2021-22 RealGM All-Season Awards - Voting Thread (voting completed)

[Doctor MJ]

Hi All!

And now we have our say on who, when all is said and done at the end of 21-22, is more deserving of the great accolades for the season.

First - please try to keep content in this thread just to the Votes at least until we end the voting - the Discussion thread is a great place for discussion.

Here's a link to the original project thread from 2010:

Retro Player of the Year Project

That thread has links to votings from individual years as well as the spreadsheets, which I'll be posting again below:

RealGM All-Season Award Winners

RealGM All-Season Awards Shares through 20-21

What are the awards and how will we vote for them?

Player of the Year
Only 5 man ballot.
Vote weighting the same as NBA MVP: 10-7-5-3-1.
To be based on actual basketball achievement this NBA season - not a statement of who you'd draft first, or any other reasoning.

But that is still intended to give you a lot of room for your own vantage point, which you will be expected to speak from when you vote.

This is the original award, and the only award you must vote for.

All other awards will have a 3 man ballot using the 5-3-1 voting scheme the NBA uses for its other awards.

The other awards:

Offensive Player of the Year
Defensive Player of the Year
Rookie of the Year
Most Improved Player
6th Man of the Year
Coach of the Year
Executive of the Year

All awards should be seen from an achievement-oriented perspective like the POY, however the concept of achievement admittedly gets murkier the more you go down the list. Be sincere and open about what you put forward, and I'm sure it will be great.

One more note: All ballots must be complete in order to count. If you simply put down first place votes, it won't count. If you forget to type a name for the last spot on some award, your vote for that award won't count.

Voting Body
1. Doctor MJ
2. flacolombardi
3. Texas Chuck
4. eminence
5. sp6r=underrated
6. Dutchball97
7. jalengreen
8. LukaTheGOAT
9. MyUniBroDavis
10. Outside
11. Lou Fan
12. iggymcfrack
13. GSP
14. Colbinii
15. RCM88x
16. The-Power
17. Jaivl
18. dontcalltimeout
19. HeartBreakKid
20. Fundamentals21
21. Eddy Jukez
22. ardee

Finally...

You must give some explanation for every award you vote in, and you are encouraged to discuss each player you vote for, or even consider. Remember, your actual rankings won't actually mean much to a reader - from the present or future - but you basketball thoughts may.

[Colbinii]

Player of the Year in 2022

1) Nikola Jokic
2) Giannis Antentokoumpo
3) Steph Curry
4) Joel Embiid
5) Jayson Tatum*

Jokic -- Goat level Regular Season and best player by a clear and large margin (with his advantage on Curry being far greater in the regular season than in the post-season for me). Best Offensive Player in the league and one of the greatest offensive seasons ever. Improved to an average defender (for position), good rebounder with his positioning and IQ.
Giannis -- I am lower on his offense than others (and have been in the past as I see him as a similar level offensive player since 2019 with an improvement noticeable in his passing and decision making being quicker). DPOY candidate (Hint--Not my DPOY), Good scorer offensively, improved passer and playmaker (mentioned earlier) but notably didn't access a gear he seemingly had in last-season's NBA Finals, which could have been a result of Middleton not being there. One of the things LeBron and Jordan did year in, year out during their primes was be able to reach a level in the post-season nobody else could simply reach, and did so almost every year. Giannis didn't do that this year.
Curry -- 2nd best Offensive Player, started out terrific in the regular season, injuries and inconsistent shooting are the main culprits for not having him higher, notably the fact Giannis and Jokic had near GOAT-level regular seasons made big enough separation where the gap in the post-season (however the size I think it is) simply didn't close the gap. One of the more complete/all-around seasons by Curry and proved to be resilient scoring for all 4 rounds of the post-seasons.
Embiid -- He was my MIP last year since he became an MVP candidate (hardest jump to make is from All-NBA to MVP) and he improved on that level this year. Clear top-3 regular season with Jokic/Giannis. Injuries dock him and his defense being say...closer to Towns than DPOY level for most of the regular season was a slight disappointment. Looking forward to his season next year with a hopefully motivated James Harden.
Tatum* -- I don't believe he is a guaranteed Top-10 player but he was remarkable for parts of the regular season and improved immensely as a defender. I had to have a Celtic here (and have a Celtic winning another award). Disappointing Finals as he ran out of gas.

HM: Luka, Jimmy, Towns, Gobert, Draymond, Booker, CP3,Rob WIlliams

Defensive Player of the Year

1) Rob Williams
2) Draymond Green
3) Rudy Gobert

The League is still dominated by the big man!

Williams -- He really reminds me of Bill Russell. Ability to defend anywhere from the 3 point line to the hoop, insane lateral and vertical quickness, terrific instincts, excellent timing with his jumping/defendingof shots. He really was the single biggest reason for the Celtics defense and we saw them really challenge Curry and the Warriors in the Finals when he played on the court (and injured). I would have expected Boston to win had he been healthy but such is basketball and the NBA.
Green -- Great during the regular season but terrific once again in the post-season. His IQ and recovery make him one of the best defenders in the league and is extremely dynamic and switchable while being an elite rim protector.
Gobert -- Still the same defensive menace. Looking forward to seeing him with perimeter defenders worth a damn.

HM: Bam, Smart, Beverley, Caruso, Giannis

Offensive Player of the Year

1) Nikola Jokic
2) Steph Curry
3) Joel Embiid

Jokic -- GOAT regular season and good 1st round series offensively
Curry -- Maybe the most resilient offensive player this year (Jokic is unknown since his team played 1 series). Huge scoring volume and high efficiency. Offensive impact off-the-charts (we know this) and greatest shooter ever still in his prime. Him adding strength allows him to finish more effectively on drives against larger players (which we saw against Horford/Smart in the Finals).
Embiid -- Resilient scorer, talented isolation scorer with a true triple-threat on a 7'+ body is unimaginable.

Rookie of The Year
1) Scottie Barnes
2) Evan Mobley
3) Herb Jones

Barnes -- One of the most unique prospects we have seen recently. His skill-set is dynamic on both ends, specifically as a playmaker/passer, switchable defender and rebounder while being a ball-handler. Struggled a bit in the post-season.
Mobley -- Defensive potential to be a DPOY, offensive potential is somewhat limited but strong finisher, smart player and nice touch should result in a very good all-star for years to come.
Jones -- I didn't really know who he was coming into the season but he is a lockdown defender already. Good size, smart player, feel for the game. Looking forward to him expanding his game. Best Rookie.

Coach of the Year

1) Steve Kerr
2) Taylor Jenkins
3) Erik Spoelstra

Kerr -- Integrating the pieces, both rookies and veterans was seamless. Started out blazing hot which means he knew what dials to turn right away, allowing him to know exactly what to do in the post-season and it resulted in another championship.
Jenkins -- Wow, this team playing at that level. Less talented than Minnesota yet he got his team to win. Put up a fight against Golden State and could have even won had Ja not been hurt. He gets everyone to buy in AND made some good decisions in the post-season.
Spoelstra -- Miami was not a #1 seed in terms of talent. Miami should not have been 1 game or shot away from the NBA Finals. Another masterpiece by one of the GOAT coaches.

Most Improved

1) Rob Williams
2) Desmond Bane
3) Ja Morant

Williams -- The ability to stay on the court due to fouls was a massive question mark surrounding Williams and his contract extension. He was able to do so before a major injury, but he did so.
Bane -- I didn't expect a different 2-guard to be better than my guy Anthony Edwards from his class but here we are. While Edwards is a player I expect to surpass Bane, Bane's shooting is on pace to be GOAT-level (well, worse than Curry obviously) and has room to improve even more as a playmaker and defender.
Morant -- I think he was close to this level for flashes last year but 1.3 OBPM to 6.3 OBPM is crazy

Executive of Year

1) Bob Meyers
2) Pat Riley
3) David Griffin

Meyers -- He re-tooled with the right guys, the Wiggins trade came to fruition and was able to keep all the assets (Wiseman, Kuminga, Moody) as the team re-builds.
Riley -- The amount of 2nd rounders he found and developed, along with the Lowry trade had Miami one game away from the NBA Finals.
Griffin -- The C.J. deal was terrific, Herb Jones pick and dealing with Zion who hasn't exactly been the best to deal with is actually impressive to me, more-so than anyone else.

[Doctor MJ]

A reminder that you need to give a full ballot if you want your vote to count.

Spoiler:

MIP #3?

[Dutchball97]

Player of the Year
1. Steph Curry - I've constantly been going back and forth on whether Curry has done enough in the post-season to overtake Jokic. In the end I do think Curry's run was impressive enough. I was already pretty high on Curry's regular season as his EPM puts him on the same tier as Embiid and Giannis and overall I saw him as the 4th or at worst 5th best player in the regular season. Going into the finals I had pretty much all but decided that Curry wasn't going to end up on top of my ballot no matter what happened in the finals. He didn't manage to clearly outplay any of Jokic, Ja or Luka head to head and the Warriors really seemed to achieve so much success by employing just about the deepest roster in the league. To be fair Jokic, Ja and Luka had incredibly strong performances themselves as well (on the offensive end) and while Curry didn't outplay them, he didn't get outplayed either. Then Curry managed to exceed all expectations in the finals against arguably the best defense in the league. Looking at the post-season overall Curry managed to step up from the regular season for only the second time in his career (2017 being the other one).

2. Nikola Jokic - The post-season is very important in my POY evaluations so it's unusual for me to have some who lost in the first round this high and I even almost ended up putting him #1. It really speaks to how good Jokic was in the regular season. He was the best offensive player in the league by a clear margin and vastly improved on the defensive end as well. With pretty much 0 help I'm really impressed by Jokic even getting this team to the play-offs and I didn't find his play there disappointing either but Curry was still close enough that him winning the title with impressive play put him ahead. If Jokic had gotten a round further or made it closer against the Warriors, while keeping up his high level of play it'd probably have swung it around for me so very close one.

3. Giannis Antetokounmpo - I had Giannis 3rd in the regular season and somehow that's where he ended up overall too despite the guys around him switching around. I don't think Giannis did enough to pass Jokic, he clearly did enough to pass Embiid and Curry in turn did enough to pass him. Giannis is a contender for both OPOY and DPOY and was great in both the regular season and post-season. Definitely the most well rounded season out of anyone and could've definitely even taken over the top spot if he went a bit deeper in the play-offs.

4. Joel Embiid - My initial reaction to his play-off performance was pretty harsh but I simply expected a lot more from him after the amazing regular season he had. So Giannis and Curry passing him by probably doesn't need much explanation but I did have a hard time deciding if anyone else did enough to pass him by and maybe even drop him off my ballot. Tatum was the closest in the regular season and by making the finals he had the best opportunity to play his way above Embiid but when looking at Tatum's season as a whole, did he really do enough? I personally don't think so. Then besides a couple fringe candidates who didn't do much in the play-offs (CP3, Gobert, KD) or didn't even make it (LeBron) the only real competition for these last spots is Luka and Butler. Both clearly had less impressive regular seasons but great post-season runs. Butler especially had to come from too far back in the regular season to make up the difference. If he hadn't missed any games and didn't have that mediocre 3 game stretch against Boston then maybe but right now he just misses out.

5. Luka Doncic - I didn't know whether to push him up to 4th or leave him off my ballot entirely but he ended up 5th. Just like with Curry and Embiid, it seems I'm a bit higher on his regular season than most which probably helps a lot here. I had him firmly inside the top 10 and not too far behind Tatum, while the play-offs are worlds apart. Luka missing the first three games of the play-offs matters but his only game I'd call below par was game 1 of the WCF. Tatum on his part completely disappeared when he had a bad game and besides round 1 that happened occasionally. I think this goes to show I'm not big on relying on +- for my evaluations as Tatum leads the league, while Luka comes out by far the worst among POY candidates but I can't help but look at it as more of a line-up stat instead of an individual stat.

Offensive Player of the Year
1. Steph Curry - There is going to be quite a bit of overlap between my POY and OPOY rankings. Team defense > team offense but individual offense tends to sway things more than individual defense except for a couple outliers. Whoever ended up getting the #1 spot between Curry and Jokic was also getting #1 here but I'm more confident here than for POY. Jokic was still great offensively in the post-season but clearly a step below his regular season form, while Curry stepped up and proved effective throughout the entire play-offs.

2. Nikola Jokic - Even though he comes up just short of the top spot for me, the top 2 is still clearly ahead of everyone else imo.

3. Luka Doncic - This was looking like Trae Young's spot after the regular season but he didn't live up to expectations in the post-season, so much so it almost feels like a waste of space to even mention him. Giannis and Embiid were also ahead of Luka but both guys stepped up defensively in the play-offs but couldn't quite keep up their offensive production. Other possible candidates like CP3, KD, Booker, Mitchell etc didn't really do much to improve their position either in the post-season. Luka was definitely in the conversation after the regular season and more than delivered when it mattered most.

Defensive Player of the Year
1. Draymond Green - Probably the toughest award to vote on but I ended up going with Draymond despite the missed games. He was the best per minute defender in the regular season and I don't think it's an outlandish take to claim he probably was the most valuable defender in the play-offs either.

2. Rudy Gobert - I almost didn't include him but he was too much of an outlier not to have him here. I had him right behind Green as the most effective defender in the regular season but he was much more valuable due to playing significantly more games. Gobert's play-offs weren't great but was it bad enough to drop him multiple spots? I don't think so. I think he did admirably but what can you do as a center against an offense centered around the likes of Luka, Brunson and Dinwiddie when your perimeter players seem allergic to defense.

3. Jaren Jackson Jr. - This last spot was nearly impossible to make a choice. Between JJJ, Bam, Giannis and pretty much the entire Celtics rotation there were a lot of deserving guys. The Bucks were pretty average on defense in the regular season and looked like two different teams defensively against the Bulls and Celtics, with Jrue there I just expected slightly more. The Celtics are one of the most stacked defensive teams I've ever seen. Williams is a revelation at the 5, Smart won DPOY (even if it might not have been entirely deserved), Horford was my personal pick for the Celtics defensive MVP due to his consistency but Tatum, White, Brown and Grant were all also big positives. It just seems like too much of a collective to pick out just the one and give them all the credit. In the end it mostly came down to Bam and JJJ. They grade out very similarly in EPM, RAPTOR and LEBRON, while their respective teams were top 5 in both the regular season and play-offs on defense. In the end it comes down to who I think had to carry their team more on the defensive end and I think that Bam has a bit more help with Butler and Tucker than JJJ has on the Grizzlies.

Rookie of the Year
1. Evan Mobley - Before the season started I expected Mobley to have the biggest potential to be a bust among the top picks. I've just seen one too many bigs get drafted too high in stacked draft classes jsut because "you can't teach size". Mobley completely proved me wrong though as he made an immediate impact and was an important part of the Cavs becoming a pretty good team. Even though his defensive impact might've been inflated by playing alongside Allen, I still think Mobley had the most impactful season. While it is difficult to judge what heights rookies will reach is often still a crapshoot, I don't see much of a reason that the likes of Cade and Green will definitely peak higher when Mobley is full of potential as well.

2. Scottie Barnes - Just like POY and OPOY between Curry and Jokic, this was a 2-man race so it might feel like a bit of a loss for Barnes to end up in that second spot. Especially towards the end of the season he made it a pretty tough choice but I simply was more impressed by Mobley over the whole season.

3. Franz Wagner - I've talked about this pick in the discussion thread already. I think he had a great season where he immediately became the best player on the Magic (although that is not a high bar). Herb had a season that was pretty much just as good and with the play-offs showing he had there is a good case for him too but Franz plays a bigger role and looks like he has a lot more groom to grow. Similarly to Mobley I don't think Cade and Green necessarily showed way more potential than Franz, while he simply had a much better season than either of them.

Most Improved Player
1. Darius Garland - Although this was not that easy of an award to vote for either, I did decide on Garland as #1 pretty quickly. The jump he made from barely being good enough to be in the rotation to becoming a legit All-Star level lead guard is huge. His statistical jump was also extremely impressive across the board in both the boxscore stats as impact stats.

2. Desmond Bane - He wasn't quite as bad last year as Garland and not quite as good now but he still made a nearly identical statistical leap. What put him above other contenders is that similarly to Garland he also became a much more important cog for his team.

3. Ja Morant - The biggest boxscore jump among all candidates, only Garland and Dejounte Murray even come close. It's not the most important factor (hence why he isn't first) but going from 16.7 PER, 0.71 WS/48 and -0.4 BPM last year to 24.4 PER, .174 WS/48 and 6.1 BPM should not be ignored. He's a step below Garland and Bane in statistical leap in impact stats but that's mostly because he was already a slight positive last year compared to Garland and Bane being massive negatives. I think some of the candidates like Robert Williams, Payton and Poole mostly benefitted from a vastly increased role instead of just being much better than the previous season. Others like Mikal Bridges, Maxey, JJJ and especially Brunson (Exact same PER, WS/48 and BPM, while his RAPTOR and LEBRON changed less than 0.1) just didn't show up as having made that big of a statistical leap. Dejounte Murray and Miles Bridges would be the closest to Morant in my eyes.

6th Man of the Year
1. Kevin Love - So I said I was going to look mainly at the play-offs for this award but I ended up choosing someone who didn't even get there. I thought Poole, Dinwiddie and to a lesser extent White were the most outstanding bench players in the post-season but all of them started just over half the games in the regular season. Herro was terrible in the play-offs and I wasn't that high on his regular season to begin with. Grant Williams seems to be the new hot topic for this award but I don't think he was all that in the regular season and I'm noticeably lower on his play-offs than most seem to be. He was by far the weakest offensive player in the Celtics rotation and while he was good defensively, it didn't make too much of a difference for a team that is already drowning in good to great defenders. So in the end like everyone expected half the top spots for the player awards went to the Warriors and the other half to the Cavaliers. That said Love probably won't be too controversial of a pick, I think the next two are a bit more surprising.

2. Chris Boucher - So-so boxscore stats but he grades out just as well in the impact stats like EPM and LEBRON as Love. His relatively strong showing in a first round loss doesn't hurt his case here either.

3. Jordan Clarkson - Extremely similar case as Boucher but just a tad worse across the board. Others I considered here were Immanuel Quickley, who graded out the highest in impact stats out of anyone but Boucher and Clarkson were right behind him and thus close enough for their good play in the play-offs to make the difference. Payton was another serious candidate but his role was quite a bit smaller than the guys in front of him and while he was probably the best per minute (toss up with Love imo) his total value doesn't really stand out and his limited role makes it harder for him to catch up.

The most surprising thing for myself here is probably no Celtics or Heat players making any of my ballots despite being in contention for all of them except ROY and MIP.

[RCM88x]

POY
1) Jokic - Slight edge over Curry due to just how insane of a carry job this RS was and how truly historic of a season it was, the volume gap over Curry is just too big for me and his RS was just flat out better than Giannis’ turned out to be. Hard to blame him for a quick playoff exit, but he played far better than just about anyone vs GS which is big for me.
2) Curry - Gets second due to his really great playoff run and what was a fringe MVP caliber season before his slump and injury (probably would have been 2nd-4th for me then).
3) Giannis - Is next, overall probably a bit of a letdown season coming off a title but a lot of that was team health related, still the most physically imposing force in the game today and defensively the best of all these guys.
4) Butler - Gets this spot due to what was trending to be a historically notable playoff run before an unfortunate injury sorta slowed him down. Still came back with an ATG game against Boston. A playoff run like this deserves to be on the list even if his RS wasn’t MVP worthy.
5) Embiid - Once again a letdown of a playoff run, once again due to injury. But the clear cut #3 guy in the RS for me. He gets the nod over the rest due to health (in the regular season), team dependance and playoff sample. The real contenders here being Luka and Tatum which both had some pretty bad stretches in the RS and just proved to be liabilities or lacked significantly one way or another in the PS that I don’t think allows them to be put in this spot, I give Embiid the benefit of the doubt a bit.

OPY
1) Jokic - Hard for me not to give it to him here, Denver had no business being the 6th best offensive team in the league this year but somehow they managed it. Still was really impressive in the series against GS so hard to hold anything against him there. Looked into things more and flipped my vote from a few days ago.
2) Curry - If he didn't miss time in the RS and have a very odd slump he’d probably edge Jokic out I think, but he gets second again here by being the best perimeter creator/spacer/gravity in the league and really proved it with a spectacular playoff run leading the best playoff offense this season.
3) Embiid - Probably would have gone with Trae had he not had one of the worst playoff series of all time. But Embiid rightfully deserves this spot, just a great all around offensive season from a position/style that we don’t see much of anymore. He’s truly reached that next level on this end and just has a bit more nuance and probably a little higher floor than some of the other candidates.

DPOY - *TBD

ROY
1)Barnes - Had Mobley not gone down at the end of the RS and fell-off so hard when Allen was out I would pick him but Barnes was super solid and a real critical piece to a good Toronto team.
2) Mobley - Started off the year super hot, I think as the team changed around him we got a bit more of a sample he didn’t quite look so other worldly (notably when he was forced to play C and when Rubio went down and took all good entry passing with him).
3) Cade - Really came on strong when he got healthy, but just missed too much time for me here and didn’t have the team success the other guys had (understandable I guess but that’s how this award goes)

MIP
1) Garland, going into this season I had no real expectations for him and was concerned he would never really amount to more than a backup PG in the league, but wow, he really became an elite player by the end of the year and could be fighting for All-NBA votes as soon as next year.
2) Ja, absolutely skyrocketed into the elite player tier this year. I think part of that was due to his team also seeing a ton of improvement but he was a big part of that too. Only loses out on first because I actually expected him to be pretty good this year unlike Garland.
3) Rob Williams, his jump from a fringe rotation big to a legitimate elite defensive anchor was a massive development in the second half of the year and despite hobbled really kept the Celtics playoff run on track I thought

6MOY - **TBD

COY
1) Jenkins
2) Monty
3) Kerr

I liked Monty slightly more in the RS but consider the playoffs he just gets ahead by a little here, one of the better 2 year turnarounds in recent memory and I think he deserves a lot of credit for his approach, Kerr once again shows he is a master of his craft and proves his system yet another time.

EOY
1) Kleiman - Manifestation of a great two year rebuild, while not a lot of big moves this year I really though how he got rid of the Blesdoe, Val and Allen and then getting back Adams was huge for this team’s leap. Kept them in a great spot going forward.
2) Stevens - I think he completely revived this core with the moves he made this year one of them being the coaching hire and moving up to the executive suite. Got a lot of the old band back together and again really cleaned up the roster and put them in a much better position going forward.
3) Altman - Don’t know if I like voting for my own guy here but he’s really improved the teams situation now that the cloud of ownership intervention seems to have lifted, the Rubio trade was massive for this teams culture and the Lauri trade proved to be an unexpected key to success.

[jalengreen]

Player of the Year

1. Nikola Jokic
2. Giannis Antetokounmpo
3. Stephen Curry
4. Joel Embiid
5. Jayson Tatum

Spoiler:

Nikola Jokic enjoyed an all-time great regular season in 2022. He is, in my eyes, the only player this season that can say that. Giannis, Curry, Embiid, and Tatum were all elite in the regular season. Legendary? Historic? I don't think so. In the postseason, Jokic maintained offensive excellence against the best team in the league.

Was his defense something that the Warriors relentlessly attacked? It sure was - but I am not going to excessively reward Curry for having a *far* better defensive supporting cast than Jokic. I think Curry's defense is already troublesome at times (Finals G3 comes to mind) and I think it would have a far worse reputation if he wasn't surrounded by the defensive talent that he is. There would have to be a significant gap in defensive production to make up for what I view as a significant gap in offensive value, and I don't think such gap exists. I rated Jokic as easily the best offensive player in the league in the 2021-22 season which is ultimately what gives him the edge.

As for Jokic versus Giannis... although I consider Giannis the best player in the NBA, I thought his defensive value was down in the regular season giving Jokic a massive advantage over him overall (similar to Curry). Like any player in that "great but not Jokic" regular season tier (Giannis, Embiid, Curry), he had room to make up in the postseason that he didn't. Of course, I don't think Giannis underperformed - he was fantastic against Chicago, the load he had to carry against the Celtics without Middleton was enormous and he was, in my eyes, the best postseason defender while playing. His defensive impact in the postseason was absolutely incredible.

I had to consider whether Curry deserved to finish #1. He was, without a doubt, the most difficult player to rank on this ballot. And a comparison that frequently emerged was with the 2016 season - Curry has a historic regular season, falters in the playoffs, and is surpassed by the NBA champion's best player: LeBron James. A decision which I think was fair - by that precedent, though, does Curry deserve to be #1 on my ballot?

To me, there are major differences: (a) Curry underperforming is why his team was eliminated in 2016, (b) Curry missed much of the first two rounds and his team continued to win more games than they lost. The same cannot be said about Jokic. Furthermore, I believe that the level of play LeBron reached in the 2016 playoffs was higher than what Curry reached this postseason. LeBron looked like the greatest player ever at times with his DPOY level defensive impact. A +20 on/off in the playoffs is so no joke.

Along with considering Curry at #1, I had to consider Giannis at #2 over Curry. And I went back and forth on this (annoying because I kept having to change the wording of this text). It was only when working on my OPOY ballot and deciding to put Giannis at #3 when I looked back and thought, gee, he really has a case here. Great offensive season short of Jokic/Curry but also certainly a great defensive season - and in the playoffs, he had an absolutely ridiculous defensive impact. I viewed both of them as having had similar regular seasons - I viewed him as the best defender in the playoffs while playing in the first two rounds. And he probably shouldn't have even been able to take the Celtics to 7 with the lack of offensive support that he had. I think there's a strong case to be made for both players here - you could put Curry anywhere from 1-3 reasonably. I should also mention that while I mention Curry/Giannis being on a similar RS tier below Jokic, I do think Giannis would clearly rank ahead in the RS over Curry for me. Just not the world of difference that Jokic has.

Won't write as much for Embiid and Tatum but I also rated Embiid as having had a similar regular season to Giannis and Curry. He did not have close to the same postseason impact which leaves him at an obvious #4 as Tatum didn't have the same regular season impact and was not impressive enough in the postseason to make up for that. He had a far better team and while he was the best player, too often he didn't actually play like it.

The main contender for #5 would probably be Butler ... and it's a very reasonable case. Butler was arguably the best player of the playoffs - when's the last time the best postseason player wasn't in the top 5 for POY? But to me, Tatum's regular season impact per minute was clearly greater than Butler's AND he played 19 more regular season games. That's just an enormous impact and maybe just by virtue of making the Finals, Tatum's postseason impact wasn't so minimal to allow Butler to surpass him.

Offensive Player of the Year

1. Nikola Jokic
2. Stephen Curry
3. Giannis Antetokounmpo

Spoiler:

Not much to be said about Jokic and Curry. Jokic's offense is why he's my POY and Curry's offense is why his team won the Finals and why he's 2nd on my POY ballot. It only stands to reason that they'd be the top dogs for OPOY.

The #3 spot was tough, though. Really, really tough. I STRONGLY considered putting Trae #3 because his regular season offensive production was absurdly impressive. But I ended up having to go with Giannis who was also great offensively in the regular season and did not suffer in the postseason to the extent of Trae who was absolutely disastrous.

Defensive Player of the Year

1. Rudy Gobert
2. Draymond Green
3. Al Horford

Spoiler:

I think there's a strong case to be made that Draymond was the best defender in the league in the regular season on a per minute basis. He was amazing and I really thought he would've won DPOY if he didn't get hurt and we wouldn't have to see Marcus Smart of get it instead. However, he did get hurt and he missed a LOT of time. Gobert played 20 more games in the regular season and was arguably right up there with Draymond in per minute impact anyhow.

As for the postseason, I was not actually that high on Draymond's defensive impact. It was far too inconsistent for my liking and I think his level of play just dropped off after his back injury and he didn't return as the same player. Sure, he had some great games like Finals G6, but it just wasn't a consistent enough effort to make up the difference for Gobert iMO.

Also a quick shoutout to Gobert's G1 performance against Utah. Best game I've ever seen from someone without a FGM. That's a pretty niche category, but it just speaks to Gobert's extraordinary defensive impact in that game, something that will probably be forgotten in a forgettable Jazz season.

#3 was tough. This is where I almost feel obligated to go with a Celtic. But which one? Smart, Horford, and Williams arguably all have a case, which arguably weakens their respective individuals cases (how about JJJ? Bam? there are other options here too...). Williams unfortunately just didn't play enough minutes for me despite how great he was when he was on the court. But I thought Horford was absolutely enormous defensively in the postseason, and of course he was still elite in the regular season. It feels weird to put him over the DPOY winner on his team in Smart who didn't miss significant time to injury or anything like that, but I truly don't think Smart deserved the award in any case.

Rookie of the Year

1. Evan Mobley
2. Franz Wagner
3. Scottie Barnes

Spoiler:

Being an elite player on any side of the ball right out of the gate on major minutes is not at all common, but Mobley did it - he was instantly one of the best defenders as a 20-year-old and he was a key part of a team with a 48-win pace in his starts.

I really did not see Wagner being as good as he was as a rookie but he had an instant impact for Orlando. And there's the obvious argument against him for being on a losing team compared to Barnes, but man the Raptors sure had much more talent than the Magic and it's not something I can personally fault Wagner for at all. He grades out very nicely for rookies in impact metrics and had a mighty impressive +8.3 on/off.

Scottie truly surpassed all expectations I had for him. His start to the season was enormous and while he slowed down a bit, he was still a part of a successful team that managed to make the playoffs, similar 48-win pace as starter.

Cade had a slow start to the year, but he really picked it up and I was considering going Mobley>Barnes>Cade initially until I decided that I was underrated Wagner. He had maybe the least help as far as top rookies go (tends to happen to #1 pick) and I think he's going to end up just fine.

Coach of the Year

1. Steve Kerr
2. Erik Spoelstra
3. Taylor Jenkins

Spoiler:

The Warriors had ups and downs (amazing start to the season, slowing down, Draymond injury, the atrocious blowout against Memphis, falling down 1-2 to Boston, etc), but Kerr rallied the troops and had them bounce back every time. I remember hearing Kerr talk about his coaching philosophy in the past, and he mentioned his belief that having role players involved in the offense will in turn elevate their defensive effort and impact, and I think the Warriors dynasty perfectly exemplifies that ideology.

The last two spots were tough - it was between Udoka/Spoelstra/Jenkins to me. In the end, I favored the success of the Heat and Grizzlies in overcoming injuries. The Heat dealt with their superstar missing 20 games and still finished at the top of the East (despite not really being an extraordinarily talented team... they weren't devoid of talent but they're far from a juggernaut), and the Grizzlies really did not skip a beat at ALL without Ja.

Executive of the Year

1. Brad Stevens
2. Bob Myers
3. David Griffin

Spoiler:

Stevens helped turn this team into a Finals contender with the Horford/White acquisitions, they didn't panic after a slow start and decided to trust the core that they had, and it took them very far. Not the distance, but they finally got over the ECF hump and the Horford in particular was absolutely an enormous part of that.

Myers retooled the squad after the 2021 season and put a much better team around star Steph Curry with acquisitions like OPJ and GP2 along with maintaining a strong young presence (Kuminga/Moody). A championship doesn't hurt.

Trying not to be biased with the Griffin pick but I think it's really remarkable to have three rookies (Jose Alvarado, Herb Jones, Trey Murphy III) be significant contributors to a team that pushed the best regular season team in the league to six games. Sure, they missed Booker, but the Pels missed Zion. The acquisitions of McCollum and Nance were a big part of that success as well.

[ardee]

Can you add me to the voting list?

[TheGOATRises007]

Can you add me to the voting list?

Me too if possible

[eminence]

Only voting on POY. Short descriptions of my impressions of player seasons here, if you have any questions/feedback, feel free to quote me in the Discussion Thread.

POY Vote
1. Stephen Curry - Had him somewhere 2-3 for this RS, came out and had clearly the best playoff run in the league. I do think he cleanly outplayed Luka/Tatum in the final 2 series (only one of those controversial). A more even duel with Jokic in round 1, which for a guy just returning from injury is pretty dang impressive. To me the ending impression of the season is the Warriors returning from injury to their pre-KD ways.

2. Nikola Jokic - All-time notable carry job from Jokic, he successfully did everything for the squad in the RS in a way we rarely see. Held it together on D through the RS as well. All in all a hell of a season, #1 in the RS. Unfortunately the squad just wasn't up for any sort of playoff push, hopefully they're back and ready to go next season. About as close to that very top level as any player will get on a non-contender for me ('03 KG?).

3. Jayson Tatum - Doesn't seem like folks ever got on board with me on this one, but I wound up very very impressed by his season. He's the one I'm debating 2-3 with Steph for the RS - very good defender and played huge minutes. Hope a relatively rough Finals doesn't get him left off too many ballots. Very strong RS, spectacular round 1 against a fairly strong 1st round challenge, and I was happy with his performances in the next two rounds.

4. Giannis Antetokounmpo - Don't want to be too negative here, but I seem lower on his RS than most, with Giannis/Jrue/Khris all mostly healthy I'm underwhelmed by a 3 seed and the #14 defense in particular. As defending champs if they'd come out and got the job done I would've gotten it, and they certainly dialed up the defense with the return of Brook. The offense though, not so great and missed Khris heavily. Still a strong overall season with a ton of production where he seemed to have another gear in the playoffs but came up just short vs a worthy foe in Tatum and the Celtics. Would've enjoyed round 3 vs the Heat.

5. Jimmy Butler - Tough call for me here. Jimmy was underwhelming in the RS, not even sure where I'd put him, but likely outside of the top 10, but his team wound up with the 1 seed. Playoffs? Now that's another story, hell of a playoff run, with wild ups and down. Highs as high as anybody in the league this season. Enough to get my last vote (dontcalltimeout had a great post in the discussion thread that fully sold me on him).

HM #1 - Luka Doncic, bit of a similar case to Butler, bit lower on Lukas RS. POs also very impressive, but couldn't see a clear separation over Butler there, went Butler.

HM #2 - Joel Embiid, either 4 or 5 through the RS, and if it weren't for the broken face and subsequent missed games and poor play would almost certainly be on my ballot, bummer.

[falcolombardi]

Jokic/curry is tricky as hell for poy, only thingh i know is that giannis doesnt have a case vs jokic so he is 2nd at best. Luka, butler, tatum and embiid all compete for top 5

Let me do some precendent cases

2009-2010: lebron has historical regular seasons while kobe wins the championships. Lebron wins poy

2016 curry has historical regular season but subpar playoffs (1.5 series missed, 1 great series 1 bad series = bad playoffs for a mvp) lebron has strong regular season amd fantastic playoffs

2020= giannis has near historical regular season, lebron has the better playoffs

The pattern is that playoffs win tiebreakers over regular season, even in 2009 lebron was the best postseason player (2010 is arguably the exception to the pattern, it probably would go for kobe if voted for again)
The issue? Jokic and curry dont fit neatly into neither pattern, jokic is somewhere between 2009 lebron (poy) and 2016 curry (not poy)

He has the goat tier regular season and strong playoffs play, but unlike lebron he doesnt have 3 series of goat tier play under his belt

He played better on average than 2016 curry but only played 5 games to curry 18 and curry oklahoma series is actually comparable to jokic play vs warriors so there is that. I dont reward players who only play 1 series for not struggling in further rounds they didnt play

Honestly this is a unusual situation because jokic was likely a better player than curry this year overall somethingh we cannot say for kobe over lebron in 2010

I am leaning on voting for the highest level player over the season which is jokic but it sucks curry great year and ring wont get a poy because he coincided with a historical peak season

Dpoy is really tricky

draymond imo was not as dominant as other years in the playoffs and missed too much regular season, gobert is maybe the best defender in the world but is hard to give the award to a player in a meddlin defense even if he is the best defender

Hotford surprised me a ton amd giannis blew my mind in the post season but had a weak defense team in reg season. I probably would go gobert to reward the full body of work

executive is an award i have zero idea about but i guess bringing back horford was a move that made boston into a contender against all expectations, warriors wiggins mpve and trusting poole paid off handsomely and may deserve delayed praise and i am a huge fan of sixers salvaging the simmons saga even if it didnt work as well as expected at the end

Coy is probably between kerr, jenkins and monty for me the former won a ring and got everythingh they could get of pmayers like wiggs poole and looney, jenkins grizzlies surprised us all as out of nowhere contenders and he gets some credit for their young talent flourishing. Monty gets a 3rd place nod for the impressive regular season

Jokic gets opoy for the most impressive floorraising/carryjob season since 2009 imo mostly on the offensive end where it may have been even better than lebron 2009 one (in offense,not overall)

I Have mobley>barnes>cade as the most impressive rookies so far as potential shown this year doesnt mean they will remain in that order further along. But i think mobley showed the mpst impressive talent for now

I am unsure about sixth man so i will pass

[falcolombardi]

POY

1-Jokic (when in doubt go with the best level of play)
2-curry (ring and the finals mpved him over giannis)
3-giannis (strong playoffs overall although somewhat underwhelming offense imo, if he played up to his 2021 finals offense on top of his impressive defense bucks beat boston and win a ring vs warriors imo he still can be better)
4-butler arguably the best player in the playoffs (i think he was) even if the reg seasom was very weak for poy, his scoring playmaking amd defense combo was spmethingh out of prime lebron
5-embiid great reg season and weaker playoffs even if it was cause injuries

DPOY

1-gobert.not a sexy pick but i think he has the better overall body of work, draymond missed too many games and i am not sure green was better in playoffs

2- green. Stromg regular season but injured a lot good but a tad underwhelming for him playoffs

3- giannis for being the defensive player that impressed me the most in the playoffs alongside rob williams amd jaren jackson jr but pmaying a lot more minutes

Bonus points for offensove responsability as players with his offensive load usually slip defensively, is laudable that he was carrying the bucks offense load while playing dpoy defense

Hm: jaren jackson and robert williams who will be absomute monsters if they get their health and fpum troubles under control. Horford for arguably being a bettwr playoffs defender than draymond green

OPOY
1-jokic zero questions, one od the mpst impressive offensive carryjobs in history
2-curry kept the warriors pffense consistently strong in the playoffs
3- luka showed incredible poise and playoffs ready game again

COY
1-kerr cause his approach getting so much off players like wiggins and poole gave warriors a ring
2- jenkins for the most surprising top team in the league this year with memphis and their young talent growth
3-monty williams for the incredible regular season record even while dealing with serious injuries

ROY

1- mobley
2-barnes
3-cade

For how impressive they looked in the season if i had to guess who will be bettwr down the road after 1 year that wpuld be my order

[iggymcfrack]

Player of the Year
1. Nikola Jokic- Best player by pretty much every advanced stat in the regular season, possibly the best box score season of all-time, and then would end up putting up all-time playoff numbers as well in one series against the defending champs. He's a very underrated defender who played extremely well on that end all year and one series where he couldn't stay with the top offensive player in the league other than himself with a bad leg in switches doesn't negate that. He's #1 with a bullet IMO. If his teammates had been healthy, it's possible we'd remember this as one of the greatest seasons of all-time.

2. Giannis Anteotokounmpo- Like Jokic, put up an all-time level regular season by the numbers and was probably the best and most valuable player in the postseason on a per-game basis, coming up impossibly clutch against Boston. He played at all-NBA level on both sides of the ball and would probably be good enough to win POY in most seasons. In order to even consider passing an all-time great season from Jokic though, that postseason play would have to lead to at least one series win over a top team.

3. Stephen Curry- An absolutely incredible postseason. He shut down any doubts about his clutchness with one of the greatest individual Finals of all-time and pretty much locked down the GOAT PG trophy IMO. The differences in ORtg with him on and off the court were staggering. With that said, his regular season was just very good instead of great and he's easily the worst defender of the top 5 guys. When going against flawless all-time seasons from the guys above him, that's going to relegate him to third place.

4. Joel Embiid- With the incredible regular season that he had, neck and neck with the top guys, I really didn't expect him to fall out of the Top 3. Even after an iffy playoffs, I'd normally give him the benefit of the doubt for the injury and point out how he was clearly at another level when healthy. But against an all-timer of a postseason from Steph, this feels right.

5. Jayson Tatum- A statement making season where he announced himself as one of the top guys in the league. Led the NBA in plus-minus through the regular season. Was clearly the "best of the rest" in the regular season by the advanced stats behind the 3 MVP candidates putting up insane video game numbers. And for much of the playoffs, he proved his clutch bonafides, hitting the game winner as the clock expired Game 1 against Brooklyn and going off for 46/9/9 in a road elimination game against the defending champs. Ultimately the accumulation of injuries under an extremely heavy minute load would make him falter in the Finals, but he's absolutely a top 5 player in the league going forward.


Offensive Player of the Year
1. Nikola Jokic- All-time great numbers in both the regular season and postseason while also providing unprecedented playmaking for a big man. He did it as well as anyone's ever done it at the center position.

2. Stephen Curry- Comical on/off numbers showed his gravity and he came up impossibly clutch when it mattered most in the Finals, but he still doesn't beat Joker's body of work over the entire season.

3. Giannis Anteokounmpo- The advanced offensive stats back up what you'd see with the ridiculous box score numbers and have him clearly ahead of anyone else you'd put here with the exception of Trae who completely disqualified himself with the Miami series. Giannis was a tour de force against Boston without Middleton and honestly has a strong case against Steph for #2.


Defensive Player of the Year
1. Rudy Gobert- Dominated the advanced defensive statistics almost as much as Jokic dominated the overall statistics. Voter fatigue and past playoff failures led to him being dismissed this year, but he still had much more impact than any of the other candidates. You can't even blame him for the playoffs this year as the Jazz put one of the worst perimeter defenses around him ever that gave him no chance to succeed. The fact he was able to make the Jazz resemble a good defense at any point is astounding.

2. Draymond Green- Once again, the advanced stats have him as a clear #2 and who could question it with how tremendous the Warriors' postseason defense was with him as by far the most valuable defender. I definitely see the case for #1 with his postseason success, but I just can't do it with how few minutes he was played. It was a luxury of the team he played for, that he was able to be unavailable for that long and still coast into the playoffs.

3. Bam Adebayo- Of the group of guys in close contention for this spot, Bam's the one who made a major impact during the postseason and turned the Heat into a dominant playoff defense. He earned it.

Coach of the Year
1. Ime Udoka- One of the most remarkable in-season turnarounds in the history of the NBA. He took a defense which was very good under Brad Stevens (himself a coaching mastermind) and rebuilt it from scratch, getting through the bumps of being below average at the start of the season to being one of the best defenses of all-time by the end. His coaching carried that team to a level that probably no one else in the league could have replicated.

2. Monty Williams- Disappointing series against Dallas or no, this is a team that couldn't make the playoffs 2 seasons ago and with no major additions but an aging Chris Paul, he managed to win 64 games. Even in the games Paul didn't play, they had a better record than any team in the league except Golden State. Perhaps most telling of all, they excelled most in crunch time where things break down possession by possession and a coach's role becomes most valuable.

3. Erik Spoelstra- People like to give this award to young guys taking over new teams, but Spo's been one of the best Xs and Os guys in the league for years and this season, he navigated myriad injuries to take his team to the 1 seed behind tough defense and a hardworking culture and ultimately ended up one game away from the Finals.

Executive of the Year
1. Brad Stevens- Every move he did hit. He took Al Horford off the scrap heap in a move largely mocked and found one of the best defenders in the league that was the cornerstone of a conference champion. When the chemistry still wasn't quite right at midseason, he made another bold move, unloading his 3rd leading scorer for a defensive player that would fill the last gap on defense. He honestly looks like a little bit of a wizard at this point.
2. Bob Myers- Tried the rare middle road of "lets keep our top draft pick projects for the future and try to build a contender now... and won the whole damn thing? Wow! Plus managed to turn a guy who people thought would never be a winning player in Wiggins into the 2nd most valuable player of the NBA Finals.
3. Koby Altman- Rebuild's way ahead of schedule after hitting on every pick and making several good moves. With better health next year, they could easily be a conference finals team.

[The-Power]

My ballots below. It is still subject to change, especially when there is an asterisk next to the name. Honorable mentions in no specific order.

What I look at:

Spoiler:

– Impact over goodness. The ranking is not about the goodness of a player but the impact he had on his team winning games. At the same time, impact is very context-dependent, so ‘goodness’, which assumes some context-resilience, can become a factor in some cases. Still, the key question remains: what has the player done over the course of the season, and not what he could have done.
– Scalable impact matters. I consider whether impact occurs in ways that seem to scale well. Ultimately, the purpose of NBA basketball is to compete at the highest level. Players that have made their impact on good-to-great teams have, to some extent, ‘proven’ themselves. For players on worse teams, this becomes a more hypothetical exercise. If a player has a lot of impact on mediocre-to-bad teams with an approach that is unlikely to lead to playoff success next to more talent, I will factor this to some extent.
– Not every regular season and playoffs is the same for all teams. If a player goes all out to drag his flawed team to the playoffs, that deserves a lot credit. At the same time, I am inclined to not hold less impressive seasons too much against players when their teams are already successful and don’t require the player to go all out (e.g. more rest, fewer minutes, lower usage). For these players, playoffs disproportionally matter. Of course, these players then still must make up ground compared to the players with better regular seasons.
– Playoffs are mostly additive. Unless you actively hurt your team (i.e. you have indeed negative impact), you mostly add to your season. That, to me fairly, rewards long and strong postseason runs and avoids punishing players for subpar series late in the playoffs when most other players are already out. In other words, I don’t just take the ‘average’ performance irrespective of the number of games played. This also means that for players with long postseason runs, the playoffs ultimately weigh more than for players with shorter runs. It’s not always the fault of players when their team loses early – and I don’t punish them for it – but players with deep postseason runs and positive performances deserve credit for it.

Player of the Year
1. Nikola Jokic
2. Stephen Curry
3. Giannis Antetokounmpo
4. Jayson Tatum
5. Joel Embiid*

HM: Luka Doncic, Jimmy Butler

Spoiler:

The serious debate for the top spot to me involves Jokic and Curry. Jokic had the best RS and Giannis, to me, has not made up this gap in the playoffs, so I find it hard to come up with an argument for Giannis. The only way to do so for me would be to punish Jokic for inherent flaws in his game that came out in the playoffs (defense), but I wouldn't go that far myself and Giannis' second round may also be used to speak about a flaw in his game (teams with size that can shrink the floor) and knock his resilience.

Since the only argument for someone else has to be about the playoffs, to me that leaves Curry. He has to make up quite some ground from the RS but I have Curry's RS ranked around 4-5th, so it clearly is not insurmountable. Curry had a great run and especially his last two series showed that can now figure out even great defenses quite consistently. Was this enough to top Jokic? Personally, I still lean towards Jokic but I'm open to be convinced otherwise.

Then, there is a gap. Embiid and Tatum had the best RS, Luka and Butler arguably the best playoff runs (certainly better than Embiid, Tatum is more of a discussion because his Finals just weigh heavily).
– I'm pretty firm on having Butler last of his group. His RS was really mediocre, although I am willing to cut him at least some slack as Miami continued to be successful and he didn't need to go all out. His playoffs were obviously really good. But I will say that even with his really strong run, I just didn't see that teams were willing to try everything to stop him. It seems like often teams are content to let him operate in regular coverages. He had a great impact at the team-level still, so this makes it tougher to evaluate (this clearly is not a ‘he got his but his team didn't perform well’ situation) but something to keep in mind. Either way, it was difficult for him to make up for his subpar RS and the fact that he managed to enter the top 7 is already quite the accomplishment.
– Tatum I feel most comfortable having in my top 5. He clearly had an excellent RS. Perhaps Embiid was still better but it's at least debatable. He was clearly the driver of this good Boston team, especially on offense but he was also very important on defense and he played 76 games. The games played are important because had he played the same amount as Embiid, Boston perhaps doesn't even have HCA in the first round of the playoffs. I also think his playoffs made up the possible RS gap. If we compare the first two rounds in the POs, Tatum makes up quite a bit of ground and he continues to do so with his ECF. His Finals don't add much if any value but that's still enough for me.
– So the debate is Embiid vs. Doncic. Clearly better RS versus clearly better POs. Considering that Doncic turned it up in the RS when it was needed and Dallas still made the playoffs with HCA, I am inclined to not punish him too harshly for the first weeks of the season but he had to make up quite a bit of ground nonetheless. For now, I think he may have done just enough with the way he figured out the Suns and led the team to an unlikely victory, along with two other good – but not great – playoff rounds. It's tough to assess the impact of him missing three games in the first round, though. Perhaps he could have been ready after two games if needed but it is something to ponder on. I have to think about this more and would like to hear the thoughts of everyone else. --> for the time being, I decided to side with Embiid's clearly superior RS, but I could be convinced otherwise.

Offensive Player of the Year
1. Nikola Jokic
2. Stephen Curry
3. Luka Doncic

HM: Giannis Antetokounmpo, Trae Young, Joel Embiid, Karl-Anthony Towns

Spoiler:

Jokic has had a marvelous offensive season and it did not seem to stop in the playoffs. His combination of high-volume efficient scoring, insane playmaking, and the ability to be an offensive hub – an offensive system – is extraordinary. Ultimately, I think he is clearly the most deserving players here. I have some more doubts about is defense in the playoffs, so POY was closer between Curry and him than OPOY (despite Jokic solid defensive RS). Curry, on his part, has arguably had his most resilient postseason where he continuously solved elite defenses and allowed the Warriors to win also based on offense despite a roster that leans more towards defense than offense all things considered. And even in his slump during the RS, he still had great offensive impact. Doncic is a solid but somewhat distant third. I don't think I'd have him 3rd based on his RS but in the RS, he again showed his resilience against good defenses and provide his team with enough offense to win with their defense.

Defensive Player of the Year
1. Draymond Green*
2. Rudy Gobert*
3. Bam Adebayo*

HM: Marcus Smart, Robert Williams III, Giannis Antetokounmpo, Jaren Jackson Jr.

Spoiler:

I am currently torn between Draymond and Gobert for the top spot. Gobert has had more accumulated impact during the RS, but Green being an elite defender deep into the playoffs matters. His resilience on defense showed against a variety of different offenses whereas Gobert lacked any playoffs success this year. I think Draymond may have made up enough ground from the regular season, especially considering that the argument against him is mostly based on games missed; before his injury, he really was one of the best defensive players in the league as well. Ultimately, Green is still the one defender I would choose for an extended playoff run, and in a year in which he actually showed his elite defense in an extended playoff run, it's tough to not give the award to him. Still, Gobert has once again be a force in the RS and elevated a terrible defensive team when on the court.
The third spot is wide open. Giannis, Bam, Smart, Williams and Jackson Jr. are my main contenders. The Celtics group is interesting because I think Williams has been their most impactful defender on the court, but I'm unsure how to evaluate Smart's role in leading this defense vocally and in terms of general leadership on and off the court. Williams was hugely impactful but how much of that was allowed by the other Celtics being so good and versatile defensively that they allowed him to play in that one role he is so devastating at, and how would we evaluate that? The fact that their elite defense rests on many shoulders, with Tatum and Horford also being legitimate All-NBA Defensive Teams candidates, hurts them a bit. Jackson Jr. has taken a big step forward but I understand concerns about his fouls that hurt him as it can take him out of key stretches.
So I'll side with Bam, who still doesn't get enough recognition for what he does on defense. His elite ability to switch 1-5 gives him a huge advantage in the playoffs but despite some missed games, his RS was similarly impressive. 107.3 DRTG (on) to 111.6 DRTG (off) (-4.3) shows elite impact on the surface. He ranks 6th in DRAPM (no challenger ahead of him), 7th in DEF-EPM (no challenger ahead of him besides Green and Gobert), 9th in D-RAPTOR (no challenger ahead of him besides Green and Gobert) and 15th in D-LEBRON (behind his competitors except for Smart). He also anchored the 2nd most efficient playoff defense (-4.8 on/off). Hence, I think he's well-deserving of all the flowers and deserving of my vote.

Rookie of the Year
1. Scottie Barnes
2. Evan Mobley
3. Cade Cunningham*

HM: Franz Wagner, Herb Jones

Spoiler:

To me, there is a clear top 2 this year. Barnes and Mobley both contributed to winning in relevant roles, which is tough to do as a Rookie. Barnes edges out Mobley mostly because he continued his contributions into the 2nd round of the playoffs and also played more minutes during the RS after all. Then, there's a gap. I went with Cunningham because in the most difficult role for a Rookie, he showed flashes of stardom. In terms of overall impact Franz Wagner and Herb Jones may be ahead, but role matters especially for Rookies and this award. Still, I'm open to change my 3rd place vote.

Most Improved Player
1. Darius Garland
2. Anfernee Simons*
3. Ja Morant*

HM: Jordan Poole, Desmond Bane, Miles Bridges, Grant Williams

Spoiler:

I am confident with Garland #1. He made one of the most difficult leaps, from promising but ultimately low-level start to All-Star level and someone who contributed to his team in a BIG way. The rest is trickier. I'm a bit hesitant to include 2nd year players unless their improvement has been exceptional. Simons deserves a shout-out because he improved his efficiency across the board (FT% career-high, 2P% highest since Rookie-season, and 3P% around the elite levels from last year in an increased role), he could show more of his playmaking, and he seems to have positively impacted his team. Ja Morant is a tricky one. In terms of boxscore production, he clearly improved A LOT (especially the volume-and-efficiency increase is remarkable) and made a difficult leap into elite territory – but has it helped his team? Still, I think he warrants the vote (or at least close consideration) for his individual improvement.

6th Man of the Year
1. Gary Payton II*
2. Jordan Clarkson*
3. Bogdan Bogdanovic*

HM: Immanuel Quickley, Chris Boucher, Cameron Johnson, Kevin Love, Tyler Herro

Spoiler:

To quote myself from the Discussion thread: Since 6MOY has been so difficult to determine for me, I thought I'd just look up 15 candidates and see how they fare in various metrics (RAPM, EPM, LEBRON, RAPTOR) and I added the minutes (RS+PS). Here's how they rank compared to each other (sorry for the poor formatting):

–––––––––––– RAPM, EPM, LEBRON, RAPTOR | Minutes
Grant Williams: 17th, 17th, 18th, 16th | 2nd
Gary Payton II: 3rd, 1st, 2nd, 1st | 18th
Tyler Herro: 10th, 13th, 15th, 14th | 1st
Pat Connaughton: 18th, 18th, 15th, 12th | 6th
Kevin Love: 14th, 3rd, 6th, 6th | 17th
Bogdan Bogdanovic: 5th, 6th, 5th, 5th | 7th
P.J. Washington: 7th, 11th, 12th, 18th | 15th
Cameron Johnson: 13th, 8th, 10th, 3rd | 5th
Tyus Jones: 12th, 9th, 9th, 10th | 13th
DeAnthony Melton: 11th, 5th, 8h, 8th | 11th
Jordan Clarkson: 2nd, 6th, 7th, 5th | 4th
Jaden McDaniels: 16th, 16th, 17th, 15th | 9th
Terance Mann: 9th, 11th, 13th, 13th | 3rd
Luke Kennard: 8th, 10th, 14th, 10th | 10th
Devin Vassell: 15th, 15th, 11th, 17th | 8th
Otto Porter Jr.: 6th, 13th, 1st, 4th | 16th
Chris Boucher: 4th, 3rd, 4th, 9th | 12th
Immanuel Quickley: 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 2nd | 14th

So I see GPII and Quickley – and to lesser extents OPJ, Love and Boucher – as candidates with overall very high relative scores but relatively low minutes totals. Then you have Bogdan and Clarkson – and to a lesser extent Cam Johnson – with overall above-average relative scores and relatively high minutes totals.

Some thoughts on the best candidates:
– Gary Payton II has played clearly the fewest minutes but he's the king of impact and mixed stats. He may have done enough to warrant votes (I think he has), especially since he made an impact in the playoffs as well (can't stress enough how valuable it is to be an absolute game-changer in a Finals series).
– Bogdan Bogdanovic had an excellent season with top-5 rankings in all categories and despite the first round exit (where he held up reasonably well) played solid minutes; he looks like a good candidate.
– Jordan Clarkson has fared much better in those metrics than I thought. Not a big fan of his but he seemed to have really helped the Jazz, and he played a ton of minutes this year.
– Immanuel Quickley has had an insane impact on the Knicks. The question is: considering that his team did try to win, why didn't he play more minutes? Was this just the coach's fault, or is there something more to consider here?

Love has fared well overall but is hurt by limited minutes. Herro has played a ton of minutes but his impact has been questionable and he topped it off with terrible playoffs. Grant Williams looked like a key piece in the playoffs until the Finals, but overall doesn't come out as impressive by those numbers at all. The Memphis duo has been really solid but overall not quite good enough to warrant consideration, I'd say.

Coach of the Year
1. Steve Kerr
2. Erik Spoelstra
3. J.B. Bickerstaff*

HM: Ime Udoka, Nick Nurse, Jason Kidd, Taylor Jenkins

Spoiler:

So, I'm not sure if I'm biased here but I would have Kerr in a tier by himself. Having watched him closely, he was been absolutely magnificent at making adjustments in the playoffs, both during and between games – from line-up changes, to defensive strategies, to offensive tweaks to his favorite approach. He also found perfect roles for GPII, Wiggins and some others. This is on top of his usual impact on team chemistry (keeping everyone engaged), and him handling player relationships well (integrating Klay, keeping Poole engaged despite being in and out of line-ups, finding minutes even for the end-of-bench players and Rookies). He also deserves huge props for hiring elite assistants that challenge him – especially regarding Atkinson, it was Kerr who mentioned many times that he wanted to have someone in the room who challenges him and thinks differently, and by all accounts our assistants were important to our season (as evidenced by all the interest they sparked in HC searches). Can't praise him enough for his willingness to hire the best people, be challenged, and happily share all the credit with his staff.

I'd have Spo #2. Just incredible what he did with this roster, he just finds ways to have players contribute beyond their talent level and play superb defense, along with his adjustments in the playoffs. He's just a perennial contender for his award, it's truly remarkable. Third spot is open. Udoka, Bickerstaff and Nurse are on my shortlist. Kidd and Jenkins are also good options. Williams is the most difficult case – brilliant team in the RS and that matters, but that playoff exit really leaves a bad taste in my mouth. For the time being, I went with Bickerstaff because I had this Cavs team nowhere close to their record and while the players deserves a ton of credit obviously, such an over-performance also reflects very well on the coach for obvious reasons. The fact that is was done on the back of their defense, where coaches tend to have more influence in my opinion, adds to his arguments. Still, I can see myself reconsidering the 3rd vote.

Executive of the Year
1. Brad Stevens
2. Kevin Pritchard*
3. Bob Myers*

HM: Masai Ujiri, David Griffin

Spoiler:

I love Stevens here. The willingness to replace himself and hit the nail on the coaching selection deserves huge props. I can't stress enough how highly I value this. He also had a clear hand in the Celtics playoffs run with White and Horford being key contributors. Awesome start to his front office career.

Myers deserves praise for his refusal to go all-in for a star and mortgage the future that way, which was the right decision but unpopular with fans around the league – and even many GSW fans wanted an all-in trade. But we won with depth and chemistry, on the back of Curry (offense) and Green (defense) around great fits. But I'm not sure if Myers or Lacob deserve more credit here. Also, choosing Payton II over Bradley was a home run and reportedly went against the preferences of the star players at the time. He also filled out the roster nicely with OPJ and Bjelica, although I'm not sure how much credit should go to him for that.

Ujiri is, as usual, another candidate. Drafting Barnes was not very popular but looks to be the correct choice, and Trent helped them as well. He also kept Siakam (I was a skeptic) and build a very competitive team around him this season. But was this impactful enough for the EOY award?

Griffin had a great draft, he brought in pieces to help the team win, and I also think we may only really appreciate his moves once Zion in back because I think he did a really admirable job to build around him. I'll have to think about his candidacy a bit more but I think he at least deserves consideration.

I also love what Pritchard and Indiana have done! It's difficult to compare executives on teams with completely different directions, but to trade Sabonis for Haliburton I think was a marvelous move that will help the team tremendously going forward, and convincing Carlisle was another key achievement. He has Indiana on a very quick rebuilding trajectory around players with upside, and that is a very tough thing to do. He deserves a lot of credit – not sure any other GM this year has done something as consequential for his franchise going forward as Pritchard, and when the future looks bright, how can you not give him his flowers?

I'd have Stevens #1 and went, tentatively, with Pritchard and Myers filling out my ballot. But I'm open to considering others as well – it's one of the toughest awards to hand out, in my opinion.

[Fundamentals21]

POY

1. Nikola Jokic - Super RS. This has to be the GOAT player in terms of PER, W/S and all conventional +/-, on/off type metrics. His carry job with guys like Barton, Aaron Gordon being his next best players was pretty impressive. With Jamal Murray back, we’ll get to see what the Nuggets are really like, otherwise I estimate them as a 50 win team, rather weak in the playoffs because of poor supporting cast. I think his all round talent is all time, whether it’s running the back, making a great pass, doing work with rebounding or down low, or even extending his range, he’s truly an impressive specimen.
2. Giannis Antetokounmpo - I was truly impressed by his playoff series vs Boston. He scored and outplayed most of their defense, even though he’s struggled a bit vs Al Horford. His regular season metrics were MVP like, and in a sense I consider him at the top of the NBA with his stellar defense, and impossible to stop offensive talent. I do feel he can win another title or two in his career.
3. Steph Curry - After struggling a bit in parts of the RS, where the GSW record dropped off from a 60 win pace to more of a 53 type pace, I was doubtful of Curry, as an aging star. However, he was stellar in the playoffs, vs Grizz, Mavs, or even Boston’s tough defense, he came across very steady and consistent with routine big games to save GSW.
4. Luka Doncic - He’s finally headed deep into the playoffs, and his team has figured it out. Part of it is due to the genius of Jason Kidd or Jalen Brunson, but part of it is because Luka has made some small adjustments to his game that really work. I like him as a true alpha dog of the team, and I feel he can possibly win a title in the near future. He’s slightly weaker with his range, but even that looked good in the playoffs.
5. Jimmy Butler - A lot of the reason Heat was atop the East this year was due to Jimmy. In the RS Jimmy wasn’t as great, and he looked more like a Top 10-15 player, but in the PS, he really shot up the rankings with his clutch play and big game ability. When he fell off vs the Boston series for a couple games, you could really see the Heat struggling. I would say his playoffs ability, even looking back at the 2020 season, is very strong, and its a lot of the reason Heat is successful as a franchise (even though they’ve a relatively weak chance to win the actual title).

OPOY

Curry
Luka
Embiid

Curry is likely the most dangerous offensive weapon of the year. His 3 point shot making literally changes the entire game and makes the crowd go frenzy. Luka strikes to me as a great offensive anchor, as its sometimes a solo act type of deal on the Mavs. Embiid who barely missed my Top 5 is a consistent league leading scorer type threat, and his offense is resilient vs Top talent.

DPOY

Robert Williams
Draymond Green
Rudy Gobert

Robert Williams is the best defender going by a lot of Boston’s success. His D anchor ability was likely the main reason Boston made it deep into the playoffs and stayed competitive up till the very end. Draymond is an all timer with his intelligence and his ability to truly manipulate offenses. Rudy is the perennial DPOY contender, and while the Jazz looked weaker this year, his ability as a defender is truly at the top. Metrics generally support these 3, as well.

ROY

Evan Mobley
Scottie Barnes
Cade Cunningham

Evan Mobley showed some serious defensive potential at the beginning of the year. I felt he got slightly weaker as this year went off, and the Cavs fell out of the playoffs, but he still has room to grow, to potentially be a great player. Barnes and Cunningham are my other two, both still learning the ropes and way too young to make a big impact, but show the most promise in this draft class.

COY

Ime Udoka
Taylor Jenkins
Steve Kerr

Udoka did a massive job turning Boston around to the highest SRS in the league. It really wasn’t an easy job, as he took on what felt like a low seed team with very little potential. The defense and offense both took some leap, and he truly exploited the potential of Horford, Williams and Smart. Great work. With Jenkins, I am impressed by how strong the Grizz look without Morant, and how deep the team is. Kerr as always did a great job leading GS back to the title.

6th Man of the Year

Kevin Love
Tyler Herro
Gary Payton II

Love had a great bounceback year, playing a strong role for the Cavs team. Herro looked good throughout the year, but I couldn’t get him the Top spot due to the poor playoff run. Gary Payton II is a stellar defender and deserves the spot at #3.

MIP

Ja Morant
Jordan Poole
Jalen Brunson

Morant developed as the franchise player this season, making some key progress towards truly developing into a top 10 kind of guy. Poole is a strong player, even able to play and destroy teams in the Warrior death lineups, and Brunson developed into a key contributor to a strong Mavs team.

EOY

Masai
Myers
Connelly

Masai did a fantastic job drafting Barnes and turning around this team into a solid playoff type team, after much of their roster looked hopeless. Myers built a contender with some good moves to improve the depth of this roster, while Connelly deserves some praise for aligning all the stars of the Wolves together.

[Doctor MJ]

Can you add me to the voting list?

Me too if possible

Yikes! Okay, yes, I'll add you - I know of your participation - though I wish you'd sought out my instructions on this so I didn't miss you.

[Outside]

POY

1. Jokic
2. Curry
3. Giannis
4. Embiid
5. Tatum

Spoiler:

To me, Jokic and Curry are above the rest. I value the PS very highly, and that's what propelled Giannis over Jokic for me last year, but Curry's RS is significantly further behind Jokic this year compared to where Giannis was last year. Curry's PS was outstanding, and his finals was elite, but Jokic gets the top spot because his RS was so outstanding and Curry had too much of a deficit there to make up, even as good as he was in the PS.

To me, Giannis was clearly better than the rest when looking at his combination of RS, offense and defense, and PS.

Embiid is really productive, but I see slippage in his defensive impact. He’s impactful, but not as consistently. He had injuries to deal with in the PS, but how many years does this have to happen before it just becomes who he is?

Tatum for the fifth spot -- he was solid all RS, and also in the PS until the finals. He’s being asked to do everything – initiate, score, rebound, defend, and he did it all at a high level until it became too much to ask against the Warriors. The poor finals shouldn't negate everything that came before.

Notes about the rest:

-- Luka would be next, but he gets downgraded for being heavy and out of shape and taking months to come around (I can even make the argument that he never fully did). He’s a great talent, but he’s awful defensively.

-- Butler -- PS was exceptional, but the RS was merely good. He only played 57 games. If he had qualified, he would’ve been 19th in scoring average. His three-point percentage was putrid (23.3%). He showed up in the PS, but that’s a significant RS deficit to overcome.

-- The Suns -- I can’t drum up a case for Booker or Paul only because of the team’s performance when their individual numbers aren’t there.

OPOY

1. Jokic
2. Curry
3. Luka

Spoiler:

Jokic and Curry take the top two spots because their POY case is almost exclusively on offense, and making the top two spots there slides them in the top spots here. (Yes, they both have defensive impact, but they are giants on offense.)

Luka wasn't top three after the RS and didn't make the top five in my POY ballot, but his defensive impact is virtually nil compared to the other POY candidates, and defense elevated them over Luka for POY. They were also higher than Luka in O-LEBRON, but that is a RS stat, and what Luka did offensively in the PS was more impressive than any of them, including Butler. He was the new LeBron, dominating every aspect of each offensive possession.

Trae Young seemed like a lock for this ballot after the RS, but OMG, what a horrific PS. It's like everyone was being nice to him in the RS but then Miami decided to show what is what in the PS.

DPOY

1. Gobert
2. Draymond
3. Robert Williams

Spoiler:

Gobert is a known quantity. Draymond would’ve been in the top slot for me except for missed time in the RS. His PS was really good, even the finals when he was getting labeled as washed. Something was in his head, but he played really well defensively in most of the games.

I had been thinking about Giannis for the third spot, but they were mediocre defensively in the RS (14th), and the PS, they had the top-rated defense, but that's skewed by playing the putrid Bulls in the first round and the offensively limited Celts in the second round. That RS doesn't justify Giannis getting recognition here. I have no doubt he could turn it on for a series, but it's an all-season award.

So that has me looking at Boston, who tied for first in DRtg in the RS and were third in the PS. The question is who to pick? Based on what I saw of them, and I may be overly influenced by the finals, I chose Robert Williams. They have many other good defenders, but they can more aggressively do their thing on the perimeter because Robert Williams is behind them. He's not as good as Gobert, but he is Gobert-like in the way he affects everything around the basket (plus he's better than Gobert on the perimeter). Missed games hurt his case, but he was still sixth in total minutes played for Boston in the RS and played 17 of 24 games in the PS, and was still their most impactful defender despite the injury issues.

I can’t bring myself to include Marcus Smart. I cannot emphasize enough how much I hate flopping, and it is a predominant part of his defensive game. Like Harden and drawing fouls, you may get away with much of it in the RS, but in the PS, it’s a different story, and it hurt his team in the finals. Man up, stay up, and play D instead of launching yourself to the ground every time you hit a screen or an offensive player makes contact with you.

MIP

1. Garland
2. Bane
3. Jordan Poole

Spoiler:

Garland made significant improvements in so many categories -- minutes, FG, FGA, 3P, 3PA, 2P%, eFG%, FT%, TS%, reb, ast, pts. In LEBRON, he went from -1.04 to 2.47.

Bane doubled his scoring production, became one of most dangerous three-point shooters (second in three-point percentage on 6.9 3PA per game), and became better defensively. Ja also improved, and I get the argument that making the leap to elite player is more difficult, but I felt that Ja was already that guy by the end of last year, and Bane impressed me every time I watched him play.

Poole surprised everyone, including most GS fans. He made similar leaps to Garland in many box score categories. Like Garland, his LEBRON improved from -1.75 to 1.36. His biggest issue was consistency, which he struggled with in both the RS and PS, but ultimately he figured it out. He seems poised to make another leap next year.

6MOY

1. Kevin Love
2. Tyler Herro
3. Gary Payton II

Spoiler:

I dropped Herro below Love for two reasons -- a very poor PS, which may be unfair since Love didn't have a PS, but the drop from the RS was severe; and his LEBRON, which was -0.48 for the RS.

Payton shows up well in his stats, which were good for a defensive specialist, and his impact -- a LEBRON of 1.91, fourth-best on the team. He was also very impactful in the PS despite missing all of the Dallas series and some of the Memphis series. He was huge for the Warriors in the finals.

HM: Chris Boucher

COY

1. Steve Kerr
2. Jason Kidd
3. Willie Green

Spoiler:

I don't think Kerr gets enough credit for the job he did this season, besides the job he did in the finals. He dealt with:

-- An influx of new players - Otto Porter, Jr., Nemanja Bjelica, Gary Payton II, plus the rookies Kuminga and Moody. Finding playing time and figuring out who to play together was no easy chore, yet he did it on the fly and they were scorching out of the gate.

-- Lengthy injuries to Draymond, then Curry.

-- Reintegrating Klay, which was no easy task. He was going to shoot his way back into form goddammit, which was endearing for a game or two but then became an actual issue.

-- Bringing two lottery pick rookies along.

The "plan" was to get Klay back at the first of the year, get Wiseman back around the same time or earlier, then have them all tuned up and ready to go by the start of the playoffs. But Wiseman never came back, and the injuries to Draymond and Curry meant the Curry-Klay-Dray lineup had been on the floor for 11 RS minutes, and Curry didn't come back until the first round against Denver and started on a minutes restriction off the bench. Yet it all came together in a title. Great job by Kerr.

I wasn't a Kidd fan prior to this season based on his previous coaching stops, but he won me over. He got along with Luka (apparently not something Carlisle excelled at), he turned them into a good defense, he integrated Dinwiddie into a major role player after the trade, and they were one of the best teams the second half of the season. In the PS, he led them to wins over Utah and Phoenix, which even with their dysfunction was no easy task (Luka missed three of the six games in the first round). I'm assuming he was instrumental in making Brunson a more impactful player. He exuded calm and confidence. He had faith in his guys. He got results.

The Pelicans had no business sniffing the PS, especially after an 8-21 start and no Zion, but Willie Green integrated McCollum well and got them all to buy into what he was selling. They played really well in the first-round loss to the Suns.

HM: Taylor Jenkins, Eric Spoelstra, Mike Malone, Ime Udoka

EOY

1. Karnisovas (Chicago)
2. Altman (Cleveland)
3. Griffin (New Orleans)

Spoiler:

Karnisovas traded for DeRozan, traded for Lonzo, signed Caruso, traded away Markkanen (a win for both Chicago and Cleveland).

Altman drafted Evan Mobley (didn't require genius, but hey), traded for Markkenan, traded for Rondo after Rubio got hurt, traded the injured Rubio for Caris Lavert.

Griffin brought in Green as coach and traded for McCollum without having to give up any major pieces.

HM: Riley (Miami), Harrison (Dallas)

[HeartBreakKid]

My Criteria

Spoiler:

For the most part I am trying to rate who were the best players in their respective categories. I am not factoring who has the best narrative - so MVP, "down years", deep playoff runs and championships do not matter.

Games played are useful to me for sample size reasons. There is no additive value for a player playing more games. If player A played 82 games and player B played 70 games, Player A would not have an advantage.

I do make a cut off for games played. 58 games which is about 70% of the season. This is the same amount of games Bill Walton played when he won the NBA championship (and won retro player of the year), so I thought this was be a cute cut off.

Playoff games matter a lot for me because it shows how good "players really are". I judge players by their goodness, and that means the ability to contribute to winning basketball, the RS does not always reflect that. This does not mean that having a championship is definitive proof of that, a championship is a trophy it is not an explanation of why a player is good.

To the best of my ability I try to factor in cold streaks and hot streaks for the post season. I recognize that the post season has low sample size, so I try to see if there is a problem with that players style of play (can he not deal with certain defenses? etc).

I don't peg players much for injuries in the post season.

Rookie of the Year I do not take into account potential, as that seems like a rather boring and pointless exercise. I rather rate all of the rookies together and see who is simply the best player in their first year, which I find much more stimulating and useful.

Most Improved Player I do not take into account 2nd year players as it is relatively expected they will make massive leaps after their rookie year.

Player of the Year

Nikola Jokic – Massive scoring spike and an improvement in defense. His outlandish offense puts him in a special class where I feel he can “break” the game more than two way players. Shame we did not see more of him in the post season due to his team missing key players, but he still put together a good showing after struggling early on against an elite Warriors defense.

Joel Embiid – The other major MVP candidate for the season. Embiid lead the league in scoring and generally speaking had slightly higher numbers than last year. I was the only one who gave Embiid POY last season so I am fairly high on him. His playoffs took an unexpected turn when he got a concussion and cracked orbital bone at the end of the Toronto series. Against Toronto though he was playing just as good as he had in the RS. I think the last minute concussion at the end of round 1 damaged his performance heavily against Miami which brings down his averages. I won’t penalize him much for that. A con I see is that his defense is not as good as it was years ago, but still a great reliable two way threat.

Giannis Antetokounmpo – I slightly underrated his regular season. He was stellar with his jump shot coming along more smoothly. Giannis presents a lot of gravity when he’s going toward the paint, and is especially hard to deal with when he is catching the ball while he’s moving. Giannis defense is the best of all the POY candidates and it helps him tremendously in comparisons with other great OPOY contenders like Curry and Doncic. As a scorer he didn’t show up well this post season. He feasted on a bad defense in Chicago and got shut down by an elite one in Boston, averaging out to subpar efficiency but on incredible volume.

Luka Doncic – This is very close between him in Giannis. He wasn’t good on defense this season, while Giannis was one of the best. On offense they’re not that close. While the APG was close and even in Giannis’ favor in the post season, Luka has a better feel for the game and is a better creator in general. Also, they both averaged the same amount of PPG in the post season, but Luka was better in efficiency, even though he played Utah, PHX and GSW – the last 2 were top 3 defenses. Giannis only played against Boston which was a top 3 defense and did terribly, and the other defense he played was the 22nd ranked defense. I think Luka has a good argument over Giannis, but I’ll give Giannis’ great defense and the relatively small sample size of the post season the benefit of the doubt.

Steph Curry – Decline in offense, but still ahead of most players who are eligible. His off ball movement and godly range put him over some players who have a better combination of scoring and efficiency. I would like to point out that I voted for Curry last year despite him not making the playoffs, and now with him declining a lot this year he is going to get #2 on POY and is a serious candidate for #1 -this is very much a fundamental difference in how I view POY compared to most people’s criteria. The Warriors did not win a championship because Curry improved from last year or even because Curry played great for his standards, the Warriors improved (especially their defense) outside of Curry while Curry still remained an MVP level player. He wasn’t overly dominant this season at all – minus the season where he barely played you’d have to go back like 7-8 years to find a worse season for him I think.


I might be overlooking Tatum’s defense. Also, his passing really is improved, not only good passes but he makes decisions quick. However, he did struggle for a large part of the early season, and it’s hard to really gain how much defensive impact each Celtic really has. Curry’s offensive +/- suggest he might be the best player in the league, which I do not agree with, but it’s almost certainly more valuable than Tatum’s defense.

Jimmy Butler, Lebron James and Kevin Durant played less than 70% of the regular season so I don’t consider them eligible.


Offensive Player of the Year

Nikola Jokic – He won POY based off of how crazy of an offensive outlier he was this season.

Luka Doncic – His post season scoring against 3 top 10 defenses tied up a spot. Due to the fact that Luka is also his teams point guard, he can basically guarantee the Mavericks will score buckets every quarter.

Steph Curry – Tatum's a threat to Curry only when factoring in defense. As offensive players I don't think they're particularly close.




Defensive Player of the Year

Rudy Gobert – The Jazz really fell off this year, but Rudy is still well within his prime. Still swats away a high volume of shots with great efficiency and is the best rebounder in the league.

Giannis Antetokounmpo – I thought this might be his best defensive season, or the best one in a few years. He turned it up at times and really suffocated teams. He was the best defender on the Bucks this year, shame they underachieved as a unit.

Marcus Smart – I was debating between him, Horford and Bam. Smart might be the best defensive guard of his generation. I think I’ve had him as 1st defense every year since 1st or 2nd season. Great at switching, great at stealing, fundamentally sound, good communicator, hustler, heads up plays, flopping – his utility might prop him up enough to put him over some of the bigs. I feel like he is a more impactful player than Robert Williams, though I get Williams does have great data on his side (as any dominant paint player should).


Draymond Green did not play enough games for me to consider him eligible otherwise I would have gave him the #1 vote (or #2). I might go back on this decision due to the fact that he played so many post season games it could make up for the lack of RS sample size.

A day after this initial post, I actually came back to switch my 3rd place vote from Smart to Bam but I realized he only played 56 games. So I won't consider him for the same reason I don't consider Green.

Most Improved Player of the Year

Jordan Poole – One of the key reasons why the Warriors were so much better this year. He has matured greatly and plays the game at a great pace. Knows how to get a bucket in a variety of ways and a improve passer. Delivered big for the Warriors with a lot of “quiet” games.

Dejounte Murray – Took leaps in becoming a leader and passer. His scoring is much improved albeit still a weakness. Defense hasn’t fell off despite offensive improvements.

Robert Williams – Becoming a smarter and more assertive defender.

I don’t consider 2nd year players for this award so no Desmond Bane. I also realized that technically Ja Morant played 1 game under my minimum requirement otherwise he’d probably get #1 for MIP. I might reconsider my number of games played requirement differently for MIP.

Rookie of the Year

Evan Mobley – Made an instant impact for the Cavs and was one of the reasons why at one point it looked like the Cavs were going to go somewhere this season. Mobley’s defense is already well documented – if you want to go to war with a rookie from 2022, there is no one giving you the value of Mobley’s defense.

Hebert Jones – Maybe even a better defender than Mobley. He’s so unique I might even be underrating him – the way he moves on defense is really something to see and he has good instincts to go along with his physical gifts.

Franz Wagner – I’m pleasantly surprised to see Franz get some votes. I figured since he is on the Magic he’s pretty much done for in terms of recognition. Him and Barnes are a pick em, it’s a bit abstract to compare them since they play on totally different caliber teams. I have to say Franz scoring looks pretty legit though.


6th Man of the Year

Grant Williams – This guy is a really great defender with power forward strength and small forward agility, while also the ability to hit 40% of his 3s. Grant is great at moving without the ball and can cut or pop for different ranges. He’s exactly what you want as a role player. I think he’d add more to a championship team than some of the high volume scoring bench guys like Herro.

Gary Payton II – Incredible, 1st team level defense and plays within himself offensively. Lacks the minutes of course, but that will probably change when he goes to a team that isn’t as talented.

Tyler Herro – Between him and Love. I feel like Love would be BBQ chicken if he played in the playoffs so I might as well take the best offensive player. Herro was bad in the post season but he did get hurt. Herro is a very versatile player and doesn’t turn the ball over, albeit he is overrated as volume scorer.

Cam Johnson is worth considering as well.

Coach of the Year

Erik Spolstra – Maybe the best strategist in the league. The Heat took the #1 seed this year and not a lot of people expected it. Heat were pretty disrespected for most of the season mainly because no one cares about the Heat in general, but they could have won the East.

Steve Kerr – Kept his team steady and found great balances in his rotations.

Monte Williams – Underachieved in the post season, but probably more due to CP3’s injury. The Suns were a dominant team in the RS as they were last year.

Ime Udoka doesn’t quite make the cut. The Celtics big turn around is a great example of the impact that a coach can have, at the same time them being so mediocre at the start of the year is due to his fault as well. I think Monte was more consistent and that goes a long way, but Udoka is a contender.

Executive of the Year



Brad Stevens – Brad Stevens did a good job bringing Al Horford back to the club was a great move. Al played out of his mind for the Celtics and fits very well with the culture. Great coaching pick with Ime Udoka as well.

David Griffin – Griffin got a steal in the second round with Jones. He made a very competitive trade to acquire CJ McColumn midway into the season as well which makes New Orleans a much better team than their record suggested. Jonas was a good acquisition. NO was able to give Phoenix a great run for their money. Considering he still has Zion Williams on the shelf, the Pelicans have a lot of potential for the future while making immediate improvements this season.

Pat Riley – Riley picking up Kyle Lowry was a good move albeit he wasn’t that good in the playoffs.

Myers and Kleiman didn’t really make any major moves this season. Kleiman did unload some crap while Myers…I suppose kept his team together? I think EOY should be about moves you made that season not moves you did not make. Though I do acknowledge Myers acquired Wiggins who was useful, but not as great as the media propped him up to be – even with the good finals showing. Most of the things that made the Warriors and Grizzlies good this season were moves from previous seasons (some years ago).
board just in case.

[Doctor MJ]

My vote:

Player of the Year

1. Steph Curry (GSW)
2. Nikola Jokic (DEN)
3. Jayson Tatum (BOS)
4. Giannis Antetokounmpo (MIL)
5. Jimmy Butler (MIA)

HM. Joel Embiid (PHI)
HM. Luka Doncic (DAL)
HM. Jaylen Brown (BOS)
HM. Draymond Green (GSW)
HM. Andrew Wiggins (GSW)

In the end, picking Curry isn't a tough choice for me here, but it has to be understood that I was coming from a perspective where Curry was one of my Top 3 MVP candidates (along with Jokic & Tatum), so he didn't have to run up that high of a hill.

Through the year I kept pointing to Curry's +/- data, both relative to the league and relative to teammates, and saying "I know he's not been shooting his best after the hot start, but the impact is still there." I also said at the time that I didn't think Curry could maintain this kind of an impact in a playoff series if he didn't have some exceptional games - in the end, if you're getting beat by massively committing to stopping Curry under the theory that if you didn't he would kill, might as well dare him to kill you. But kill playoff opponents he did.

And then there's the defense where I just can't emphasize enough that in the modern NBA, there is no hiding a bad defender. If your playoff opponent decides to attack Player X, then there's a direct linkage between that player's effectiveness and your DRtg. If they aren't able to kill you with that approach, then that defender is fundamentally a solid defender. And that's how Curry held up the entire time despite teams over-attacking him to tire him out so that his offense might not kill them (Ha!).

I love, love, love Jokic, I think he's done tremendous work on his body, I know his teammates are weak on defense (and offense) right now, and I know the Warriors were a great offense...but man, I really was hoping we wouldn't see the Nuggets have yet another series with a 120+ DRtg. With it happening again, I have still have confidence issues when I look at Jokic as the man to lead you to the chip. I want to see enough evidence that this doesn't weigh on me as a significant concern...but I'm still waiting on that.

I spent a lot of time comparing Tatum & Giannis' seasons and consider it to be possibly the most frustrating player comparison of this season. Fundamentally: I think Giannis is the better player, but I think Tatum had the more accomplished season from October to June. So for anyone looking at me putting Tatum above Giannis and thinking I'm overthinking this, well, just no that I fully expect this vote of mine to not age well to those who look at it later.

Even putting Tatum over Giannis for the regular season goes against the general MVP conversation, but there I think things are pretty clear. Simply put, Tatum played significantly more in the regular season, in part because he and his team took the regular season more seriously than the Bucks did...and the Bucks holding a bit back also led to a pretty major drop in offensive performance (that I do not think can be justified based on things like the absence of Brook).

Then we get to the question of what it takes for a playoff performance to flip two guys on my list. In general, there's no rule that I actually feel comfortable laying out for "what it takes", but I will say that when the two teams actually plays each other in the playoffs, the team that wins is the one with the guy on it who had the regular season edge, and that player had an outstanding series.

Here's where I'll remind that in Game 6, when the Bucks had a chance to clinch the series at home, Tatum went for 46 points on huge efficiency while playing more than anyone else on either team and with a massive +/- (+21) ten points higher than anyone else in the game.

With the way the Warriors series left people seeing Tatum, I think people need to remember is a hell of a player who had a hell of a season.

For the 5th spot, this was Embiid's at the end of the regular season and I was really reluctant to put Butler over him but read some good cases. While my estimation of Embiid's performance this year didn't really drop due to the playoffs, the fact is that Butler just seemed the more remarkable player when push came to shove.

Now as I say this, there are the matter of Embiid's injuries plural, which he came back from and played through. It really can't help but be the case that those injuries hurt his POY candidacy and above I didn't mean to imply that it didn't matter at all...but I still felt fine thinking of Embiid primarily through the lens of him being a (slightly overrated) MVP candidate, and going forward, while he needs to watch what he says about his teammates, I can't help but admire that he came back and managed to help his team win a couple a games against the Heat.

The 7th and final serious contender for a spot here is Luka, who continues to feel like a tornado that might destroy all the buildings in the metaphorical town that is the NBA. You just see the offensive approach involved and realize that if Luka and his teammates can just get some percentage better, that'll be all she wrote. Of course, that's literally true ("some percentage") of all teams, but with Doncic, it feels like it could happen *right now* basically whenever I watch him.

I generally do 5 honorable mentions for POY to get to 10 names, but I'll say that I reserve the right to wiggle room in the back 5. I'm not necessarily taking a stand that these guys are the 8th through 10th best of the season, but they seem the most worthy of mention.

First, Brown. In some ways he's a way to shout out another Celtic on a team that had tremendous success this year as a unit. While a number of Celtics had great years, Brown remains the 2nd most valuable Celtic across the season and I don't think it's that close. Additionally, while I feel a need to defend Tatum because of the negativity going his way after the finals, I'm glad that the feeling toward Brown is more positive, because he deserves it. He's not a player without weaknesses, but this is a guy who is a force no matter the match-up.

And finally, shout outs to Curry's two most valuable teammates this year: Green & Wiggins. Green is a guy whose impact at this point can't remotely be captured by why he physically does on the court - the Warrior defense this year was elite despite missing him for a major chunk of the season because of the culture that he's been leading on this team for years resonating with a new generation - and yet still he always seems to be the quickest brain on the court and seems to be able to use his non-superstar-prospect body to be just perfect for almost any situation. Wiggins is a guy who took a major leap forward with the Warriors, and particularly these playoffs showed what he was capable of like we only ever imagined before.

Offensive Player of the Year

1. Nikola Jokic (DEN)
2. Steph Curry (GSW)
3. Luka Doncic (DAL)

HM. Kevin Durant (BRK)
HM. Trae Young (ATL)

I was never able to get to a point where it was clear to me who to pick between Jokic & Curry here and ended up sticking with the order I had them after the regular season.

Jokic is an in-moment genius the likes we rarely come across. A rival with Draymond for the fastest brain in the game, but with an outside-of-the-box creative element that goes beyond mere proficiency. Jokic is the type of offensive player that just makes the game look different that it does when everyone else is playing. Add to that what an exceptional shooter and scorer he's become, he really does have a case for the Offensive GOAT right now...but I would really would like to see him carry it all the way through the 4 rounds of the playoff gauntlet before I actually feel comfortable saying that.

In the other corner, we've got Steph. Quite possibly, when all is said and done, the most influential player of the 21st century, and the most influential since George Mikan. The scale of his influence doesn't mean he's the most valuable player (though perception of the latter will in time influence the former), but we just got to see what something like the Final Form of the Kerr offense looks like. Not as deadly as it was in the KD years of course, but this is showing how strong this approach can be even with a drop off in teammate talent.

For years people have gotten the impression that Kerr's approach is more fragile than hero ball, but the reality was always that when run with a team that's mastered it, it's fundamentally anti-fragile because more than anything else it's built to train players to be able to rapidly change approaches on a possession level, and read & react within the possession itself. The confusion came because it a scheme alone cannot ensure the players are able to execute to perfection 100% of the time. So then people saw the team trip, and went with a bit of a broadly cynical interpretation about what it said about the unorthodox team. I've long pushed back against this, and now I'm a broken record so I don't want to belabor the point.

But suffice to say that there's absolutely a case for Curry being the more proven resilient offensive force in the playoffs as of this moment, and that makes me feel uneasy even keeping Jokic ahead of him.

For the 3rd spot, I saw Luka as a fairly straight forward choice. To me his season-long achievement is quite a ways back from the Top 2, but I can't honestly say I see anyone else who struck me as a more effective offensive player when all is said and done.

Honorable mention is often a place to put the names you seriously considered, but in this case I had to scour around the NBA to think of others most bringing up.

Mentioning KD always seems pretty reasonable. While I think it's important not to overstate the achievement of a player on a team losing in a sleep, my god did Boston have to put a ton of pressure onto KD with just the right defensive personnel to keep the Nets from an even higher ORtg. KD's no joke.

Went with Trae for my last HM. He was on my ballot at the end of the regular season and while the disappointment against Miami really hurts, he's still looked damn good against every other playoff or play-in team he's faced. Young is an incredible offensive player.

Defensive Player of the Year

1. Draymond Green (GSW)
2. Marcus Smart (BOS)
3. Jayson Tatum (BOS)

HM. Giannis Antetokounmpo (MIL)
HM. Rudy Gobert (UTA)

Wow, toughest award of the year for me, and one I kept rethinking as I circled around making this post longer than I original thought I would.

The top spot wasn't the hard part. For me, that's definitely Dray.

Simply put, I've felt like Green was the best defender in the world in general since he first took the basketball world by storm in '14-15, and I don't see any reason to change my mind now. He's the smartest defensive player, and I think the most effective defensive leader, in the game by a significant margin.

If you're wondering how his missed time in the regular season factors in for me: Easy to overlook win you have enough playoff success that year. This gets into the realm of philosophy. I'm always trying to think about how the year will get looked back upon by those with distance that isn't trapped in the moment, and while there are things that I think they should remember that they won't...there's other stuff that I largely just accept. The reality is that a player who is awesome in the regular season until an injury who then comes back and is similarly awesome helping lead his team to the championship is going to get his achievement analyzed in terms of what he was able to do on the court rather than by the fraction of the year he was there.

Okay, the rest of the ballot is the blood bath.

I alluded to it above but I feel like I'm going to look ridiculous not having Giannis higher than I do...but it's important to me when analyzing the year's achievement to look beyond "Player A is still the best though, right?". I believe Giannis reached a different level in the playoffs and it's very impressive what he did, but his playoff rise means he's rising from some other level in the regular season, and that means we have a question of how much you have to do in the playoffs to make that all that matters. I feel like I needed more to justify this, and so Giannis remains on the outside looking in here.

Of course, I made the choice to fill the last two spots on my ballot with Celtics. It would have been very voter-y to spread the love picking one guy from the Celtics and then having Giannis or Gobert for the other spot, but in the end, I went with the Boston D Party? (How do y'all feel about that name? Pun-credential is impeccable, but, eh, probably not...)

Here I think I need to start out by talking about the Celtics as a defensive collective that figured something out together this year and became the best defense in the league over the back half of the year. The coach deserves a lot of credit, and the roster is stocked with defensive talent no doubt...but they had to learn some things to get where they got, and I don't think you get that without the guy everyone else on the roster pointed to as the leader of the defense, and the one who should be considered for DPOY...Marcus Smart.

With Smart I see someone who is about as good at his individual defensive job as I can expect a guy to be, who has proven able to stand up to match-ups (like Giannis) I would not expect a guard to be able to handle, and who is constantly adding value through communication by being the guy who knows what's going on before (most) anyone else. Further, there's the matter of the fact that Smart taking on the role of the previous weak point of the defense (point guard) is central to how this all works. All of this makes me inclined to accept the team suggestion that Smart deserves the most consideration, but there is someone else on the roster who seems likely to have contributed the most total on-court defensive value this year, and that is Tatum.

Tatum's been mostly an after thought because everyone's been so quick to marvel at Robert Williams - and understandably so, he's the one on the roster I'd be looking to build my defense around going forward, but I just think his missed time resulted in him not having much of a case over these other two. But nobody plays more for the Celtics, and there's no question that the Celtics want him out there in order to achieve their best defense in general. Plus, I mean, the stuff we saw from him in defending Durant was incredibly impressive.

Before I leave the East Coast, I will also shout out Al Horford. To be perfectly honest, if it were Horford that the Celtics had said was their DPOY, I'd have a hard time not singling him out the way that I'm singling out Smart. As impressive as he was though, it's easy to forget that Horford is not at his physical peak anymore, and didn't look anything like a top tier defender when he left the Celtics. I have considerably more confidence that Smart would be an outstanding defender on any team anywhere.

Okay, finally Gobert. I went back and forth putting him on my ballot. The question ends up having a lot to do with what you see the purpose of DPOY for. As I tend to emphasize, to me it's about achievement this season. Others can have a bit different priorities (so long as they are focused on what they saw the player do this season), but when it comes to achievement we get this question:

If the player who is best at X isn't in a situation where he's successfully able to lead effective X, is he having the greatest achievement at X?

Consider this question:

When was the last time Gobert had a playoff series where his on-court DRtg was better than what the average regular season opponent managed against the team he's playing?

Answer: 2019.

It's not just that the Jazz have stopped being elite on defense, it's that despite the fact that the Jazz remain a better than average regular season defense these past 3 seasons, in the playoffs they haven't been even when we ignore the time Gobert is on the bench.

Now, folks can come to their own conclusions about whether being on a consistently below average playoff defense is enough to preclude the player in question from being seen as the DPOY, but what feels inescapable to me is this:

At this point, the rest of the NBA knows how best to mitigate for Gobert's defensive influence, they attack it confidently, and they largely succeed by league-average standards when they do so. That opponent success does not mean that Gobert's defensive achievement has reduced to nothing, but it takes a toll.

Also, for context, when I use that word "mitigate", this is also the word I've used for describing what I see happen to Artis Gilmore over his career. While there was never a time where he wasn't valuable on defense, it really seems to me that over time opponents found a way to function against him that in effect reduced his defensive impact from mega-DPOY level, to something much more mild.

I fear that this is happening with Gobert in a way I just don't with other major established defensive stars at this time.

Rookie of the Year

1. Evan Mobley (CLE)
2. Scottie Barnes (TOR)
3. Cade Cunningham (DET)

HM. Herb Jones (NOP)
HM. Franz Wagner (ORL)

This was Mobley vs Barnes for me. In the end, if this were a situation where I let most time played break the time, my pick would be Barnes...but there's never been a time this season where I've changed my mind about which player impresses me more. It's close enough I've debated it a good deal, and with Scottie being an atraditional defender, it's possible I underrate what he's doing out there...but I find the defensive instincts of Mobley to be stunning for a one & done rookie big.

Despite the fact that I've had Cade in the 3rd spot basically the whole time, I'll tell you that I very seriously considered Herb. Were I to give a Most Valuable Rookie award, I may well put Herb in the top spot, but as I've discussed, there's more that I feel I need to consider when discussing ROY.

The reason why leagues have awards for non-elite players (ROY, MIP, 6MOY) is to direct attention somewhere, where that attention may end up really benefitting the league down the road. As such, when we look at rookies and we compare one guy in a star primacy role and another in a clearly auxiliary role, I think it's wise to effectively curve their grades based on the difficulty of the role they are in.

If you don't do that, then you run the risk of giving the ROY to someone like Landry Fields, who simply landed in the perfect spot as a rookie, and would in time prove to not really be someone who could stick in the NBA...as is often the case for 2nd Rounders after all.

So, this gives someone like Cade a leg up over like Herb for me. It doesn't mean I'll never have an Herb first, but it would generally be do to the Cade actually seeming like something of a flop as a rookie. And while Cade started slow, and I don't think he was more impressive than Mobley or Barnes, I still think he looked pretty dang good as a rookie.

Shout out to Franz for the 5th spot. Fun to see what next year brings for his team.

Most Improved Player

1. Darius Garland (CLE)
2. Desmond Bane (MEM)
3. Jordan Poole (GSW)

HM. Ja Morant (MEM)
HM. Tyrese Maxey (PHI)

I've been really loving Garland, aka Sleeve Nash, all season, which should come as no surprise if you know my long-time Nash obsession. I don't feel like there's that much to say here other than: Garland is an incredible offensive player, and I could see him getting OPOY attention in the future.

Bane is actually someone I've been thinking about more recently. While teammate Ja is clearly the outlier as a physical specimen - and one of the most fun players to watch move ever - I think Bane basically has to be seen as the MVP of the Grizz this year, and that's really something for a man who didn't start last year. His raw +/- numbers make him look like an absolute monster as well...but there are indicators that there's some luck involved in this, and I'm not prepared to argue based on basketball merits that he really is THAT good. If I were, he'd be my MIP over Garland. As is, I'm only comfortable with him at #2.

I'm going with Poole in the 3rd spot, and it's something that in the end isn't about specific statistical improvement. Bottom line is: This year Poole became the 3rd Splash Brother hitting more 3's this year than in the rest of his NBA career combined before hand. This is a really, really big deal.

Shout out to Maxey who really looks like the 76ers' perimeter future now.

6th Man of the Year

1. Gary Payton II (GSW)
2. Jordan Clarkson (UTA)
3. Bogdan Bogdanovic (ATL)

HM. Tyler Herro (MIA)
HM. Otto Porter (GSW)

Alright you bastards, you got me. I was not expecting to have Payton even on my ballot, but now with all said and done, after good arguments brought up on his behalf, I'm joining the bandwagon.

In the end, one of the objective things that sold me here are his WS/48 numbers, which led the NBA Champion Warriors in both the regular and post-season. Those numbers on their own would have made Payton a candidate here, but I can't deny that Payton popped on the screen for me like very few others and his presence in the NBA Finals felt like something more than just "a bench player". His year felt special - more special than the other guys mentioned - and I'll give it to him.

Other two slots going to obvious 6MOY candidates who were fundamentally solid, and then the first HM goes to another such guy with a rougher playoffs.

Finals HM goes to Porter, who like I said before, I expected to be my 6MOY candidate from the Warriors.

It's going to be interesting how well the Warriors are able to keep this depth going forward. Back during their first run, their supporting cast gradually hollowed out, which is what I think you have to expect is the norm in the age of a salary cap. Can they keep the important pieces together this time? For how long?

Coach of the Year

1. Steve Kerr (GSW)
2. Ime Udoka (BOS)
3. Taylor Jenkins (MEM)

HM. Erik Spoelstra (MIA)
HM. Jason Kidd (DAL)

This is Kerr for me very easily. He's been building something completely different from the rest of the league the entire time he's been coaching, now we see how it truly pays off. Kerr's doing this was a major advantage with his loyal core of Steph/Klay/Dray of course, but everyone knew those guys existed prior to this year and yet by and large, said everyone was not expecting the supporting cast to look as sharp as it did.

Udoka had one hell of a rookie year as a coach. Worthy of COY in his own right.

Giving the 3rd slot to Jenkins, who coached the surprise 2nd best team of the regular season, and then seemed to give the eventual champs their toughest fight despite having their star player injured midway through the series. While I do think the Celtics too were better than the Grizz when all was said and done this year, very impressive how far Memphis has come.

Spoelstra ends up just missing my ballot. Full respect to him as one of the best coaches in the game, and another year from him that was quite impressive.

Executive of the Year

1. Brad Stevens (BOS)
2. David Griffin (NOH)
3. Masai Ujiri (TOR)

HM. Arturas Karnisovas (CHI)
HM. Daryl Morey (PHI)

Going in reverse order this time:

There were plenty of good moves made this year, but no moves that in and of themselves made me think, "That's it, that's your EOY right there!" Morey makes my list as an HM, and he made a move that seemed like it might end up being perceived like this...but at least to this point, it's really not clear whether Morey's fixation on ol' Beardy was wise. At the very least though, he got rid of BS.

My other HM is someone who topped my EOY list early in the year, and the key thing here is his DeRozan acquisition. When I'm against a move - like acquiring DeRozan - and I end up concluding that I was way wrong and the GM was way right, I tend to want to shout praise in their direction. The thing is though, in the end, the season basically ended up like I expected it would - with the Bulls going out, offering not too much of a challenge, in the first round. This time of result doesn't feel like EOY worth stuff to me. I think you should be aiming hire even if you're a small market, and Chicago ain't no small market. Nevertheless, I've always liked the Lonzo & Caruso moves, and DeRozan & Lavine worked quite harmoniously together. Pretty good work from Arturas all things considered.

Masai gets my 3rd spot for continuing to do things that impress me which don't have any obvious Bull-like ceiling. I'm typically careful about giving a GM too much EOY love for a guy they just drafted, and that is limiting Masai here too, but I think he deserves praise for drafting Barnes when most would not have. His signing of Trent was good as well.

I'm really shocked that Griffin ends up #2 on my ballot. I was someone far lower on Griffin than most on these ballots back when he was with the Cavs and LeBron simply decided to sign with his team. I'm also someone who lambasted Griffin for letting Lonzo go, and was among those who thought Griffin was on the verge of being fired - and that that would be a justifiable thing.

While I still think letting Lonzo go was a mistake, the Pelicans came to life this year through a number of Griffin's moves. His new coaching hire, Willie Green, looks great so far. His draft picks of Jones & Alvarado worked remarkably well. His trade for McCollum & Nance now seems like what the 76ers should have taken to get rid of Simmons. While I'm still a bit skeptical of Griffin, I cannot deny that he had a year that deserves serious consideration for EOY.

But in the end, I'm going to side with Stevens. When I look to evaluate EOY candidates, one of the things I'm always thinking about is how much the GM's moves would give me confidence to hire him. If a guy made a move that turned out great, but I don't think he could have known how well it would turn out - like, say, drafting a superstar in the 2nd round - I try not to be carried away.

The thing about Stevens this year is he made moves where it really seems clear he knew what he was doing. He effectively fires himself as a coach, and brings in a smart, former player with an ethos that allows him to actually call out his players. He gets rid of the 3rd all-star point guard acquisition the Celtics got since drafting Marcus Smart, just gives Smart the job, and it works great. His biggest player acquisition was a player (Horford), the team had previously let walk (looks like we know how coach Stevens felt about that now). Even a small move like White was targeted, and very effective.

Part of me feels absurd giving Stevens more RealGM award love when we already perhaps gave him too much as a coach, but he's given me a lot of confidence in his GMing abilities this year.

[dontcalltimeout]

POY

1. Jokic
2. Curry
3. Antetokounmpo
4. Tatum
5. Butler

HM: Luka

Spoiler:

Jokic and Curry is close, but I think Jokic retains an edge on offense. The most scalable carry job of all time. A special season that I think is the start of the best offensive peak since... peak Curry. I still think Curry's offense was elite, but his shooting looked closer to human for most of the year until the last series. Curry is so good that he almost doesn't have to make shots to be as dominant as he is, but making shots is what takes him over the edge. Completely understand anyone taking Curry, especially with how stout his defense looked in the playoffs.
Antetokounmpo is the other guy who might be the best player in the world. No one is the two-way force he is, and he got better this year. He is whipping more passes, making them earlier, making them from more angles, able to hit the crosscourt pass and not as dependent on corner shooters. I don't think there's a version of Antetokounmpo that looks better than this one did against Boston.
Tatum - all hail the two-way wings. It's just so much easier to have impact this kind of impact when you're one of the best defenders at your position, even if he looked less good against Golden State's movement. I admire the strides his playmaking has made, even if good defenses pointed out all of his scoring and ball protection warts in the playoffs.
I wrote a long thing on Butler, so I won't rehash it here. But suffice to say, I think he hit a really high level again in the playoffs. Miami's plan was to start handing over the franchise to Adebayo and Herro, but Butler has changed the whole perspective: the window is now.
If I could have a top 6, Luka would be on it. He's the hardest to leave off. An absolute killer in the playoffs who lives for the big moments. I wish his teammates where a bit more involved in his offensive approach.
Embiid needs to look like his regular season self in the playoffs for me to consider him more strongly for a spot here. Still a definite top 10 player in the league.

OPOY
1. Jokic
2. Curry
3. Luka

HM: Trae Young
HM: LeBron James
HM: Kevin Durant

Spoiler:

The first three are obvious to me.
Young versus Luka is an interesting comparison among the helio guys, but Trae showed that he can be taken out of his game in a way I don't think Luka can because of his size and physicality.
James and Durant both dealt with weird rosters.
James's passing might be the best he's ever been, but he's more dependent on manufactured spacing to be effective than before, even though he can still be really effective.
I'm usually lower on Durant than consensus, but no question he is in this conversation. I think his struggles against Boston are bit overstated, he usually made the right pass away, but he's not the guy who meaningfully manipulates a defense that is selling out to stop him.

DPOY
1. Draymond Green
2. Giannis Antetokounmpo
3. Tatum

HM: Horford, Smart, Williams.
HM: Bam Adebayo
HM: Caruso

Spoiler:

It was ultimately really difficult to pick a Celtic. They were such a democracy I almost couldn't pick a guy. Tatum gets it for minutes played, but I almost went with Horford.
Bam once again proved himself as the kind of defender you want for the playoffs. Versatile, super switchable, and the best offensive players in the world pass the ball when he gets switched onto them.
Caruso is not a real contender here, but I think he's proven himself as one of the guys who can move the needle from the small positions.

6MOY
1. Payton
2. Clarkson
3. Clarke

HM: Bogdanovic
HM: Boucher
HM: Herro

Spoiler:

I almost left Payton completely off my ballot, but let's be real: it's consistent with the rest of my voting for me to go with the guy who moves the needle the most and who made the champs look like a different beast when he played. By wins added he's definitely in the range of the top contenders, so no compunction here.
Clarkson is the classic 6th man. Up until game 6 he was one of Utah's only consistent sources of offense. I do think by aggregate value he's the top guy here.
I almost went with Bogdan or Boucher here, because they are in the range of added wins and also looked good in the first round, but look: Bogdan missed game 6, Boucher gave Toronto flexibility with their ultra stretchy lineup, but he only played 20 MPG. I went with Brandon Clarke, a guy who you could say swung a playoff series and also ramped up his playing time when the match up was good. He was just a beast against Minnesota.
Herro... once defenses decided to stop him, he couldn't do much. Good regular season though.

ROY
1. Mobley
2. Barnes
3. Jones

Spoiler:

These three guys were all difference makers for good teams in the regular season. Mobley and Jones came in as guys you could consider for all-defensive teams, which is really special. Barnes is the kind of two-way wing in the making that teams drool over.

MIP
1. Garland
2. Bane
3. Williams


HM: Wiggins
HM: Poole
HM: Dejounte Murray

Spoiler:

Garland is an obvious pick for me. I really like his game. He can play on or off ball. Cavs have something going.
Bane is awesome. Made himself a core piece of Memphis's future, and the perfect flexible guy to put next to Ja. Oh, and he's maybe the second best long-range shooter in the world.
This feels like a good place to put the Timelord, Rob Williams III. I wish he had played more in the playoffs, but he just changed the game when he played. Even when Golden State was going after him, when his knee was feeling good, he was still a net good with his ability to cover space, help from the weakside, and add vertical spacing.
Wiggins overhauled his imprint on the game this year by becoming the guy who gets his hands dirty for the best team in the league. He almost made my ballot.
Poole made great strides this year, though not so great as he looked against Denver. Ultimately, I like the top three guys game a little bit more.

COY
1. Kerr and his staff
2. Udoka
3. Jenkins

HM: Spo
HM: Bickerstaff
HM: Kidd

Spoiler:

I want to give this to entire GSW coaching staff. Kerr's hiring of assistants and then empowering them is the best in the league. Still flummoxing opponents after all these years. The defensive versatility, switching coverage constantly between possessions, is one of the most amazing things I've seen. Shout out to Mike Brown.
Udoka had the talent but had to put it together. He did.
Jenkins - There's a lot going right in Memphis, but that team is full of young personalities and Jenkins had them all aligned.
Spo - I soured on his case a bit. He helped a team that was never healthy play its best in the regular season, but I can't give you 100% credits if those carriages turn to pumpkins when the clock strikes May.
Bickerstaff - Cleveland surprised us all, but lost steam in the end.
Kidd - Was not a fan of this hiring, but he impressed in the playoffs.

EOY
1. Stevens
2. Griffin
3. Myers

HM: Altman
HM: Ujiri
HM: Karnisovas

Spoiler:

EOY is a weird award. I wish it could be a multi-year award where we looked at the past 3 or 5 years to evaluate a body of work. Alas...
Stevens - is must be an advantage to be able to think at different levels of abstraction, from the level of the coach, to manager, to executive. He made the right roster tweaks - Horford, White - and picked the right coach. And he was right to go all-in this year when the team was sub-.500.
Griffin - love the moves he made; made the team better while still retaining a lot of pieces for more moves down the line. He could win this in a year if the Pelicans live up to their potential.
The third spot is tough - could give it to anyone of these guys.
Myers - it's easy to do the simultaneous contender build and the reload with the young guys if you have a bigger wallet than god, but you still have to actually do it.
Altman - if he had gotten Allen in '22 instead of '21, he is probably a stronger contender. But getting Mobley, Markkanen, and Rubio were good moves. Rather than be a crackpot scheme, the multi-big lineups looked genius.
Karnisovas - It almost worked with DeRozan, Lavine, Ball, and Caruso, but fell apart when the two defenders got injured. Seems like it doesn't quite work if Ball and Caruso aren't around.

[Texas Chuck]

6MOY:

1. Jordan Clarkson
2. Bogdan Bodanovic
3. Tyler Herro

Spoiler:

Clarkson had a really sneaky good year for a Utah team that was imploding and he was their 2nd best player in the playoffs behind only the beleagured Rudy Gobert. Embodies what this award should be--a guy who keeps your 2nd unit afloat while being able to come in and play key minutes with the starters.

Bogdan very similar to Clarkson--just really effective in his role and for 6MOY I don't think team results should be the primary driving factor. Just looking to Boston/GSW for candidates after the fact doesn't work for me.

Herro was hurt in the playoffs, but was a big part of the best RS team in the East. That needs to matter.

ROY:

1.Scottie Barnes
2. Evan Mobley
3. Herb Jones

Spoiler:

Barnes came in and immediately took on a heavy minutes role on a good team. And was just really solid in a bunch of different areas.

Mobley showed he might be a future DPOY level defender immediately. That's really impressive. Maybe the brightest future of this class, but its about this year and I think Barnes edges him out.

Jones is a great example of a guy who carved out a role, forced his way immediately into the lineup and just exceeded expectations every step of the way with little drop off. Will never be a star, but so what. Players like him are very valuable.

COY:

1. Steve Kerr
2. Erik Spoelstra
3. Jason Kidd

A

Spoiler:

s many of you know I hate the Warriors hype train. And I hate the idea that Kerr solved basketball or that he and not the overwhelming talent and freak happenings of Steph on the best bargain in NBA history finding Draymond in the 2nd round, and the cap spike allowing KD to come. But this year? I have to give him his due. This was a tremendous coaching job. Found key roles for some unexpected players, make smart adjustments as needed, and of course continues to be a strong leader for the league as a whole. His players know he has their back and that matters.

Spo imo is the best coach in the league. He could win this every year as far as I'm concerned and this year no different. He just figures it out. And his players know exactly what he expects and he gets it more than he doesn't. Willing to make hard decisions based on what he thinks is best not on how much the FO paid someone.

Last spot was tough. But the Mavs made essentially one addition--Reggie Bullock, and he got just night and day different defensive results. Clearly he was able to get through to the guys in ways Rick Carlisle no longer was. His empowerment of his players was significant all year and in the playoffs he outcoached previous COY's Snyder and Williams pretty clearly.

EOY:

1. Bob Myers
2. Daryl Morey
3. Brad Stevens

Spoiler:

Myers didn't listen to outside noise and do the expected which was to trade Wiseman and the lottery picks for veteran help. Instead he replaced role players who weren't good fits for ones who were. He trusted in his core. And he won the title while keeping his assets. You can't do better GMing than winning the title while keeping all your futures.

Morey won. This whole board save me and maybe one or two others insisted he give Simmons away for junk just be shed of him. Morey rightfully refused and in the end got his guy. Maybe it doesn't work. Harden didn't look great in Philly after all. But to take what everyone insisted was an impossible situation and to come out of it with his first choice to pair with Embiid is job well done.

Stevens replaced himself which can be tough to acknowledge needs to be done. And hired a guy who did a great job. Then he made some subtle moves that wowed nobody at the time picking up Horford and White and even Theis but all played important roles in their run to the Finals.

OPOY:

1. Nikola Jokic
2. Giannis Antetokounmpo
3. Stephen Curry

Spoiler:

Jokic was arguably both the best scoer and indisputably the best playmaker in the Association. Just a masterful season that honestly nobody had a chance to catch in the playoffs.

Giannis has been an elite offensive player for years and only finally now is he getting some very begrudging respect for it. He just puts so much pressure on defenses, he's incredibly relentless, and there is zero answers for him in the paint or in transition. Most physically dominant force since peak Shaq.

Curry rises above Embiid and Doncic because of the playoffs. I get that his impact was still high even during his sustained slump and I'm not dismissing that, but those other guys were just better for more of the season.

DPOY:

1. Rudy Gobert
2. Bam Adebayo
3. Joel Embiid

Spoiler:

Gobert is just the best defender in the world and when Doc asked for numbers to justify that I showed an overwhelming amount of data that just gets hand-waved away for stylistic reasons. Sorry. He's absolute dominating defensively and if we could consider Curry for POY last year despite his incredible gravity not able to lift a bad team even into the playoffs, we should be able to mentally realize even Gobert can't plug every hole of a perimeter defense that bad. And it frustrates me that those questioning Gobert's impact praise KG's in Minnesota when he had mediocre team defenses. This guy is the best in the world. There isn't a close second. Easiest award of them all.

Bam is more what the style guys are looking for. But I don't hold that against him. He's an incredible defensive player and yes his ability as a center to defend on the perimeter is a big part of that.

Embiid is another one of those guys that the difference when he's on the court versus off is just night and day different for his team. He is the only player in the league who has the capability to come close to approaching what Gobert can do, though his significantly higher offensive responsibilities mean we never quite get to see that.

POY:

1. Jokic
2. Curry
3. Giannis
4. Jimmy Butler
5. Tatum

[spoiler]Not much to add to what I've already said about Jokic. Just an absolutely incredible season playing with very little help and teams could still do absolutely nothing with him.

Curry edges out Giannis because of his playoff run. Especially impressive as he entered the playoffs on a minutes restriction coming off a reasonably serious injury. Showed me for the first time that he could really put a team on his back and carry them to a title. His other championship teams were just so far ahead of the field in talent. This one wasn't.

Giannis is probably the best player in the world. I just think Jokic and Curry had better years so he finishes 3rd. But just an incredible basketball player and an ideal ambassador for the sport as Lebron and Curry are nearing the end. The league is in tremendous hands with him as its primary face.

Butler was maybe the most impressive player in the playoffs even with the injury causing a couple stinkers. He did everything possible to get his team to the Finals and nearly did and that after being the leader of the best RS team in the conference.

Which gives him an edge over Tatum who gets the hype from the +/- guys and of course his team was in the Finals. I do not think Tatum is a top 5 player, and maybe not a top ten one. And his slow start nearly eliminated him the way Luka's did him. But this is POY and his resume is strong enough to take the last spot.

/spoiler]