NBA year-end awards ... community-style
MVP? Rookie of the Year? Coach of the Year? Most Improved Player? Sixth Man of the Year? Defensive Player of the Year? Executive of the Year? Clutch Player of the Year? Have your say on EVERY category
First things first: I helped preview the four first-round playoff series that have been locked in as well as the first four games of the Play-In Tournament in a highly entertaining Sunday night ALL NBA pod hosted by my pal Adam Mares. Watch it here:
Secondly …
As promised with year-end awards this season, we are making this a full-on community discussion. I am not an official awards voter and haven't been since 2017 but I naturally still have opinions on who should win the various awards. So let's get into it in the comment section.
Instinct tells me that Oklahoma City's Shai Gilgeous-Alexander is going to win his first MVP award despite Denver's Nikola Jokić becoming just the third player in league history to average a triple-double for an entire season. The Nuggets made it to 50 wins in the end, but the recent turmoil in Denver, fair or not, seems likely to affect Jokić chances.
The internal unraveling of the Denver Nuggets ... and where the 2022-23 champs go from here
The writing was on the wall on Monday. That's when members of Denver's front office learned that Nuggets operating owner Josh Kroenke and his father Stan would be joining the team in Sacramento for Wednesday's game against the Kings. A four-game losing streak had not only sent Denver tumbling down the Western Conference standings, but each bumpy rung on that ladder only amplified the long-running discord between general manager Calvin Booth and head coach Michael Malone.
Cleveland's Kenny Atkinson has a more complicated path to the Coach of the Year trophy than expected thanks to former Cavaliers coach J.B.Bickerstaff's tremendous work in Detroit … along with challengers like Oklahoma City's Mark Daigneault, Houston's Ime Udoka and the LA Clippers' Tyronn Lue. It comes down to Atkinson and Bickerstaff for me.
I likewise know we certainly have some Hawks fans among us who believe Zaccharie Risacher ranks as an overlooked threat to San Antonio's Stephon Castle in the Rookie of the Year chase. Anyone else we should be looking at for ROY?
Atlanta's Dyson Daniels, Portland's Deni Avdija, Cleveland's Ty Jerome and the Clippers' grossly underrated Ivica Zubac are my top contenders for Most Improved Player honors. Yours?
Defensive Player of the Year was thrown wide open after San Antonio's Victor Wembanyama was sidelined in February with a season-ending diagnosis of Deep Vein Thrombosis in his right shoulder, leading to the emergence of a slew of DPOY candidates. The headliners: Oklahoma City's Luguentz Dort, Cleveland's Evan Mobley, Memphis' Jaren Jackson Jr., Golden State's Draymond Green and Daniels. Who wins?
The Sixth Man field has probably generated the least discussion and debate — Boston's Payton Pritchard is a popular nominee — but the floor is yours now. Using the comment space below you are invited to share your picks and make your cases in any and every category you want. Campaign away!
Because of the 65-game eligibility rule in several categories and little-known league rules that I reported on Monday that allow for players to make a case to gain eligibility through a challenge process until 11:59 PM ET Monday night, ballots won't go out to official voters until after midnight Tuesday morning at the soonest.
Yet I plan to keep the comments on this file open and unlocked until the league office establishes a fixed time for ballots to be turned in by the actual voting body. So everyone here will have plenty of time to have their say.
And, yes, please feel free to share your All-NBA teams, Clutch Player of the Year selections or any other awards you want to weigh in on.
I have an estimated 4,000 words of Power Rankings coming Tuesday to make sure than every team in the league is covered and analyzed here in the wake of the 2024-25 regular season's conclusion, but we would never gloss over the year-end awards. I considered going the Substack Chat route for this process but doing it this way allows us to discuss it as a collective in true story form.
PS — Sixty-five games played are needed to be eligible for the following awards: MVP, All-NBA teams, Defensive Player of the Year, All-Defensive teams and Most Improved Player.
Ballots went out to official voters on Tuesday and had to be turned in same day (I think). I am STILL wrestling with MVP. As spectacular as Shai has been, he has so much more help on his roster than The Joker, who just had his best-ever season and still dragged the Nuggets to 50 wins despite all the turmoil they faced.
Atkinson vs. Bickerstaff for COY is another steel-cage battle. I thought Kenny was a lock after the 15-0 start. Not so sure any more after the Pistons' Cinderella season.
Deni Avdija becoming Portland's best player ... hard for me to ignore that for MIP. Although Dyson Daniels is right there and Ivica Zubac ... think he would have to be my choice in the end.
DPOY ... yet another multilayered source of (exaggerated sportswriter) agony.
Will keep the file open for one more day in case anyone else wants to chime in.
PS -- As a reminder I have not cast an official NBA awards ballot since 2016-17.
Love seeing everyone add their choices. I am going to dive in tonight during the Play-In games to get the back-and-forth going.