2018-19 NBA Awards (and Pre-Season Predictions)

MVP
Giannis Antetokounmpo (Bucks)
My pre-season pick for the MVP was Anthony Davis (Pelicans), jeez what a wasted year from such a great player. (*) But Giannis was in my list of guys ready for a bust-out season--oh man, he busted out! Down to the wire I was inclined to go with James Harden (Rockets) because he carried his team for stretches of the season in a way that Giannis didn't have to (though there's something to be said for the fact that Giannis allows his teammates the room to be their best whereas for Harden teammates are cinder blocks to be dragged along). But in the end I went with Giannis because I thought he had great defensive season, as well (see below), and because his team ended up with the best record in the league and because--I'll say it--he's just a lot more fun to watch than Harden.

That said, Harden had another great year carrying the Rockets through injuries, just missing out on the #2 seed in the West, and flat out dominating the league for weeks at a time. Harden is putting his stamp on Player of the Decade, wouldn't you say? I've had him in my top three for MVP for at least 5 straight years and I fully expect him to be there next year, don't you?

2nd: James Harden (Rockets), 3rd: Steph Curry (Warriors), 4th: Damian Lillard (Blazers), 5th: Nikola Jokic (Nuggets)


DPOY
Giannis Antetonkounmpo (Bucks)
From the perimeter to the rim, he was the best defender in the league by far this season. He's got the reach and the foot speed to hang with the best outside shooters and the size and the hops to bang with the big guys down low. And he's got the skills and smarts to start the break (that is, turning defense into offense). There's nothing that guy can't do on the court--and he's still getting better.

That said: I firmly believe Andre Drummond (Pistons) is now the most underrated player in the league. League leader in offensive and defensive rebounds, top five in steals and blocks (league leader in those stats combined) and among the league leaders in 2-point attempts and free throw attempts (thought admittedly he's a godawful free throw shooter). Yet, I hardly hear him mentioned in the pundits' all-defense teams. He's busting his ass out there for a team that no longer appreciates him and I think it's a damn shame that the even the chattering classes don't seem to notice.

All-defense:
1st team: G: Marcus Smart (Celtics), Klay Thompson (Warriors); F: Giannis Antetokounmpo (Bucks), Paul George (Thunder); C: Andre Drummond (Pistons)

2nd team: G: Eric Bledsoe (Bucks), Russell Westbrook (Thunder); F: Ben Simmons (Sixers), Jerami Grant (Thunder); C: Rudy Gobert (Jazz)


Rookie
Luka Doncic (Mavs)
He was my pre-season pick and he was great from beginning to end. Trae Young (Hawks) had a great second half after starting kinda slow and was so much better than I thought he'd be. But I gotta stick with Luka, so much upside, so much potential dominance and still so young. He controls the game as a rookie and that's impressive, not unlike Ben Simmons (Sixers) last year but with better ability to score. Next year when Porzingis comes in and the roster gets overhauled, the Mavs could be primed for a big jump right away and the optimism is first and foremost because of Luka.

Digging into the numbers I found myself more impressed with Deandre Ayton (Suns) and Collin Sexton (Cavs) than I expected to be and even more impressed with Landry Shamet (Clippers) than I already was. Another good batch of rookies this year--and we didn't even get to see much of Harry Giles (Kings), Omari Spellman (Hawks), Mo Bamba (Magic) or Zhaire Smith (Sixers) and what we saw of Kevin Knox (Knicks) and Wendell Carter (Bulls) was not as good as it should've been, I still think those guys are gonna be really good.

2nd: Trae Young (Hawks), 3rd: Marvin Bagley (Kings), 4th: Shai Gilgeous-Alexander (Clippers); 5th: Mitchell Robinson (Knicks). And I really liked Jaren Jackson (Grizzlies), Deandre Ayton (Suns), Landry Shamet (Sixers/Clippers), Jalen Brunson (Mavs), Collin Sexton (Cavs), Kevin Huerter (Hawks), Miles Bridges (Hornets), Alonzo Trier (Knicks), and Rodions Kurucs (Nets). Another strong rookie class.


6th Man
Lou Williams (Clippers)
How soon before we just re-name this the Lou Williams Award? In today's NBA dudes don't want to come off the bench, they'd rather get fewer minutes overall and less time at the end of the game as long as they're there at the start. Weird. Lou, on the other hand, sees the benefit of letting the game develop before he steps on the court. For all bench players he led (by a mile!) in points and free throw attempts and sports a gaudy asst:to ratio. Really his only competition is his teammate Montrezl Harrel (Clippers), who has a huge number of FTA while leading bench players in rebounds, too--but in Harrel's case it makes you wonder why he doesn't start more?

When digging into the numbers (players who started fewer than half of their games played), the ones that most jumped out at me were Monte Morris (Nuggets) with a killer asst:to, among the leaders in points, steals, minutes played, shot 49% from the field, 41% from 3--dang! That's pretty good. Also Dmontas Sabonis (Pacers), Terrence Ross (Magic) and the ageless Derrick Rose (Wolves) had pretty good seasons off the bench, too.

My pre-season pick was Isaiah Thomas (Nuggets) with the thinking that he could be a real spark off the bench for them but that never came to fruition. Instead it was Morris and Malik Beasley who formed the core of the Nuggets 2nd string, while Thomas never quite fit in.


Most Improved
Paksal Siakam (Raptors)
Siakam went from being a nice role player to a potential star at both ends of the court, upping his usage and efficiency simultaneously--that doesn't happen much in this world. It's not uncommon to see a fine young player getting 10 MPG and thinking he'd be so much better at 20 MPG but then he's not because diminishing returns sets in and while he gets better in the first five minutes, he actually becomes a detriment in the last five minutes. That is precisely the scenario that Siakam avoided this year, going from a role player in the 2nd unit to becoming a more important role player with the starters and busting out in every statistical category (and in the all-important eye test). He's comfortable in a variety of defensive roles and more proficient with the ball and in transition that I would've even thought possible. I knew he was good, didn't know he was this good, Siakam is a vital part of one of the 4-5 best teams in the league and no one saw that coming.

I was gonna throw the curve ball and go with Giannis (Bucks) here because he was my MVP and DPOY (**), which is an amazing jump by any reckoning. But looking back to last season, he was in my top five for both of those awards and I expected him to make a leap this year, so I can't really say this was out of the blue, especially since he was also joined by my Coach of the Year (see below). Last year I forgot to menion Spencie Dinwiddie (Nets) and this year I almost forgot to mention D'Angelo Russell (Nets), who clearly took a step forward, finally coming into his own as a team leader (though there were still stretches when he was not in the game at crunch time). I was kinda impressed with Danilo Gallinari (Clippers) this year, he's coming off an injury so his numbers were inflated but go back to the previous year and this year was much better and that's a bit of an anomaly at his age (and his injury-prone-ness). I've always loved Nikola Vucevic (Magic) but he, too, had a nicer than usual season this year.

There was more discussion than I've ever previously heard among the talking heads about whether it was okay to use 2nd year players in this category and while I understand the logic (rookie to sophomore is usually the biggest single year jump in any career), I think contributing to a good team is even more important. Hanging better numbers on a team that goes nowhere doesn't seem like that big of a deal to me, so I think this award is more team-dependent (as opposed to career-dependent) than I would've thought. (Kinda feels like Gordon Hayward (Celtics) is lining up to win this next year, right?)


Coach
Mike Budenholzer (Bucks)
Just to keep the Bucks feeling going, its worth noting that Coach Bud has a lot to do with Giannis going from good to great and the Bucks going from scrappy underdogs to faves in the East. He knew what he had with Malcolm Brogdon and Khris Middleton and used them as the pillars of an architecture to maximize Giannis, get more out of Eric Bledsoe and Brook Lopez than anyone ever had before and even lure strong contributions from guys like DJ Wilson, Sterling Brown, Pat Connaughton and Donte Divincenzo. Starting with Giannis is every coach's dream but to get the most out of everyone else is how run up the tables and Coach Bud pulled it off.

There were a lot of good candidates this year: Steve Clifford (Magic) looked like another boring retread when hired last summer but he turned the lowly Magic into a defensive juggernaut and a playoff team--and no one saw that coming! Mike Malone (Nuggets) had another fine leap and has gone from being underrated to really really underrated. Doc Rivers (Clippers) withstood a major roster overhaul and came out better than before with a cleaner cap going into the summer, I didn't know Doc had it in him but he had a really good season. Dave Joerger (Kings) did a lot with his ragtag batch of youth and got fired for his efforts (he must be a total dick in real life, right, why else does he keep getting fired despite the good job he keeps doing?).Nick Nurse (Raptors) inherited a good roster but he also inherited many seasons of disappointment, too, and rolled with some major changes to the roster to a chance at a nice run deep into the post-season. Dwayne Casey (Pistons) had a nice season after getting fired for a Coach of the Year-like performance just a year ago, really made the most of a lumpy and weird Pistons roster.


Executive
Jon Horst (Bucks)/Micheal Winger (Clippers)
I sometimes choose a winner for each conference and since I couldn't choose between my top two here, I'll default to taking them both. The Bucks hired the right coach, pulled Brook Lopez off the scrap heap, re-signed Eric Bledsoe to a very reasonable deal, and made mid-season deals for George Hill, Nikola Mirotic and Pau Gasol (none of them were home runs, but none of them were strikeouts, either) and cruised to the best record in the league. That's a pretty good season and alongside MVP, DPOY and Coach of the Year, this is a fitting accolade.

The Clippers tried to re-sign Tobias Harris last summer, got dissed and then pulled the trigger on a series of sprawling, but ultimately very rewarding trades that netted them Landry Shamet, Ivaca Zubac, JaMychel Green, two 1st round picks and two 2nd round picks for a batch of guys that weren't going to re-sign anyway (Wesley Johnson, Tobias Harris, Boban Marjonovic, Micheal Beasley, Alexis Ajinca, Mike Scott, Milos Teodosic, Marcin Gortat, Avery Bradley). They also got an excellent rookie season out of PG Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, still made the playoffs despite all the changes, cleaned up their books heading into a turbulent summer and--best of all--stuck the dreaded Lakers in the eye! And the season ends on a really optimistic note going forward after a lot of upheavals in the previous coupla years. Man, that was pretty god damn good year for the Clippers!

Other GMs that had excellent seasons: Masai Ujiri (Raptors) fired last year's Coach of the Year and traded away some beloved fan favorites in rather cold-blooded fashion but the moves seem to have worked out and the Raptors are finally poised to make a deep run in the Lebron-less playoffs. Elton Brand (Sixers) remolded the Sixers bench in bold fashion and even though it hasn't made much difference, I do think the moves were worth making. Travis Schlenk (Hawks) drafted well, emptied his roster to make room for the future and hired a solid coach to guide the youth movement; this could've been disastrous and instead the Hawks had a pretty good year and are set going forward.

Oh man, my pre-season pick for this was Rob Pelinka (Lakers), solely because he signed Lebron...but...uh...man, not much else went right for the Lakers this year. The summer signings were all weird and overhyped, the season did not get off particularly well, the attempted trade for Anthony Davis was a full-on disaster, dumping Ivaca Zubac is the most laughable move of recent memory, the youthful core of the roster is in full revolt mode, they were racked by injuries late, Magic's self-immolation just highlighted how dysfunctional and delusional the entire organization is and they capped the season by firing Luke Walton, who everyone still thinks is the next great coach. WTF, dude? Oh and supposedly everyone hates Pelinka. So outside of getting Lebron (which is playing out more curse than blessing), everything he's done has gone horribly wrong, the team does not look any better prepared for the future and everyone hates him--Stephen King couldn't have written a scarier story! Wow, that is a superlative season but not the kind that wins awards.


(*) When going over MVP finalists I came up with a preliminary list of 158 players. Anthony Davis was not one of them. What the fuck, dude? Didn't even crack my top 158 despite going relatively injury-free this year? I had Zach LaVine comfortably ahead of Anthony Davis!?! How is that possible? This will be remembered as the year Davis showed that he doesn't really get how the NBA works, embroiling himself in trade shenanigans that killed his own team and the team he wanted to go (Lakers), wasted a year of his prime and took him from king of New Orleans to persona non grata in his own town. What a god damn shame. I can't say the Pelicans have done much right since they drafted Davis, but they've tried to do right and, frankly, not acquiescing to his demands was the right thing to do in this situation. I'm not sure where Davis goes from here but if he goes into next year with a bad vibe, it could be two wasted seasons and that's just heartbreaking to think about.

(**) Can I make a weird comparison? At this year's Oscars, Alfonso Cuaron won Best Director and Best Cinematography, which I'd liken to winning MVP and DPOY in the same season. Beware though: Cuaron did not win Best Picture, which could be an analogue for Giannis not winning the Championship, no?