NBA Season 2016-2017

Technically the 2016-2017 season extends through the draft, then ends with the annual July shutdown. A week later the 2017-2018 season will be born. But all the playing on the court is over. Now is normally the time for coach firings (and contract renunciations) but there wasn't a single firing in the NBA this year. I know I just said the season isn't quite over but none of the potential hot seats (Knicks, Pelicans) seem that hot mainly because I don't see any coach out there that needs to have an NBA job. I suppose the insiders could name a few assistants ready to ascend but I don't know those guys and none of them at the moment are big enough to seem like gotta-have guys. And I think Hornacek and Gentry can still be fine coaches, the problems with those teams are not their fault. As for contract renunciations, we'll see a few of those by draft day.

Let's look back over the season as a whole. Bearing in mind I didn't watch nearly as much basketball as in previous years (a mistake I plan not to make again any time soon).


Finals (Warriors over Cavs in 5)
Well I predicted the Cavs would take a game off the Warriors (yeah, I predicted it but I'm not sure I ever thought the Warriors would lose a game), and they did. It was Game Four not Game Three but whatever, I said it be so and it was. Good for me. But the Warriors were by far the superior team. The Cavs played an all-time great game in Game Four and Steph, Draymond, Livingston and Iggy all kinda sucked. That's what it took to win one stinking game off these Warriors: an all-time great effort combined with one of GSW's worst games of the year. That's just to keep them from going undefeated in the playoffs. In its way its every bit as big as NYG beating the Pats (but then again not even close).

This GSW team is the best single team I ever saw. Ever. I have no doubt they could've and should've beaten the best of the Moses/Doctor Sixers, Magic's Lakers, Bird's Celtics, Isiah's Pistons, Jordan's Bulls, Barkley's (anythings), Stockton/Malone Jazz, Hakeem's Rockets, Ewing's Knicks, Reggie's Pacers, Duncan's Spurs, Shaq/Kobe Lakers, Nash's Suns, Billups' Pistons, Kobe/Pau Lakers, the big 3 Celtics, the later Spurs incarnations, even the Big 3 Heat wouldn't have put a dent in this GSW team. In short, the fact that Lebron took one off these guys is his legacy. Lebron got a ring off the Warriors in 2016! Everybody is lately talking legacy, hey man, Jordan never beat anybody this good and I think even Jordan/Pippen would be looking like Lebron out there this year: the performance and numbers would be legendary, but they'd lose in 5 too.

This GSW squad is just so good and so deep and so versatile and such good scorers all over the court, smart defenders, good teammates, no one could hang with this team. This team could run with some USA Teams from over the years. (Which Olympic teams would fall to GSW? I bet a few of 'em would)

Durant was always awesome at all times in all five games, deservedly the MVP. The other guys each had a crappy game (even Steph sucked in Game Four) somewhere along the way but KD was untouchable, man.

Post-Season
I like the idea of a separate set of awards for the post-season. All of 'em: MVP, 1st and 2nd All-Pro, Coach, Executive, 6th Man from each conference. Obviously the Finalists would dominate but they deserve to, so fine with me.

West
MVP - Durant
1st (Steph, Klay, Durant, Draymond, Aldridge)
* 2nd (Kawhi, Harden, Iguodala, Hayward, Simmons)
6th Man: Iguodala
Coach: Popovich (Mike Brown, Quin Snyder)

Executive: Bob Myers (Warriors) (he's the only guy that signed KD, he's the winner)

East
MVP - Lebron
**1st (Kyrie, Wall, Lebron, Isiah, Beal)
2nd (Love, Tristan, Bradley, Smart, Porter)
6th Man: Smart (Oubre)
Coach: Stevens (Celtics), Brooks (Wizards)

Executive: Danny Ainge (Celtics) (he's relying on his coach to complete his experiments, it's really a marvelous pairing)

Jazz over the Clippers was pretty memorable. I thought the home teams would dominate and it was exactly the opposite: teams were afraid to win at home! Weird series, not at all surprised that Jazz won but how they won I didn't see coming.

Celtics over Wizards was a good series. I thought the Wizards best was better than the Celtics best but the Celtics ordinary was better than the Wizards ordinary. And since you knew the series was gonna be a grind, not a surprise that lunch pail beat action hero.

Spurs over Rockets was a fun series. Sorta. Watching Aldridge go off in Game Six was an unexpected development.

Cavs over Raptors was memorable...not competitive, but memorably un-competitive.

Celtics over Bulls was kinda depressing actually. Bulls didn't deserve those first two W's.

Rockets over Thunder was strangely anti-climactic. Felt like it was gonna be funner than it turned out to be.

Thinking back over the playoffs that just concluded, I'm a little bummed we didn't get to see the Miami Heat. I feel like they would've been more interesting than some of the teams we got: Pacers were so uninspiring, Bulls had two fluke games and then reverted back to form, Hawks were not particularly impressive, Raptors did not go out looking good. Wouldn't you rather have seen what Goran and Dion and Whiteside could've cooked up? (I'm not feeling the Gordon Hayward buzz, I think it's a play for someone else (Celtics for Hayward, Blake Griffin for Miami?)

(*) Screw the guards, I can't see putting Hill or Paul or Conley in there.
(**) Screw all positions, I'm just going top five


Regular Season

MVP 
I'd vote for James Harden. I thought Harden should've won 2 years ago when Curry won his 1st. And while Westbrook's year was amazing, Harden had an even better year on a better team making even more of difference on the success of his team. I thought 2 years ago and again this year: Harden is the most unstoppable player in the league. Harden is either gonna get his shot, set up his assist or get fouled. (Reminds me of Lionel Messi: if you don't foul him he's just gonna go right by you)

Westbrook had one of the most captivating seasons ever, Kawhi is great and getting greater, Lebron is still great, Chris Paul had a quietly great year, Antetokounpo blew up, Isiah Thomas is killin' it, Wall is finally getting some notice. (No Warriors in my top 8...wow) But Harden is the most unstoppable of all, the most dangerous, the most reliable, not necessarily the funnest to watch (not one of my favorite players to watch), but by pretty much any metric, Harden is the man.

ROY 
I'd vote for Joel Embiid. I made this argument a coupla years ago, I'll make it again now: the Rookie of the Year Award is a forward-looking prize, not a backward-looking one. To me this is acknowledging who is the most promising rookie going forward, not which rookie had the single best year. Who cares what this year was for any of particular rookie? None of them made the all-star team, none of them led the league in any significant stat, none of them are dragging their teams into the playoffs. So who cares which guy had the best year? None of them had years that were really all that notable. I thought Embiid was the most promising rookie I saw this year. Yeah, he didn't play that much, I don't care, I liked what I saw enough to say he was the best rookie I saw this year.

I'd put Malcolm Brogdon, Dario Saric, Buddy Hield, Jamal Murray up there too. All promising young players.

Defensive Player
I'd vote Draymond Green. He does so much for the Warriors all over the court, but the way he controls traffic on D is more Mike Singletary or Ray Lewis than any b-baller I can think of.

Kawhi is great, one of the great wing-stoppers of my lifetime. Gobert is one of the great rim-protectors of recent memory. I kinda think Deandre Jordan has gone from underrated to overrated back to underrated, still one of the purest rebounders in the League and that's not insignificant.

6th Man
Uh...honestly I don't have a feel for that at all this year. I haven't crunched any kind of numbers, I watched maybe 1/3 of the games I watched the year before, I have virtually no exposure to talk radio or the Twitterverse, I just don't know where to go on that one this year.

Coach 
I'd vote for Popovich. The Spurs are always great but at this point they're basically a rebuilding team. You don't notice the rebuild because the culture itself is so sturdy. That's Popovich. Give him some ingredients and he'll turn into a meal.

Spoelstra (Heat), Snyder (Jazz), D'antoni (Rockets), Stevens (Celtics), Kerr (Warriors), Brooks (Wizards), Kidd (Bucks), Casey (Raptors), Fitzdale (Grizzlies) rounds out my top ten.

Executive of Year
(In general I think of this award as cumulative. Not merely what they did this season but what a particular regime has done over the years to bring the squad to its current state. That said I'd vote for:)

Bob Myers (Warriors) solely because he signed Durant last year. He won the off-season by a mile when he already had the best team.

Dennis Lindsey (Jazz) (love the homegrown thing they've got there, the bloom may be off soon but personally I hope it continues to flourish), David Griffin (Cavs) (the mid-season pickups were really good this year, they handled the East comfortably because of those moves), Danny Ainge (Celtics) (I love the symbiosis between Ainge and Stevens: Ainge knows what Stevens needs and Stevens knows how to handle what Ainge gives him), Sam Presti (Thunder) (I thought they recovered well from losing one of the great players of all-time).

Not sure what to think of the Pelicans landing Demarcus Cousins, can't give them an A+ just yet; I suspect the steal of the year may be the Mavs getting Nerlens Noel for not much at all; and, boy, the Raptors getting Serge and PJ Tucker doesn't seem like such a big deal now.


What I missed most about this season was the brilliant maturation of Giannis Antetokounpo (Bucks), dang, that guy is gonna be so good, hasn't even gotten going yet but took a big step forward this year. Also, wish I caught more of Jokic (Nuggets), I was so impressed with that kid the year before, sounds like he blew up this year. I also wish I'd wish I'd watched more of the Heat and the Spurs, they were the two most interesting teams to me this year.