić guy. It looked as though he was going to be the first center in league history to average double-digit assists (Jokic fell only 12 assists short) while shooting a ridiculous 63.2% from the field and leading the Nuggets to a 27-2 record in games he posted a triple-double. Alas, in the end, Denver's shaky 7-10 finish and the fact that the NBA's 77th regular season truly belonged to the East convinced me that I had to choose between Embiid and Antetokounmpo.

Does some individual partiality come into play to make that call? Of course. How else can you separate three such worthy contenders? As I wrote last April:

Let me share some more voting insight after filling out NBA ballots from the league office for roughly two decades: Personal preference, at some point, is going to come into it when the call is so close. And that doesn't mean, if you disagree, that the voter is dumb or a hater or insufficiently athletic. When the résumés are all so compelling, how else do you decide without mixing in some subjective whim? There's no other way to separate such worthy choices like Jokić, Embiid and Antetokounmpo.

The actual 2023 MVP vote, counting the real ballots turned in this week, might be the closest in history. I will not be shouting at or about anyone no matter how it turns out, because I (like many) am pretty much shouted out on this subject.

The most interesting MVP-related topic on this scorecard, if you must know, continues to be the dominance we're seeing from players who weren't born in the United States.

This will be the fifth season in a row that a foreign-born star will be named MVP. Dallas' Luka Dončić is unlikely to place in the top five in this year's voting after the Mavericks' spiral from the Western Conference finals all the way down to the lottery, but he's still an extremely safe bet to move into Giannis/Jokić/Embiid territory and win one in the future.

I brought this all up in my October predictions column and feel compelled to ask it again now: Who will be the next American to bust through all that traffic to hoist what is now known as the Michael Jordan Trophy and signifies singular excellence in America's game?

Hopefully we can keep that debate more civil and enjoyable than much of the MVP discourse over the past six-or-so months.

My faux MVP ballot:

1. Embiid
2. Antetokounmpo
3. Jokić
4. Jayson Tatum
5. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander

October prediction: Embiid

Joel Embiid (Tim Nwachukwu/Getty Images)

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The rest of the ballots

For the record: It was still Tuesday on the West Coast when I published this newsletter.

As is also customary here, I am printing would-be ballots in the six traditional individual awards races that I always voted on previously before retiring as an official awards voter. (Reminder: The MVP ballot asks for a top five; every other category has three slots.)

Another also: The race for All-NBA spots has so many layers of its own that I think I will devote an entire separate post to it at some point soon to try to cover all those angles.

Here, then, are the other five main categories:

ROOKIE OF THE YEAR

1. Paolo Banchero (Orlando)
2. Walker Kessler (Utah)
3. Jalen Williams (Oklahoma City)

October prediction: Banchero

While I'm a huge Walker Kessler fan and live close enough to Oklahoma City to be well-acquainted with Jalen Williams Fever, I'm also a firm believer in the notion that Banchero is the wire-to-wire ROY for his consistency and production while leading Orlando to 34 wins after a 5-20 start — irrespective of his 3-point shooting struggles (29.8%). Banchero has size and versatility, relishes contact and proved in Year 1 that he is a cornerstone player who only figures to be more effective with more seasoning and when the Magic have a more balanced roster around him with more shooting. Williams easily could have been No. 2 on the ballot for his contributions to the undersized Thunder reaching the play-in round despite the seasonlong absence of Chet Holmgren; Kessler got it in a nod to his unforeseen emergence as a more-than-able replacement for Rudy Gobert to instantly become a player Utah moved onto its shortlist of untouchables in trade talks this season. This rookie class proved so unexpectedly deep that there isn't even room on the ROY ballot for Indiana's Bennedict Mathurin.

COACH OF THE YEAR

1. Mike Brown (Sacramento)
2. Mark Daigneault (Oklahoma City)
3. Joe Mazzulla (Boston)

October prediction: Taylor Jenkins (Memphis)

My podcast partner Chris Haynes has been saying for weeks that Brown should be a unanimous COY selection. I'm starting to think there's a chance it could happen given Brown's undeniable role in bringing structure and, most importantly, belief to a franchise that has had precious little of either commodity during its (this still sounds crazy) 16 consecutive seasons out of the playoffs. There obviously were other good coaching jobs this season: Daigneault in Oklahoma City, Mazzulla in Boston, J.B. Bickerstaff in Cleveland, Will Hardy in Utah, Tom Thibodeau in New York, Jacque Vaughn in Brooklyn, etc. I feel compelled to add that Mazzulla, in particular, routinely faces a crazy amount of criticism given the size of the job he stepped into without so much as front-of-the-bench experience as an assistant … and coped well enough to steer the Celtics to a hugely successful regular season in the face of coutnless challenges. Brown's maiden season in Sactown was simply too storybook for anyone else to have a real shot at beating him out here after the Kings, once the subject of a very serious potential relocation to Seattle amid that seemingly unending playoff woe, rose to No. 3 in the West as not a soul predicted coming into the season.

MOST IMPROVED PLAYER

1. Lauri Markkanen (Utah)
2. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander (Oklahoma City)
3. Jalen Brunson (New York)

October prediction: Kyle Lowry (Miami)

The talent in this MIP class is absolutely incredible. I suspect SGA, former No. 11 pick-turned-All-NBA first-team candidate, has a real chance to win this thing given the leap he's made into the game's elite. Brunson has improved for the fourth successive season and has played at an All-Star/All-NBA level as a Knick, leading his new team back to the playoffs and making a mockery of the notion that the move out of Dončić's considerable shadow in Dallas to the bright lights of Manhattan would somehow overwhelm him. Across the East River, Mikal Bridges has been the runaway In-Season Most Improved Player since his trade from Phoenix to Brooklyn, where he now looks like a certifiable franchise player. All three of those guys are worthy and yet there is no way I could put anyone else atop this ballot other than Markkanen, who emerged as an All-Star (with the ASG in Salt Lake City!) and franchise player himself when, as we said with Brown and Sacramento, no one on Planet NBA saw it coming when the season started. When was the last time we saw a player raise his own ceiling this much in his sixth season?

DEFENSIVE PLAYER OF THE YEAR

1. Evan Mobley (Cleveland)
2. Draymond Green (Golden State)
3. Jaren Jackson Jr. (Memphis)

October prediction: Rudy Gobert (Minnesota)

What. A. Struggle. Settling on a DPOY was as hard as MVP deliberations this season. I went away from Jackson Jr. in the end because, for all of his shot-blocking prowess as the most feared rim protector in the sport, JJJ sits nearly 20 minutes in every game because of his penchant to land in foul trouble. Green remains the most versatile (and smartest) defender in the league, but the Warriors' crazy disparity on D this season (No. 3 leaguewide in home games; No. 28 in road games and No. 14 overall) makes this a tough season to put a Warrior at the top of this list. Milwaukee, meanwhile, has three DPOY contenders: Brook Lopez, Jrue Holiday and, of course, Giannis Antetokounmpo. The obvious problem there becomes: How do you single one out when they form the NBA’s No. 1 defensive trio? All of these variables factored into me choosing Cleveland's Mobley. I hear the noise out there that this might be premature, since Year 2 Mobley has not yet achieved peak consistency, but he's the best defender on the league's No. 1 defensive team. That adds up, to me, as the best answer. (PS — Chicago's Alex Caruso deserves a special shout-out for moving into Holiday's zip code when it comes to perimeter D.

SIXTH MAN OF THE YEAR

1. Immanuel Quickley (New York)
2. Malcolm Brogdon (Boston)
3. Bobby Portis Jr. (Milwaukee)

October prediction: Jordan Poole (Golden State)

There was as much emotion in it for me, honestly, trying to choose between Milwaukee's Bobby Portis Jr., Memphis' Tyus Jones and Indy's Mathurin for the third spot on the ballot than I mustered for the debate between Quickley and Brogdon as the actual winner. I know some voters will point to Quickley's significant production in his 21 starts (22.6 points, 5.4 rebounds and 5.1 assists per game) as justification for choosing Brogdon, who was afforded zero starts in his 67 games played, but moving into the starting lineup occasionally in place of vital teammates who are injured is a plus point for a sixth man rather than a negative. As Yahoo! Sports' Dan Devine notes, New York outscored opponents by 7.6 points per 100 possessions when Quickley strictly came off the bench, which only strengthens his case.

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Numbers Game

🏀 114

The most reassuring thing we can say about Zion Williamson having appeared in only 114 games in his first four NBA seasons: Top MVP contender Joel Embiid had appeared in only 94 games through four seasons. Maybe that provides some hope for Williamson’s comeback.

🏀 3

I love anything that will allow me to reference the Buffalo Braves, as you surely know by now, so please allow me to celebrate the fact that Embiid’s second consecutive scoring title (33.1 PPG) makes him the NBA’s first center to win it twice in a row since Buffalo’s Bob McAdoo led the league in scoring in 1973-74, 1974-75 and 1975-76.

🏀 2

Embiid’s two closest pursuers in the scoring race both fell short of the playoffs: Dallas’ Luka Dončić (32.4 PPG) and Portland’s Dame Lillard (32.2). This was the first season in league history, as noted by The Associated Press’ Tim Reynolds, in which the league had three players at 32.0 PPG or higher.

🏀 55

Golden State’s 55-point first quarter Sunday made a run at another Buffalo record. As my fellow Substacker Justin Kubatko likes to remind me: 58 points from my Braves on Oct. 20, 1972, against the Boston Celtics (who won 126-118) represent the all-time NBA high for any quarter.

🏀 10

Ten players appeared in all 82 games this: Sacramento’s Harrison Barnes, Brooklyn’s Mikal Bridges (who played in 83), Houston’s Tari Eason, New York’s Isaiah Hartenstein, Golden State’s Kevon Looney, Houston’s KJ Martin, Golden State’s Jordan Poole, Chicago’s Nikola Vučević, Boston’s Derrick White and Chicago’s Patrick Williams.

🏀 114.7

NBA teams finished at 114.7 points per game on average — right where they were when I wrote about this season’s scoring explosion last Friday. It’s the highest-scoring season since the first full NBA season of my life in 1969-70 (116.7 PPG).

🏀 78.2

Teams leaguewide also managed to keep the composite free-throw percentage for the season at 78.2% to set another single-season NBA record.

🏀 30.1

At 30.1 PPG, Jayson Tatum was the first Celtic in franchise history to cross the 30-points-per-game threshold. The aforementioned Mr. Reynolds points out that Larry Bird was five points shy of averaging 30.0 PPG in 1987-88.

🏀 236-214

The East’s 236-214 record against the West in interconference games was its best head-to-head record in 24 seasons, according to NBA.com’s John Schuhmann.

🏀 8