Belated Awards Ballots

I wanted to get posts up about awards and playoff predictions this week, but in the run-up to the store's Festival that somehow drew 3,000+ people to the store yesterday, I didn't have a chance. Such is life. But I still want to have these down on internet paper, so here we go.

Clutch Player of the Year

Actually, sorry, I don't care about this one. They should retire this one quickly and admit it was a mistake. Nobody bats 1.000.

Most Improved Player

Donte DiVencenzo, New York Knicks

I heard on one of my podcasts this week that he's actually not eligible for the award because he didn't play 20+ minutes in enough games, and I find that to be ridiculous. Double D had career highs in points, field goal attempts, and many of his shooting numbers, including his eFG%. He ranked 29th in the entire NBA in eFG%, ahead of guys like Kevin Durant, Bradley Beal, Lauri Markkanen, Luka Doncic, and Stephen Curry. I mean, come on, really? That's bananas.

He became one of those players who you knew if he got an open three, it was going in. I definitely didn't ever think that before this season. But the biggest one to me is his career high in games played and minutes played. You can trace the start of the Bucks' decline to when they traded him away for Serge Ibaka. Ibaka barely played for Milwaukee, and the Bucks have needed the exact set of skills DiVencenzo brings ever since. There is a lot of focus on Jalen Brunson and Josh Hart right now, but I think DiVencenzo made the biggest leap this season.

I think other than him, the clear favorite is Coby White on Chicago, and since DiVencenzo is apparently ineligible, I expect White to win. Payton Pritchard won't be a finalist, but shouts to him for continuing to improve. I don't think Tyrese Maxey or Jalen Williams improved so much as they had more opportunities. If you were paying attention, you saw Williams doing everything he did this year down the stretch last year. Grayson Allen deserves a lot of consideration too, even though a) he's still dirty, and b) he had an easier time of it than DiVencenzo because every shot he took all season was wide open.

Defensive Player of the Year

Rudy Gobert, Minnesota Timberwolves

It has to be Rudy. Watching him last season, it very much seemed like his new teammates hated him. And when he then didn't play to his standards – mostly, it seems, because he was hurt – it turned a bad situation into a nightmare. To see that all turn around this year and lead them to the No. 1 defense was not at all predictable, and quite remarkable.

Victor Wembanyama is the clear No. 2 for me, and I don't think there is a clear third place.

Rookie of the Year

Victor Wembanyama, San Antonio Spurs

Again, very clearly the winner. I would like to put Brandon Miller second over Chet Holmgren, but it's hard to do so when I know that all of Miller's wonderful stats were put up in meaningless games when his team was often down by 20 points. The same is obviously not true for Holmgren.

Sixth Man of the Year

Bobby Portis, Milwaukee Bucks

It felt like Portis didn't miss a shot the entire second half. And they weren't easy shots either. Portis routinely makes very difficult shots that a non-starter seemingly has no business making. Given the night-to-night variations of the team's starters, Portis was the calm presence they had to have off the bench.

Naz Reid is my second place here. He was dynamite all season, but especially after Karl-Anthony Towns got hurt. Norm Powell and Bogdan Bogdanovic I didn't really consider here. I've never seen either player give a consistent, clean effort on defense (sometimes Bogdanovic will start aggressively hacking guys and hoping to get away with it), and as such I can't take either seriously. Malik Monk, if he stayed healthy, would maybe have been first or second, because he becomes Sacramento's point guard in crunch time. But that's a double-edged sword. I saw him lead Sacramento right off the cliff in a number of games, especially when he couldn't hit his clutch free throws, which was often.

My third place vote would go to Al Horford. I have written plenty about how Al needed to accept that he was now sixth man, and on occasion, even lower in the pecking order than that. But me saying it is far easier than it actually happening. Al Horford was a college champion. He was the third pick in the draft. And from a shooting perspective, he was better than ever last regular season. He had plenty of reasons to resist a reduced role. But he did, anyway, averaging nearly four minutes per game of playing time less than 2022-23. The team was better for it, and I believe he will be in the playoffs as well.

Coach of the Year

Mark Daigneault, Oklahoma City Thunder

I want to say Joe Mazzulla here. He orchestrated this season beautifully, masterfully, and kept the team playing hard for a month after they had nothing to play for, aside from the speed bump in Atlanta (I love how no one understood that the C's were distracted by a rare four-day stop in Atlanta hanging out with Jaylen Brown's friends from home when they had the No. 1 seed all locked up – like you'd have done any better). But it has to be Daigneault. The youngest team to ever lock up a No. 1 seed is a pretty incredible feat, and he pushed a lot of the right buttons, getting Williams and Holmgren the space to become forces in their own right, all the while still letting Shai Gilgeous-Alexander the platform to become an MVP candidate. Impressive stuff.

I'd have Jamahl Mosley third, because Franz Wagner forgot how to shoot three pointers and most of the team never learned in the first place, and they still picked up the five seed. I don't think Thom Thibodeau deserves much credit for running his guys into the ground, because I think they'd have been better off with the four, five, or six seed but with rested players. The East below Boston is wide open, but I think they're going to be too tired for it to matter in a couple of weeks. Alec Burks isn't that bad, he could have played 20-25 minutes per game down the stretch.

Executive of the Year

Brad Stevens, Boston Celtics

Stevens has been playing the NBA like a fiddle since he took Danny Ainge's seat, and it hasn't been close. Any vote for anyone else is ridiculous.

All-Defense Teams

First team - Rudy Gobert (MIN), Victor Wembanyama (SAS), Jaylen Brown (BOS), Derrick White (BOS), Alex Caruso (CHI)

Second team - Anthony Davis (LAL), Bam Adebayo (MIA), Jayson Tatum (BOS), Shai Gilgeous-Alexander (OKC), Jaden McDaniels (MIN)

I should mention that I very much think these teams should look like teams. Davis and Adebayo may have been the third- and fourth-best defenders this year, but who would ever play a lineup with four centers? It's ridiculous, and the NBA should go back to enforcing positions next season. I don't have Herb Jones here. I think his impact is overrated. The Celtics had no trouble with him in either game this season, and I think he's more of a stats darling who is getting recognition this season because he's finally hitting his shots. Kind of like how sluggers would win Gold Glove after having breakout seasons offensively.

I think people would probably expect that if I listed three Celtics that Jrue Holiday would be one of them, but I felt that very frequently this season the C's had to put Holiday on bigger players because he had lost the quickness to guard fast, shifty guards like Jalen Brunson, Tyrese Maxey, and Jamal Murray. Holiday did an exemplary job on bigger players, but the thing I value most in this ever-switchable NBA is the ability to not get exposed, and I felt like Holiday was more often exposed than the other three because of this. I think he'll lock in in the postseason, but these are regular-season awards. And Jaylen in particular made defense a big focus this year, and delivered on it.

All-NBA

1st team - Nikola Jokic, Jayson Tatum, Luka Doncic, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Jalen Brunson

2nd team - Giannis Antetokounmpo, Jaylen Brown, Anthony Edwards, LeBron James, Kevin Durant

3rd team - Anthony Davis, Rudy Gobert, Kawhi Leonard, Stephen Curry, Paul George

With apologies to: Derrick White, Paulo Banchero, Victor Wembanyama, Bam Adebayo, Jalen Williams, De'Aaron Fox, Tyrese Haliburton

With absolutely no apologies to: Devin Booker, Damontas Sabonis, Damian Lillard

Didn't play enough games but would have been considered: Joel Embiid, Donovan Mitchell, Kyrie Irving (yes, really), Kristaps Porzingis, Karl-Anthony Towns

The last player cut was Haliburton. I think he probably makes it over Curry if he took more time off to get healthy, and as much as I admire the spirit, he wasn't himself when he came back.

I say no apologies to Booker and Sabonis because Sabonis just can't shoot, and so disappears at the end of games. That's why Malik Monk is so important to Sacramento. And Booker is just a fake tough guy who doesn't play defense. In that sense, he and Durant and Beal are like three peas in a pod. Durant is at least the more consistent force of nature who is at least capable of plus defense. Booker is more a guy who gets on heaters, and then fades back into the background. In my opinion, he's far closer to Tyler Herro than he is to Kevin Durant, and I think he knows it, which is why he starts shit with everybody to overcompensate. And Lillard just didn't have it this season. It's an open question as to whether he ever will again.

I think it'll be impossible to keep Paulo and Wemby off these teams next season, because it was pretty hard to do so this season. It's going to be a real changing of the guard the next couple of years.

MVP

5 - Jalen Brunson

4 - Shai Gilgeous-Alexander

3 - Nikola Jokic

2 - Jayson Tatum

1 - Luka Doncic

First, the two people not here. Anthony Edwards I had fifth on my ballot until he played scared on the final day and cost his team the No. 2 seed. Giannis Antetokounmpo fell off earlier than that. If you are not able to take wins and the context of a season into account, you shouldn't have a vote. The hard truth is that Giannis torpedoed the Bucks' season.

Giannis got the team's last coach fired. He then handpicked Adrian Griffin. He then demanded they acquire Damian Lillard, and they did so at the expense of his team's two best wing defenders and their last remaining real draft capital. He then failed to properly integrate Lillard into the lineup by refusing to set enough screens for him, and not deferring to him until crunch time. THEN he had the coach he had just handpicked a few months ago fired. To say this was all an out-and-out disaster is a gigantic understatement. All of this is on Giannis. And then he literally added injury to insult by overexerting himself in a game that was already well in hand and got hurt. Giannis put up very shiny individual stats this year because he helped gut the Bucks' depth, and then Khris Middleton very predictably got hurt again. Those shiny stats didn't mean a damn thing, and have thrown a lot of smart people off the scent of his disastrous season.

As for the people on the ballot – I think Brunson probably ends up second or third, because nobody cares about Oklahoma or Minnesota or even Dallas. And most people can't see the hypocrisy of asking Jayson Tatum to sacrifice for his team and be the leader they want him to be but then punishing him in MVP voting because he didn't again average 30 points a game this season. But I think fifth is the right spot for Brunson. Shai I had higher most of the season, but then he ducked a week and a half's worth of games when he was seemingly healthy. He sure looked healthy hitting that game-winner in MSG, that's for sure.

Jokic I dinged for blowing that game in San Antonio, which was a fitting end to another season where the Nuggets spent a lot of time fucking around. I think one of the many negative precedents of voting Jokic as MVP a couple of years ago when Denver was a sixth seed is that now any other season looks amazing in comparison. The Denver Nuggets did not have an amazing season. But it seems otherworldly, and because the Nuggets don't really have a backup center or depth of any kind, Jokic continues to put up amazing counting stats.

Tatum I've already spoken my mind about plenty. He'll just never get the credit he deserves until the C's win it all.

I want to talk a little more about Doncic though. I've been very happy to criticize Doncic for his lack of defense, but once his idiot coach finally put the correct starting five on the floor, everything clicked into place, and the run the Mavericks went on to finish the season was truly impressive. I don't think Luka will win, because it came a little too late, and that's on Jason Kidd. In that second link above, you'll see I noted that Kidd had been refusing to play Daniel Gafford. It took Kidd another full two games to come around to starting Gafford, but once he put Gafford and Derrick Jones Jr. in the starting lineup along with Doncic, Kyrie Irving, and PJ Washington for the March 7th game vs. Miami, the Mavs ran off 16 of their next 18 games, before sitting everyone for the final two once they were locked in as the five-seed. If Kidd had come to this decision a month earlier, I think the Mavs would have truly battled for a top-three seed and Doncic would have won going away.