With less than a week remaining in the regular season, we’re in the dog days of the NBA. You have teams locked into their playoff position that have begun resting players to prepare for the postseason. Other lottery-bound teams are focused on where they will finish in the race for the most ping-pong balls, and have begun resting players as well. On top of that, you have the general fatigue of more than five months of NBA games leading to what should be an utterly fascinating postseason.
That also means is it’s time to look back at the season and figure out who is deserving of the various end-of-season awards handed out by the NBA each year.
Without further ado, here are my selections:
Most Valuable Player
1. Kevin Durant, Oklahoma City
2. LeBron James, Miami
3. Joakim Noah, Chicago
4. Blake Griffin, Clippers
5. Stephen Curry, Golden State
After Durant and James battled back and forth in a fascinating race, even James – who was hoping to win an unprecedented fifth MVP in six seasons – has all but conceded the throne to Durant. Though James remains the best player in the world and has been excellent this season – particularly with Dwyane Wade spending so much of the year sidelined by nagging injuries – Durant has had the better season.
With averages of 32 points, 7.5 rebounds and 5.5 assists while shooting 50 percent from the field, 40 percent from 3-point range and 87.5 percent from the foul line, Durant has been spectacular, and doesn’t need a narrative to give him the award.
In the same way Durant and James have been locked into the top two spots, Joakim Noah and Blake Griffin seem destined for the third and fourth spots on the ballot. Noah has been spectacular, helping to take the Bulls from a team many – yours truly included – thought would miss the playoffs after dealing away Luol Deng in early January to matching the Nets for the best record in the Eastern Conference in 2014 at 33-14. Griffin’s game has grown in a variety of ways, helping lift the Clippers to the third-best record in the ultra-competitive Western Conference even with Chris Paul missing about a quarter of the season.
The fifth spot was totally up for grabs. Several players – including Curry, Dwight Howard, Dirk Nowitzki, Al Jefferson, Goran Dragic, Kevin Love, Tony Parker and Paul George – have legitimate cases, and you could probably make room for several more.
The choice wound up being Curry, who has been superb for the Warriors in averaging career highs of 23.5 points and 8.5 assists while shooting almost 42 percent from 3-point range at the incredible volume of nearly eight shots per game from behind the arc.
Rookie of the Year
1. Victor Oladipo, Orlando
2. Michael Carter-Williams, Philadelphia
3. Mason Plumlee, Brooklyn
What a rough year for rookies. First-year players usually have their struggles, but large portions of this rookie class have made next to no contribution to their teams, and many of the contributions have been underwhelming.
That’s why it’s been basically a two-horse race for the top spot for this award since back in November. Carter-Williams has the better numbers, in part both because the Sixers have little talent surrounding him now (especially after trading away Evan Turner, Lavoy Allen and Spencer Hawes at the trade deadline) and because they play at a frenetic pace. Oladipo, on the other hand, has slightly lesser numbers but some spectacular moments, including going off for 30 points, nine rebounds and 14 assists to beat the Knicks in an overtime game in February.
After a lot of hemming and hawing, the nod went to Oladipo, though there’s really no wrong choice between the two of them.
After the top two spots, who should be third? The candidates are all so flawed. Players who got a lot of minutes, such as Trey Burke, Tim Hardaway Jr. and Ben McLemore, put up underwhelming numbers. Then you had a couple of bigs – Mason Plumlee and Gorgui Dieng – who spent significant stretches of the season on the bench before getting bigger roles late in the season.
The choice, in the end, was to go with Plumlee, who has become a key contributor for a playoff team in recent weeks – including a block of a certain superstar on the road earlier this week to save a win for the Nets.
Sixth Man of the Year
1. Jamal Crawford, Clippers
2. Reggie Jackson, Oklahoma City
3. Taj Gibson, Chicago
There are plenty of deserving candidates for this award. Vince Carter has enjoyed a terrific season in Dallas, while Manu Ginobili has bounced back to have a terrific year for the Spurs and Markieff Morris and Gerald Green have had excellent years as part of the stunning success of the Suns.
But the choice here came down to three players: Crawford, Jackson and Gibson. Crawford has had an even bigger role this season than last, as the injuries to J.J. Redick and the ineffectiveness of Jared Dudley have wiped out the Clippers’ plan to solidify the wing positions). Crawford is averaging 18.6 points per game – his highest total since 2008-09.
Jackson has been providing a poor man’s version of the firepower James Harden used to bring off the bench in Oklahoma City, giving the Thunder a third ball-handler and scorer to go with Durant and Russell Westbrook. Jackson also has stepped in admirably when Westbrook had to sit out. Gibson has become the Bulls’ closer in the fourth quarters alongside Joakim Noah, pairing with Noah to form arguably the best 1-2 combination of defensive big men in the league.
The choice here in the end, though, was to go with Crawford, who often has been the No. 2 option next to Griffin on a team that has had a surprising lack of scoring options.
Defensive Player of the Year
1. Joakim Noah, Chicago
2. Andre Iguodala, Golden State
3. Roy Hibbert, Indiana
After Hibbert established verticality as his calling card, it looked as if this would be his award for the taking. But the Pacers have fallen apart in recent weeks, to the point where Hibbert was benched after a few minutes in an ugly loss to the Hawks and then all five starters sat out against the Bucks.
At the same time, Noah has been at the helm of a defense that has dragged a Bulls team with few scoring options to the best record in the Eastern Conference since the All-Star Break. That was enough of a difference for Noah to move ahead of Hibbert and claim the award.
But Hibbert finishes third on this ballot as a nod to the wizardry of Andre Iguodala, one of the league’s most unique and versatile players, who can guard four positions on the court and gives the Warriors all kinds of different options defensively.
Most Improved Player of the Year
1. Goran Dragic, Phoenix
2. Lance Stephenson, Indiana
3. DeMar DeRozan, Raptors
This is a terrible award. There’s no way around it: How do you choose? What are the criteria?
By definition, the player who has improved the most this season is Anthony Davis, who has taken a spectacular leap forward – but the 2012 No. 1 pick was expected to do so in his second year in the NBA. Then what about players such as Gerald Green, who disappointed the year before and then found a role and a team that fit better this season? Or what about players such as Isaiah Thomas, who just got more minutes and more responsibilities but essentially had the same production per minute?
This award can be construed in a hundred different ways, and we’d all be better off it was discontinued. As long as it’s not, I try to apply the award to players who improved while playing a similar role to the one they had the year before.
That’s how Dragic ended up in the top spot – a nod to his sensational season in Phoenix that should’ve earned him a trip to the All-Star Game. Dragic’s improvement is the biggest reason why the Suns have been such a big surprise this season.
Coach of the Year
1. Gregg Popovich, San Antonio
2. Jeff Hornacek, Phoenix
3. Steve Clifford, Charlotte
This is another award with a whole host of deserving candidates. Tom Thibodeau has done a remarkable job with a Bulls team now missing two of its three best players from the start of the season. Dwane Casey has done great work in Toronto getting the Raptors to play well over .500 ball since trading Rudy Gay in November. Rick Carlisle, with some help from Dirk Nowitzki, has the Mavericks in the playoff chase in the West with a roster of misfit pieces.
We’ll focus on the three who rose to the top of this list: Popovich, Hornacek and Clifford. The Spurs could set the franchise record for wins in a season despite having players going in and out of the lineup because of a sequence of injuries — and with the Big Three another year older.
Hornacek and Clifford are first-year coaches at the other end of the spectrum: taking over teams expected to be at the bottom of the standings. Instead, they engineered remarkable turnarounds for their franchises. Hornacek has the Suns on a truly remarkable playoff course in the loaded Western Conference, while Clifford already has the Bobcats in the playoffs and on track for a potentially winnable matchup with the Raptors in the first round.
But the choice is Popovich, for the remarkable job he’s done leading his team to the top of the Western Conference while expertly managing his roster through injuries and keeping everyone’s minutes down as the Spurs hope to make yet another run into late June.
All-Defensive First Team
G Mike Conley, Memphis
G Chris Paul, L.A. Clippers
F Andre Iguodala, Golden State
F Paul George, Indiana
C Joakim Noah, Chicago
Noah and Iguodala held the top two spots on my Defensive Player of the Year ballot. Paul is leading the NBA in steals, and Conley is an outstanding defender at the point for Memphis. He’s been a constant for a Grizzlies team that’s missed Tony Allen and Marc Gasol for significant stretches.
The other forward spot goes to Paul George, who is second to Iguodala among wing defenders and is a big part of Indiana’s top-ranked defense.
All-Defensive Second Team
G Jimmy Butler, Chicago
G Patrick Beverly, Houston
F Serge Ibaka, Oklahoma City
F Anthony Davis, New Orleans
C Roy Hibbert, Indiana
Hibbert takes the center spot after taking the third spot in my Defensive Player of the Year ballot. The guard spots go to Jimmy Butler, who takes on the top perimeter player every night for the Bulls, and Patrick Beverly, who is the least enjoyable player to face for any guard in the NBA.
The forward spots are manned by a pair of rangy big men, Anthony Davis and Serge Ibaka, who are 1-2 in the league in blocks at 2.8 and 2.6 per game, respectively. It won’t be long before Davis is a mainstay on the first team – perhaps as soon as next season – as his ridiculous array of skills continues to develop, and Ibaka has been a key piece of Oklahoma City’s title contender-worthy defense for years.
All-Rookie First Team
1. Victor Oladipo, Orlando
2. Michael Carter-Williams, Philadelphia
3. Mason Plumlee, Brooklyn
4. Trey Burke, Utah
5. Gorgui Dieng, Minnesota
After the top three picks on my ROY ballot, that left two spots for three players: Burke, Dieng and Hardaway. Burke, averaging 12.4 points and 5.5 assists for Utah, gets the fourth spot because of his impressive assist-to-turnover ratio (3-to-1) and his role on the Jazz is far bigger than Dieng’s or Hardaway’s on their respective teams.
That leaves the choice for the final spot: Dieng or Hardaway. Dieng spent the first half of the season in mostly spot duty in Minnesota, only to explode over the last six weeks with an impressive run after Nikola Pekovic went down with an injury. He earned Western Conference Player of the Month honors for March in the process. Hardaway has been in the rotation for the Knicks all season, but provides little outside of hustle plays and 3-point shooting.
In the end, Dieng’s performance over the last six weeks was enough to swing the final spot in his favor. We’d all be better off if, instead of having to pick 10 players for these two teams, we could just stop with six. Here’s why…
All-Rookie Second Team
1. Tim Hardaway Jr., New York
2. Matthew Dellavedova, Cleveland
3. Steven Adams, Oklahoma City
4. Kelly Olynyk, Boston
5. Cody Zeller, Charlotte
After Hardaway, there’s not much to choose from here. Dellavedova has been a nice backup guard for the Cavaliers, but he is what he is. Adams, Olynyk and Zeller all have had decent-sized roles with their respective teams, but haven’t done much with them. They all did more than the Bucks’ Giannis Antetokounmpo – who has a good chance of being the best player in this class down the road, but still has a long way to go.
Let’s just hope next year’s rookie class shows more promise. After teams spent a whole season preparing for this spring’s draft – in some cases, multiple seasons – you would certainly hope so.
All-NBA First Team
G Stephen Curry, Golden State
G Tony Parker, San Antonio
F Kevin Durant, Oklahoma City
F LeBron James, Miami
C Joakim Noah, Chicago
Durant, James, Noah and Curry were easy choices after landing on my MVP ballot, leaving just one guard spot. The choice came down to Parker, Chris Paul and James Harden. The first name to get crossed off was Harden, who despite being a fantastic offensive player takes too many plays off at the other end of the floor.
Parker and Paul, leaders of top teams in the West, each missed decent chunks of the season because of injuries. Parker wins out for a pair of reasons: Paul missed a few more games, and Paul has taken a bit of a back seat to Blake Griffin – a good thing for the Clippers in the long run, but enough to allow Parker to nose him out for the final spot.
All-NBA Second Team
G Chris Paul, L.A. Clippers
G James Harden, Houston
F Blake Griffin, L.A. Clippers
F Kevin Love, Minnesota
C Dwight Howard, Houston
Paul and Harden took the guard spots, and Griffin was a lock for one of the two forward spots. Though the Timberwolves have disappointed, Love has been spectacular, putting up 25.8 points, 12.5 rebounds and 4.4 assists per game while shooting nearly 38 percent from 3-point range as the premier stretch four in the NBA.
That leaves the center spot, where Howard is an easy choice. He may have taken a huge hit in his popularity over the past two or three years with all of his indecision and waffling about his future, but Howard now has a healthy back and has returned to elite status, averaging 18.5 points, 12.3 rebounds and 1.5 blocks per game.
All-NBA Third Team
G Goran Dragic, Phoenix
G John Wall, Washington
F Paul George, Indiana
F Dirk Nowitzki, Dallas
C Al Jefferson, Charlotte
Dragic deserves one of these guard spots as further recognition of his outstanding season. Mike Conley and Kyle Lowry were in play for the remaining guard spot, but the choice wound up being Wall, who led the Wizards to the playoffs and began living up to the hype that came being the No. 1 overall pick in 2010.
George, thanks to his all-around excellence, gets one of the two forward spots, and Nowitzki gets the other as a reward for a throwback season.
At the up-for-grabs center spot, Jefferson gets the nod thanks to lifting a rudderless Bobcats franchise to the playoffs in the East. Jefferson, long one of the best low-post scorers in the league, has been sensational since coming back from an early ankle injury, and has given Steve Clifford an anchor to build the franchise around.