2024-25 RealGM All-Season Awards Voting Thread (SGA POY)

[Doctor MJ]

This will be the official voting thread.

Please, until votes are tallied, no posts other than actual votes in this thread - Continue to use the Discussion thread for discussion.

Below are a list of voters that are pre-approved based on voting history and/or current participation, but know that this comes with an expectation of being nice & respectful to each other even when you disagree.

Approved Voters:
AEnigma
BusywithBball
Djoker
Doctor MJ
eminence
EmpireFalls
falcolombardi
iggymcfrack
jalengreen
lessthanjake
metta-tonne
OyahoKD
penbeast0
ShaqAttac
sp6r=underrated
Special_Puppy
Texas Chuck
The-Power
trelos
Verticality

A reminder about the basic process from the Discussion thread's OP:

It's that time!

Every season the RealGM PC board does it's All-Season awards for the NBA.

"All-Season" means we factor in both the regular season and the playoffs - and we generally do this about a week after the Finals end.

The awards we give are:

Player of the Year (POY) - most accomplished overall player of that season.
Offensive Player of the Year (OPOY) - most accomplished offensive player of that season.
Defensive Player of the Year (DPOY) - most accomplished defensive player of that season.
Rookie of the Year (ROY) - most accomplished rookie of that season.
Most Improved Player (MIP) - player whose improvement was the most noteworthy accomplishment.
6th Man of the Year (6MOY) - most accomplished player eligible as a 6th man that season.
Coach of the Year (COY) - most accomplished coach of that season.
Executive of the Year (EOY) - most accomplished GM/front office leader of that season.

POY has a 5-man ballot, all others have a 3-man ballot.
Only full ballots will be counted, and each ballot must be given some reasoning in the voting post.
For voters, POY is mandatory, all others are optional.

For reference, here's the list of previous award winners. Note that all years prior to 2009-10 were done as part of the Retro Player of the Year project, while later years were done after the season in question. All specific votes are listed in theoriginal Retro POY thread first post. Note also that beginning in 2014-15 we added the non-POY awards.

If you'd like to geek out about award shares, you can find the total tallies for POY, OPOY & DPOY here.

If you have any further questions, consider quoting me in the Discussion thread (not here), or you can PM me.

Cheers,
Doc

[trelos6]

I’ll kick us off.

OPOY

1. Nikola Jokic. Anchored the #4 offense in the regular season, +5.4 rOrtg. Best passer and playmaker in the league. 38.7 pp100 at +8.7 rTS% in the regular season. In the playoffs he dropped to 32.7, +1.1 rTS%, but he did go up against the #1 and #3 defense in the league.

2. Shai Gilgeous Alexander. Top 10 playmaker. Anchored the #3 offense in the league, +5.8 rOrtg. 45.9 pp100 on +6.1 rTS% in the regular season, dropped to 39.2 pp100 on -0.2 rTS% in the playoffs.

3. Tyrese Haliburton. Top 2 passer and top 10 playmaker in the league. 26.6 pp100 on +4 rTS%. Anchored a top 9 offense in the regular season, +2 Ortg, but a top 4 offense in the playoffs, going up against the #1, 8, 12 and 14 defenses in the regular season. 25.3 pp100 at +0.5 rTS%.

DPOY

1. Draymond Green. This should have been Wemnanyama. But, alas. Anchored a -2.8 rDRtg defense. Highly impactful defender on a team without much defensive talent.

2. Ivica Zubac. Breakout season, anchoring a -4.2 rDRtg. Held Jokic well below his season averages in the 7 games.

3. Evan Mobley. Top 8 defense in the league. I want to give a Thunder player the nod, but there is too many to choose from. Caruso was DPOY for the playoffs, but his limited minutes in the regular season hurt him. Dort was great, Chet was great, J Dub was mr Versatile on D. So, I’m giving it to the actual DPOY in Mobley.

POY

1. Shai Gilgeous Alexander. Not the best player in the league, but the combination of his awesome regular season, solid volume scoring in the playoffs gets him the nod ahead of Jokic. Borderline All-Time level season.

2. Nikola Jokic. Amazing season. Was my POY all the way up to the last few games of the finals. But I must give SGA his flowers.

3. Giannis Antetokounmpo. 43pp100, +4.9 rTS% in the regular season, 43.8 pp100 on +7.5 rTS% in the playoffs..

4. Jayson Tatum. 36.9pp100 on +0.6 TS%. 36.6 pp100 on -1 rTS%. The playmaking engine behind the #2 offense. +6.1 rOrtg, and a big part of a top 5 defense, -3.4 rDRtg.

5. Tyrese Haliburton. Neutral on defense, but as my #3 OPOY.


ROY

1. Jaylen Wells. Started 74 games on a playoff team.

2. Risacher. Showed some flashes.

3. Castle. Top rookie scorer outside of McCain. Weak class though.

MIP

1. Evan Mobley. Made the jump to All NBA.

2. Cade Cunningham. Made the jump to All NBA.

3. Ivica Zubac. Argument for him to have been All NBA 3rd team.

6MOY

1. Alex Caruso. The best defender in the league on a per minute basis. 41% from 3 in the playoffs. Big reason why the Thunder got past the Nuggets, and then the Pacers.

2. Payton Pritchard. Impacted the games offensively off the bench. Started and put up some big scoring games, which is the job of a 6th man, to fill in when injuries happen.

3. Ty Jerome. Was a big part of the Cavs league leading offense. Crushed opposing bench lineups when he was on the floor.

COY

1. Deignault. Implemented a terrific defensive system which was a -7 rDRtg, and they were missing a big man for the majority of the season.

2. Carlisle. Great adjustments in the playoffs. Ability to ride his bench when needed to produce some amazing playoff success.

3. Kenny Atkinson. Implemented a great offensive system in Cleveland which led to the Cavs being the #1 offense, at a +7.2 rORtg.

EOY

1. Sam Presti. Traded Giddey for Caruso, signed IHart. 2 players who were instrumental to the eventual champions.

2. Rob Pelinka. He upgraded a top 10 player for a top 5 player. This will keep the Lakers relevant in the post Lebron era.

3. Trajan Langdon. Picked up some vets in Tobias Harris, Malik Beasley. Traded for Schroder who was impactful. They were a few possessions away from beating the Knicks.

[BusywithBball]

Thank you for adding me Doctor MJ. I am new but I’ll try and have positive impact.


Player of Year

Shai Gilgeous-Alexander. Was MVP and Finals MVP first time since Steph Curry and won the championship after 68-wins. I said Jokic better but this was OKC’s year because of Shai. I know they won on defense and Shai was not so good in the playoffs but he still led his team to victory despite them being very young scoring almost 30 over the playoffs and having great playmaking performance to close Indiana out. He also helped on defense with 1.7 steals.

Nikola Jokic. The best in the world. He had great season averaging 30/10/12 and carried Nuggets hard with unselfish playmaking style and incredible iq. They almost beat OKC after firing their head coach. Incredible year and I hope he gets the support he needs.

Tyrese Haliburton. It didn’t end well but Haliburton went out like warrior and almost led his team to the biggest upset maybe all-time with incredibly different and fun unselfish offense. I read Siakim impact might be higher but game 7 Indiana were completely in second half without Hali committing 20 turnovers. I think his impact is bigger than people think.

Giannis. He went out swinging. I think questions are fair about playstyle of Milwaukee's attack but Giannis is an incredible player and put up big numbers with little help against inspired Indiana.

Siakim. Was conference finals MVP and I think best finals player for Indiana. Him joining changed their trajectory for sure. Even Bird needed Mchale and Haliburton needed Siakim. Great two way player who defends like hell and can get a bucket when the main thing isn’t working.

Executive of Year

Sam Presti He lost 3 MVPs and not so long after has built a great team.

Coach of Year

Rick Carlisle. Haliburton stirs the pot but Carlisle needs credit for Indiana’s offense too. I don’t think Indiana had the most raw talent but they could beat anyone just like Mavericks in 2011. I hope he gets more respect now.

[lessthanjake]

POY

1. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander

While I do think Jokic is better than SGA, I think SGA is POY. He played incredibly well in the regular season. For instance, he had the 15th highest BPM ever—with Jordan, Jokic, LeBron, Steph, Robinson, and Giannis being the only players who have gotten higher BPMs. He had the 10th highest WS/48 ever—with Jordan, LeBron, Kareem, and Wilt being the only players who have higher seasons. Amongst players that played at least half a season, SGA’s EPM was the 8th highest we’ve seen—below only 2022 Jokic, 2019 Harden, 2016 Steph, 2015 Steph, 2010 LeBron, 2009 LeBron, and 2009 CP3. His LEBRON was also the 8th highest we’ve seen (though that stat has only existed since 2010).

This was all in service of a historically great regular season for his team. They won 68 games and set the SRS record, despite not actually being particularly healthy over the course of the year. They were extremely dominant when he was on the floor. It was truly an all-time great regular season from him—very few regular seasons have been better IMO. His combination of great high-volume mid-range shooting, amazing turnover economy, and good perimeter defense is just an extremely effective combination.

He definitely dipped in the playoffs—not having an all-time playoffs like he did with the regular season. In some sense, that was disappointing. But he was still good and he still led his team to the title. A player who had an all-time regular season for an historically great team and then leads his team to the title basically has to be POY, IMO.

2. Nikola Jokic

As good as SGA is, I think Jokic is the best player in the world. There’s definitely an argument SGA had the better regular season individually, and I did think SGA deserved MVP. But Jokic was right there with him, and perhaps/probably even better. Averaging 30/13/10 on 66% TS% is just outrageous. It was an all-time-level season from Jokic too. His floater wasn’t quite as good this year as it has been in the past, but he made up for it by being a great three-point shooter. Jokic had one of the highest ever on-court rORTGs this season—which is pretty remarkable given his supporting cast not being anything all that special (though they’re not bad offensively).

It was not his best playoffs. He faced two great teams (I think the Clippers were actually an incredible team when healthy—and their healthy regular season results definitely bear that out). He was still really good, but they did make his efficiency slip noticeably. It’s a testament to his greatness that, against great teams, dropping 26/11/8 on 59% TS% while anchoring a good defense somehow felt a bit disappointing.

I don’t think SGA actually played better individually in the regular season, nor do I think he played better individually in the playoffs. But SGA’s team won 68 games and the title, which weighs very heavily. If SGA hadn’t had an all-time regular season, then maybe Jokic’s all-time regular season would be enough for POY despite a second-round playoff exit. And if the Thunder hadn’t won the title, then I’d have gone Jokic. But I weigh team success highly in POY voting—because I think a player’s importance to the story of the NBA that year is an important element—and so I don’t think Jokic can be above SGA.

3. Giannis Antetokounmpo

I think Giannis was fairly clearly the 3rd best player in the NBA this year. In many years, someone playing as well as Giannis would be the clear best player in the NBA. He averaged 30/12/7 on 63% TS%. And while his defense isn’t what it once was IMO, he’s still a good defender. While Giannis lost in the first round of the playoffs, he played fantastically in that series against a Pacers team that almost won the title. He just did not have a very good team IMO.

I don’t think Giannis is quite as good as Jokic or SGA, and his team certainly didn’t do well enough to justify putting him higher than either of them. But I think he was so individually good that no one else but those two can be ahead of him.

4. Tyrese Haliburton

The main thing motivating me here is the Pacers’ playoff run, which was really incredible. While their first two playoff opponents had injuries, they were still dangerous (indeed, the Cavs were still a really good team) and the Knicks are really good. Meanwhile, the Thunder are genuinely an all-time-great team and the Pacers took them to 7 games. It was one of the most incredible Finals runs we’ve seen. And Haliburton is not only their best player, but made an absurd number of clutch shots and game-winners during the title run. He wasn’t consistently great in the playoffs, but he led his team really far and had incredible moments. In terms of importance to the story of the NBA this year, Haliburton may well be the highest on the list, and that weighs significantly to me. Haliburton did get injured in Game 7, and I do penalize him some for that, but the fact that the Pacers offense was listless after he went down did make me even more sure of his impact on their playoff run.

His case here isn’t just about the Pacers playoff run though. Among players who played over 50 regular season games, Haliburton was 7th in EPM, and was very close to everyone but SGA, Jokic, and Giannis. Tatum and Mitchell were the other candidates for this spot for me, but they don’t separate themselves from Haliburton here, with Haliburton having a +4.2 EPM, and Tatum also having +4.2 and Mitchell being at +4.5. Tatum was ahead of Haliburton by a bit in LEBRON, but Haliburton was slightly ahead of Mitchell. Haliburton was 7th in the league BPM (and 5th among players that played over 50 games), ahead of both Tatum and Mitchell. I wouldn’t say Haliburton was actually better than Tatum or Mitchell in the regular season, but I actually think he was similarly good, and the playoff run makes him the choice over those guys.

5. Jayson Tatum

This spot comes down to Tatum or Mitchell. I don’t think there’s a lot between them this year. Both led great teams, and both played well in the playoffs overall but also had some rough performances that hurt their team. Ultimately, I am taking Tatum because I just think he’s the better player in general, and that’s my tiebreaker. There’s maybe an outside argument for Steph here as well. He was very good (ahead of both these guys in EPM and BPM for instance), and his team was incredible once he got reinforcements from Butler. But Tatum and Mitchell led their teams to be great the entire year, and I think that’s enough to put them higher.

________

OPOY

1. Nikola Jokic

See above. I weigh team success less for OPOY, and I think Jokic is the superior offensive player than SGA. As noted above, his on-court rORTG was historically high this year.

2. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander

See above. SGA’s high-volume mid-range game and amazing turnover economy makes for really good offense, and it allows his team to be pretty defensively stacked and rely on him a lot offensively. It’s a very effective formula. His efficiency did fall in the playoffs, but the overall picture for him over the course of the year was still great offensively.

3. Tyrese Haliburton

Led the offense of the team that lost in game 7 of the Finals, and made a huge number of clutch shots in the playoffs. His regular season O-EPM was behind only Jokic, SGA, and Steph.

____________________

COY

1. Rick Carlisle

I’ve explained this in a prior post. I just think Carlisle got his team playing far better than the sum of its parts. I found this extremely impressive, and it’s not the first time he’s done this, so I feel confident he’s a big element of this.

2. Mark Daigneault

Have to give him some credit for how great the Thunder are, particularly on defense. I’m not sure he coached a great playoffs, but he put the foundation in for the Thunder to be incredible.

3. Kenny Atkinson

Another team that I think was significantly better than the sum of its parts. They lost disappointingly early in the playoffs, but I don’t blame the coach too much since they weren’t healthy.

_________

I’m so unsure of what I think about DPOY that I don’t think I’m going to vote on that one. I might potentially edit in some more votes on the other categories, but probably not.

[iggymcfrack]

Player of the Year

1. Shai Gilgeous Alexander: The closest year we've had for Player of the Year that I remember, but ultimately, SGA earned this spot. He earned the regular season MVP by having a combination of the best advanced stats in the league, more games played than Jokic, and one of the most successful seasons of all-time for a team. Jokic may have played slightly better in the postseason, but not enough to be definitive, and ultimately SGA played very well in leading the Thunder to the title.

2. Nikola Jokic: Gave him a very strong consideration to win the award even after the Thunder won the title. He's still the best player in the game and did as much as you could possibly expect him to with the Nuggets, upsetting the Clippers and taking the Thunder to 7 despite MPJ playing hurt. Ultimately, his box stats dipped similarly from the regular season as SGA, and he had a much better on/off, but his negative net rating in the postseason ultimately keeps me from moving him past the regular season and Finals MVP.

3. Giannis Antetokounmpo: I'm a bit skeptical about his impact with the Bucks' lack of team success, but ultimately he had the 3rd best advanced stats in the regular season, and the best box score stats in the playoffs which is enough to earn the #3 spot.

4. Tyrese Haliburton: Was very, very close to the #3 spot. When it mattered most in the playoffs, he came up huge leading the Pacers to Game 7 of the NBA Finals with an on/off of +14.7 and the greatest single clutch postseason in history. He led 4 of the 5 greatest comebacks in the last 30 years of the playoffs, finishing each one off with a clutch game winner. Before he got hurt in the first quarter, he had the Pacers in a good position to possibly win the most unlikely championship of all-time. Unfortunately though, the key injury leaves him just behind Giannis.

5. Donovan Mitchell: Top 5 in EPM among healthy players and actually upped his game quite a bit in the playoffs, finishing with a playoff BPM of 7.9 and a net rating of +6.7. He could have shot better against the Pacers and probably wouldn't be top 5 in a lot of years, but ultimately he seems the most deserving candidate for 5th place.


Offensive Player of the Year

1. Nikola Jokic: Pretty clear that the defense was the only thing that really lifted SGA past him for POY. The lift he provides to the Denver offense is unmatched across the league if not in league history. Adding a reliable 3-point shot to league best passing and post scoring might make this Jokic season the single best offensive season of all-time.

2. Shai Gilgeous Alexander: Took what was pretty much a league average offense with him on the bench and made them the 2nd best regular season offense in the NBA, and ultimately the champs. Was 2nd in offensive EPM with a large gap between first and second, and put up all-time box score numbers for a guard.

3. Tyrese Haliburton: His Jokic-like passing clearly lifted the entire Pacers team to a much higher level than they had any business reaching, and provided immeasurable value in the clutch. Honestly could have taken 2nd if he could have stayed healthy and beat the Thunder in Game 7.


Defensive Player of the Year

1. Draymond Green: Had the best defensive xRAPM by a decent margin among high minutes guys, and was by far the key in the Warriors defense being better than their offense on a team that could have contended for the championship if they'd stayed healthy.

2. Rudy Gobert: Didn't have him top 3 after the regular season, but the other contenders couldn't match the consistent impact of Gobert in the hothouse of the playoffs. The Wolves had a DRtg of 106.4 with Gobert on the floor in the postseason and 118.4 with him on the bench. That matches the impact that we've seen from Gobert over the last decade or so he's been a consistent DPOY candidate. If he'd played more consistent minutes I could see an argument for him at #1.

3. Ivica Zubac: Anchored the 3rd best regular season defense in the NBA and was much more crucial to his team than any player was to the top 2 defenses. His constant presence was key during the regular season as he finished 13th in the NBA in total minutes played. He also did an excellent job of holding Jokic in check in the playoffs, requiring very little help while holding him to his lowest scoring average in a series since the 2020 Western Conference Finals. Ultimately though, the fact that the Nuggets offense still hummed at an ORtg of 122.4 in the postseason with him on the floor is enough for me to keep him out of the top 2.


Rookie of the Year

1. Zach Edey: One of very few rookies who managed to actually show a consistently positive impact this season, and not only did he do it for a playoff team, but actually managed to step his game up in the playoffs, finishing with a higher playoff BPM than any Grizzlies player except Ja Morant while leading the playoffs in blocks per game.

2. Jaylen Wells: A consistent regular season presence for Memphis, he played the 3rd most minutes on the team for Memphis and finished as the best rookie in the league by EPM and the 3rd best in xRAPM behind Edey and Clingan.

3. Donovan Clingan: Showed himself to be a tremendous defensive presence for Portland in his first year and finished with the best on/off on the team as he clearly outplayed Ayton at the center position while leading the league in blocks per 100 possessions. More minutes and he could have risen higher on this list.


6th Man of the Year

1. Alex Caruso: Didn't play a lot of minutes in the regular season as he let the young guys gain experience while he rested for the playoffs, but was a holy terror in the postseason. Finished 4th in the league in xRAPM and 1st if you look only at defense. Also led the playoffs in STL% and DPBM while guarding 1-5 with an incredibly memorable stint holding down Nikola Jokic during a season where he may have been playing the best offense in league history.

2. Payton Pritchard: The deserving 6th man of the year during the regular season, Pritchard was 3rd on a 60-win team in both BPM and VORP during the regular season. His numbers dipped a bit during the playoffs, but he still proved himself to be crucial to the Celtics' offense finishing the postseason with a 14.0 NetRtg and a +17.6 on/off. He would win this award in almost any other season.

3. Naz Reid: Last year's 6MOY, Reid improved his BPM, NetRtg, and on/off in both the regular season and the playoffs, but ultimately finished short of a couple of all-time seasons off the bench.


Coach of the Year

1. Ime Udoka: The same guy I would have had as the best coach in the league at the start of the season just added to his resume, leading a Houston team that was 22-60 two years ago before he took the job to the #2 seed in the West. In the series with Golden State, he badly outcoached one of the smartest guys in the league in Steve Kerr and came up with a brand new scheme as he played an innovative matchup zone defense that kept Curry from getting space to shoot while allowing him to keep his offensive rebounders on the floor. The gimmick nearly upset a much more talented team in the Warriors to get a green team with no playoff experience to the second round.

2. Rick Carlisle: An absolute masterpiece from Carlisle as he managed to thread the needle, maximizing Haliburton's offense with a scheme based around motion and quick passing that led to the Pacers moving the ball better than anyone in the league while also making the most of middling defensive talent en route to a magical Finals run. Based solely on accomplishments this year, he probably deserves the award, but I'm more confident in Udoka's ability to make the best of a variety of situations.

3. Kenny Atkinson: Took a Cleveland team that seemed mired in mediocrity under J.B. Bickerstaff, and won an incredible 64 games with them. They finished with the best offense in the league in both the regular season and the playoff and easily could have won the title if not for a little bit of unfortunate injury luck.


Executive of the Year

1. Sam Presti: Took a team that was 24-58 only 3 short years ago, and built the best regular season of all-time by point differential with the youngest talent of any champion since Bill Walton's Blazers almost 50 years ago. When he already had a team that was good enough to contend, he still went out and made moves, trading the worst fit on the team in Josh Giddey for probably the best possible fit player for such a talented team in the entire league in Alex Caruso. Then he grabbed another top 40-ish player in Isiah Hartenstein to round out the squad, eliminating their last remaining weakness by grabbing an elite rebounder. Arguably the best job of team building in the history of the NBA.

2. Rob Pelinka: Smartly played Nico Harrison, not only grabbing a top 5 player in Luka Doncic, but did it while paying a very small price to do so, adding only 1 first round pick to a declining Anthony Davis. While other GMs might feel they didn't get a fair shot, very few in Pelinka's situation would have been able to hold on for such ultimate maximization, holding out for an ultimate fleecing rather than jumping at the chance to put in a fair offer and potentially spooking the deal.

3. Kevin Pritchard: Most of his big moves with the Pacers happened in previous years, but it all paid off this season with a magical Finals run. Working without a high lottery pick or an attractive free agent destination, Pritchard slowly built a nucleus that nearly won the championship through clever trades (Haliburton, Siakam, Nesmith) and a 2nd round pick (Nembhard). Then, even with his team competing for the championship, he made another smart trade regaining next year's unprotected first for a less valuable late round pick when his star was playing with a dangerous injury.

[Verticality]

Grateful my input is valued. It was a great season even with heartbreak ending.

1 is close but I will go with Nikola Jokic. Shai had a magnificent season winning the scoring title the NBA Most Valuable Player Award and the Finals Most Valuable Player Award. He was also first team all-defense. But I feel Jokic was every bit as incredible in the regular season and Shai was not as incredible in the playoffs. I will keep individual ranking focused on individual. Giannis is a monster and dominant even in defeat. With how incredible Indiana played I will not hold his early exit against him. Haliburton must get praise. The Pacers combusted my expectations and Haliburton's incredible passing was critical. Many look down on his finals but left everything out there and it's a great shame we have to wait to see him again. For the last spot I will look at full season and list Anthony Edwards. I know he was not himself facing Oklahoma's defense but reaching a conference final is not easy and I find Edwards play higher throughout. He has improved much and he will keep getting better.

1 Nikola Jokic
2 Shai Gilgeous-Alexander
3 Giannis Antetokounmpo
4 Tyrese Haliburton
5 Anthony Edwards

I am not informed enough for other awards.

[IlikeSHAIguys]

1 - SGA
2 - Nikola Jokic
3 - Giannis
4 - Donovan Mitchell
5 - Tyrese Haliburton

Shai had great stats with 32/6/5 on like 63% TS and was playing good defense and is leading the youngest team in the league to 68 wins even though Chet missed like half the season and we didn't even have a center for a bunch. I guess Shai's stats are not as good in the playoffs with 30/6/5 on 57% percent TS but they still won and Shai had better numbers than the guy all of you are saying was "best player in the world" when they played so I'm not getting the whole wow playoff Jokic thing. Jokic's stats actually go down more and he's not a good defender and Shai is probably better head to head so I think Shai should take this.

Giannis was awesome vs Indiana and is still a better defender than the people getting votes. Feel like Cavs need some credit for 64 wins and it's not like Mitchell let them down or anything against Indiana with 27/5/5.

Haliburton doesn't score that much but he was super clutch and had lots of assists and I'd be lying if I said I think they'll make the final. I still feel like he's getting too much credit though because Siakim was probably playing better for at least 2 rounds. Steph was awesome in the playoffs so I'm surprised no one has him top 5 yet.


Defensive Player of the Year
1 - Draymond Green
2 - Evan Mobley
3 - Alex Caruso

Offensive Player of the Year
1 - Nikola Jokic
2 - SGA
3 - Donovan Mitchell
3 - Donovan Mitchell

Executive of the Year
1 - Sam Presti
2 - Chad Buchanan
3 - Rob Pelinka

We won basically because Presti is like the GOAT draft guy and got an MVP and picks for Paul George. That's amazing.

Indiana got really close with a squad of guys no one really thought much about and Rob got Luka.

[Djoker]

POY

1. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander

2. Nikola Jokic

This wasn't an easy choice and I do think in a vacuum Jokic may be the better player but POY for me is as much about accomplishments as it is level of play. SGA had a historic season winning an MVP, a scoring title and a Finals MVP, only the fourth player ever to accomplish that feat. Going into the Finals I said that he would have to really struggle and/or lose the Finals to relinquish the top spot. He ended up looking a bit shaky. He did bend but he didn't break and he found ways to control the game with his playmaking and played great D to make up for poor shooting down the stretch. He and Jokic also happened to play each other in the playoffs and SGA got the better of him in that series. Jokic himself took a step back in the playoffs himself from an absolutely insane regular season. The bottom line is Nikola can't beat a guy who racked up that many accolades and led a historically great team to a championship.

3. Giannis Antetokounmpo

1st Team All-NBA. All-time great in his prime. Clearly the third best player in the world this year. He had a largely healthy year and dominated on both ends of the court. Not his fault that Lillard got hurt and the Pacers outplayed his team. He did his part.

4. Anthony Edwards

5. Tyrese Haliburton

I said before the Finals that Hali was my frontrunner to get the spot over Edwards unless he has a very poor Finals series. He ended up doing exactly that, having a poor series, albeit with injury. I always penalize postseason injuries because the bottom line is he didn't perform well in the ultimate round and had he done that, there is a good chance the Pacers would have won the series. I know it feels unfair to say but Hali probably cost the Pacers the NBA title. Maybe Ant had he played in the Finals, he too would have struggled. We don't know but votes must be based on what actually happened. Haliburton played worse in the Finals than Edwards did in any playoff round and that drags his average level of performance below Ant. Ant also made the All-NBA 2nd Team whereas Haliburton made 3rd Team and had a weak start to the regular season as well. It's after he hit his stride that the Pacers went on a winning run. Start to finish, Ant had the slightly better year.

OPOY

1. Nikola Jokic

2. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander

3. Giannis Antetokounmpo

Jokic is the best offensive player in the game because of the insane combo of scoring and playmaking. SGA can't even come close to matching him on the latter. Giannis brings up the rear as he had a really strong scoring season.

DPOY

1. Draymond Green - 1st Team All-Defense. Just so cerebral, terrific horizontal defender, organizes the whole team on that end. I don't think any of the younger guys can quite match his overall impact. After the trade, the Warriors were the best defense in the league and Green was a huge reason why.

2. Amen Thompson - 1st Team All-Defense. Terrific defender on a young Houston team which had a -3.7 rDRtg good for 4th in the league. He showed tremendous poise for a young player and made great impact in the playoffs as well.

3. Rudy Gobert - 2nd Team All-Defense. Dominant vertical presence on a -3.0 rDRtg Minny defense that was 6th in the league. Also had a strong postseason defensively which was sometimes criticized in the past.

COY

1. Rick Carlisle

2. Mark Daigneault

I really see Rick Carlisle as the frontrunner. Mark Daigneault does deserve some credit for OKC's defense but man that personnel they have is ridiculous. These guys are so versatile, so long, so quick, so athletic. I feel like giving them the credit for OKC's defense makes more sense than giving it to the coach. Sure he implemented some effective schemes but honestly I feel Carlisle in the same position probably does even better. He is an elite X's and O's guys and already has championship experience both as a player and as a coach. What he's done with this Indiana team is incredible. They obviously have talent but they are better than the sum of their parts on both ends. I definitely see the love for Daigneault because of just how dominant OKC was in the regular season. Still, their vulnerability in the postseason does have to have an impact on my valuation of him too.

3. Ime Udoka

Huge impact on elevating a young Rockets team. Their growth behind his tutelage has been fantastic and he's talked about very highly in NBA circles which matters a lot to me because there is no objective way to really grade coaches.

MIP

1. Dyson Daniels - A year ago I've never heard of this guy. He was a bench player but this year he's one of the best young guards in the league and a fantastic perimeter defender having made All-NBA 1st Team. Just a huge huge improvement. Guy literally came out of nowhere.

2. Ivica Zubac - I'll give the big Zu the 2nd spot because a year ago, the man was a solid role player and how he's an all-star caliber big including one of the most impactful defenders in the league too and would be an HM for DPOY if I included those. He really made a huge improvement.

3. Evan Mobley - Was already a fringe all-star a year ago but now is all-NBA level. Solid improvement and he's the best player on the MIP list but he didn't improve the most.

[jalengreen]

POY

1. Shai
2. Jokic
3. Giannis
4. Haliburton
5. Tatum

Let history remember that I was the sole Shai first place voter last year. Never wrong, just early.

Jokes aside, I think this was a historically strong MVP 1 & 2 - remarkable regular seasons from both Shai and Jokic. Shai would have had my MVP vote (as he would have last year). Both players suffered postseason drop-offs, so not a huge knock in either direction there, but obviously this sort of award is going to have a built-in boost for winning a title. And with Shai already ahead as far as the RS for me, yeah that makes it easy enough.

Giannis is solidly at 3. I don't have him with Shai/Jokic, nor do I think anybody else is really close.

Going in I had 4. Tatum 5. {awaiting postseason}. Celtics underperformed and the story of the postseason was the Pacers' run. Beyond the clutch heroics of Haliburton, Indy was legitimately just an elite squad playing at a 60 win level in the 2025 calendar year.

OPOY

1. Jokic
2. Shai
3. Curry

I could go either way here with Curry v Haliburton, it's a tough call. Ultimately I'm choosing to place less weight on team success here (Hali wouldn't be 4th for POY without a good bit of postseason team success weight), and I value the fact that both of them probably had similar offensive impact regular seasons but I just think Curry's better. An emphasis on how much Butler reinvigorated the team could lead some to lean Haliburton's way, I considered it.

DPOY

1. Gobert
2. Zubac
3. Draymond

Brutal year for DPOY, incredibly difficult ballot. I eventually settled on these three and feel pretty good about that. I was quite impressed with Zubac's defense on Jokic in the playoffs - it didn't translate to strong team defense, but I don't hold him responsible for that. And obviously the impact metrics for his regular season defense are all incredible. But I don't see him actually being better defensively than Gobert, so it's admittedly hard for me to take him 1. Strong season on the defensive end for Draymond, helming a unit that looked like one of the league's best. Amen and Mobley among the HMs.

6MOY

1. Caruso
2. Pritchard
3. Reid

Significant missed time for Caruso but god damn that might have been the greatest non-starter playoff run I've ever seen. Mostly because of his generational per minute defensive impact but he even impressed me offensively on a team that really needed any offensive stability it could get from anybody but Shai. Was surprised to see that he shot 41% from 3 in the run because it felt higher than that lol. Other two probably my 1 & 2 from RS before Caruso stole my heart.

COY

1. Daigneault
2. Carlisle
3. Atkinson

Going into Game 7 of the Finals, I was on team "yeah this should go to Carlisle regardless of what happens." And I'm still sympathetic to that reasoning - after all, getting the Pacers to within a game (and possibly within an injury) away from a championship on a run in which they played multiple 60 win teams... pretty remarkable! And on the other hand, Daigneault's coaching really didn't blow anybody away in the postseason. There was some good (Caruso on Jokic) and bad (Game 1 vs Denver), but I'd say he was a bit lackluster overall.

But I really can't ignore the regular season here. The Thunder put up the best SRS and point differential in the history of the NBA - on the surface, they were one of the finest regular season teams in league history and arguably #1, even. And I just don't think they should have been. Hartenstein, Holmgren, and Caruso all missing significant time should have mattered more, as should the fact that even when they *are* healthy, I don't think they're in the Pantheon of the greatest teams ever, frankly. But they had those results in the regular season. That means something. A multitude of things, actually. I've talked about how much they beat up on non-playoff teams, for example, which leads to their raw SRS making them look better than reality. But I think coaching's got to be a part of that effort over the course of a season too, so I'm gonna lean Mark's way here.

[metta-tonne]

So this year was really really fun with many storylines and surprises storylines. Boston was the favorite with the talk shows having the "is it too early to talk about dynasty" question they're having with OKC. There was also alot of buzz around New York with pundits saying they were built to beat Boston. Cleveland? No one really thought much of them. Indina got basically zero respect for the previous conference run and Milwaukee and the Nuggets were thought of as top contenders. The Lakers and Warriors were thought of as the second tier with alot of intrigue and drama around JJ Reddick and Bronny James and believe it or not there was alot of people thinking about Philly thanks to them aquiring Paul George. I don't think OKC or Indiana were thought of as the best teams and wow were alot of people dead wrong.

Numero uno to talk about is the MVP. He was great. Low turnovers incredible volume and great efficiency and gets a lot of steals too. 68 wins with the youngest team despite lots of injuries and yeah no suprise he won that. But I he was much worse in the playoffs and people are dismissing that too lightly. Think it's well documented what happened to his scoring efficiency but he also got burned a bunch defensively and I think that combination helped his team struggle alot. Jokic was um to be honest as good in the regular season and the Nuggets were not really a great supporting cast at all. So when they fire Mike Malone right before the playoffs and the Nuggets become one of the top contenders I feel like you have to give Jokic lots of praise. I think if Shai played like he did before he'd be one but it's not fair to ignore how someone plays in the playoffs because they win. My opnion anyway.

Giannis played great obviously but uh, his defense definitely fell off. I think Giannis kind of shot himself turning down Nick Nurse and Doc Rivers was a bad deal. Going to say Haliburton was the top guy but it's close for sure.
I don't know Haliburton is really a clear top 10 guy on most teams but you have to tip your cap when a team does what Indiana did and that incredibly fast offense Indiana runs can only work with Haliburton and maybe Giannis. Rocking with Tatum for 5th but Steph, Edwards, Lebron have reasons you can prefer them. Really really impressed with how Lebron played post-Luka before he injured himself but that's kind of how the cookie crumbles when you're old. Really strong defense in the playoffs but the offense wasn't there. Steph was fantastic offensively once Butler came to help but I can't ignore the first half where was just poor man. Ant with a sneaky good regular season by the way. Sneaky average in the bigger games. Being the only team OKC played healthy but also just being dominated was really about their offense and Edward struggling. ESPN
really wants to make him face of the league but his play can't back it up.

my vote is Jokic, SGA, Giannis, Jayson Tatum, Tyrese Haliburton in that order. Thanks for reading.

[eminence]

POY Voting

1.Shai Gilgeous-Alexander
Great season on a dominant RS team that got the job done in the playoffs. Probably the best scorer in the game, at least top 2, and a strong though sub elite playmaker for others. A style with a strong history of limiting turnovers and it held up here. Carried the offense to #3 in the league. Good defender. Metrics are monstrous (+16.9 On, +11.1 On/Off as a baseline), look reasonable to comp to any season we've seen. Relatively struggled to hit shots in the POs (91 eFG+, 105 in the RS), and if they hadn't got across the finish line could've dropped to #2. But they did, interested to see where SGA inserts himself in the all-time guard hierarchy going forward.

2.Nikola Jokic
All-time strong #2 season. #2 scorer in the game, best big man playmaker ever, elite rebounder. +10.5/+19.0. Likely would've been my #1 if the Thunder had got upset, certainly would've if he'd been the one to do it. Arguable, but I would say he slightly outplayed SGA in their series. Similarly 'struggled' with individual shot making in the playoffs (115 to 99).

3.Jayson Tatum
I expect I'll be alone in having Tatum this high, I continue to be very impressed with Tatum's all-around play. Slight downturn in some of the impact stats, but a blip imo. Produces positive impact in more areas than anyone else in the game. Team struggled with injuries all season and still got to 61 wins. Continued in the POs and they got upset. Not too different in approach from past seasons (slight increase in 3PAr, corresponding decrease in FTAr).

4.Giannis Antetokounmpo
Last of my reasonably healthy Big 6 (top 4 + Luka/Embiid). Disappointed in the Dame/Giannis duo and what it accomplished together, letting one another down with injury, unfortunately I doubt they get another serious crack at it. Continues to be a very strong individual scorer. Strong in most non-shooting areas. Best defensive days seem behind him. Heroic attempt vs the Pacers.

5.Tyrese Haliburton
Arguably the #2 story of the season, led a great run by the Pacers. Has shown spectacular PO translation with his first two outings. The face of the leagues current traditional PGs.

HMs: Mitchell, Siakam

Here's hoping Tatum/Dame/Haliburton all come back from injury as best as possible.

[falcolombardi]

So i am seeing a lot of comments about shai having some big drop off but honestly almost all of it was the memphis series and 2-3 fairly bad games dragging averages down (game 3 vs minny comes to mind in the dragging down department) his median game was extremely consistent amd valuable scoring or otherwise and even more so in the higher leverage games

Usually players "pad up" so to speak their stats a bit against theor weaker 1st round opponents, shai this year and last (his dallas series was way better than his pels series) has the opposite problem of being qt his worst in the easiest/lowest leverage first round series, lebron had it a bit too

Like he has played 33 playoffs games with okc as a lead star and probably like 6 of the worst 10 happened vs memphis and pelicans (where oklahoma went 8-0 with like a +15 point differential)

From 1-2 down to denver to 3-2 up on indiana shai had like 10 efficient 30+ point games with around 2 bad games only scoring less or unneficiently, and even some of his unneficient games where great from other perspectives (turnovers, assists, blocks amd steals)

Not saying those bad games dont count but i dont think you guys are considering the actual full run and how it went and how few true bad games he had past like, up 3-0 on memphis

Take away his consistent 30+ scoring with the opposite teams locked up over him, (and playmaking, defense and ballhandling) in a team with terrible shooting amd unreliable ballhandlers and secondary shot creators ans it could have got ugly (okc was still like a top 3 playoffs offense)

[falcolombardi]

My votes

POY

1- shai all time mvp worthy season individually in a pure stats/impact sense, add it happening in a 68-win team with record breaking point differential and less dominant but still title winninh playoffs run and this is a no brainer

2-jokic best regular season alongside shai in the floor raising side of the spectrum, i think he played shai equally in the post season amd was better in the first round (not too hard lmao shai was terrible vs memphis for some reason)

3- giannis vs haliburton, giannis the better player (and better in their serie) top 3 in reg season yet only a first round exit, haliburton was unconsistent but was the leader (albeit siakam made it for sure a 1a/1b situation) of a near title run that was the story of the post season

I pick haliburton albeit i see why it could be controversial as he is very low on the consensus best player list to be in a POY top 3 (and it makes you question how high siakam should be then, top 5, top 10?)

4-giannis clearly a top 3 player for the season but is hard to put him higher when bucks accomolished relatively so little, at least jokic got close to the 3rd round

5- brunson, could have been tatum just as easily but flipped a coin and jalen did a bit more in tje postseason
Tatum had a good orlando series but was underwhelming pre injury vs knicks, brunson was a steady force for the knicks to get a strong run and pull 1 huge upset win

OPOY

1-jokic easily

2- shai easily

3- giannis

i feel like i should vote haliburton for consistency here but tbh i go giannis, his offensive production was honestly absurd this year and his short playoff run

and i see poy as a vote where you can reward the best narrative a bit more than the better player while i try to stick closer to "objective value" for opoy and dpoy, haliburton is "part of the story of the season" more but giannis is better even offensively alone

HM: haliburton, brunson

DPOY

1- chet holgrem, controversial and a bit homer-ish but in a list of flawed candidates he still led the best playoffs defense, caruso was behind him in the playoffs for thunder but played more in regular season, cannot go wrong either way

2- caruso, he deserves some serious love for being such a difference maker in playoffs, every great defensive big either lacking playoff success (green, mobley) or being injured amd missint too much time (chet, wenbayama) makes this a prime candidate year to reward a non big here, but i still thought chet was a notch above caruso defensively in their playoff run and i dont think caruso regular season makes up the gap even with the games advantage, as he was also often missing games

3- mobley because i think is a crapshoot between him, gobert and green so i will give mobley his flowers out of the 3

HM: wenbayama, green and gobert

Coy

1-carlisle for leading a underdog to the conference finals, then the finals, then almost the ring

2- mark, made a lot of mistakes in key playoff moments (game 1 vs denver is the stuff of nightmarrs if okc had lost the series) but he gets here by default for winning the ring and a historic regular season

3- atkinson for im my opionion getting everything you could of cavs in regular season to win 64 games and he got a bit unlucky with injuries vs pacers albeit the upset in 5 games is still a bad look

6MOY

1- Caruso, this is easily him, having the huge impact to help a team win a ring, with a not ridiculous argument as the 2nd most important player for the whole run is way beyond what pritchard did

2-pritchard for his amazing regular season for boston

3- mcconnel, maybe a bit prisioner of the moment but he helped propel pacers to a near title with 2 strong series wins and pushing a title team to the limit
Also helps beasley and ty jerome were weak in the postseason

[AEnigma]

Executive of the Year
1. Sam Presti
One of the greatest exercises in long-term roster-building we may ever see, on par with the combined efforts of Ainge and Stevens in building the 2024 Celtics but less blatantly aided by absurdly imbalanced trades like with the now-illegal 2013 Celtics/Nets trade. The offseason acquisitions of Caruso and Hartenstein were the clear swing pieces this team needed to win the title this year. Phenomenal culmination of nearly twenty years of work trying to bring a title to Oklahoma.
2. Kevin Pritchard
Call this the equivalent of my 2023 Riley vote, where I acknowledge that this is the delayed Finals reward for a roster-building strategy pursued in preceding years. I left him as an honourable mention last year because as far as I was concerned, a conference finals run over the Giannis-less Bucks and an injured pre-Towns Knicks is not something worth celebrating on its own. Well, those doubts are gone: Pritchard objectively has created a title-level team, with the Pacers never coming as close to an NBA title as they did this year. Tragic that they may not see the chance to truly run it back.
3. Rafael Stone
I want to be clear that absent a Finals run, I do not intend to reward Stone next year even though I could justify it with the Durant trade. What I am acknowledging this year is the turnaround of a roster with no top ten or even top fifteen talents (conceivably true even with Durant now) into a top five regular season team. Terrible first round matchup with a resurrected Warriors team that with Butler was an even clearer top five team entering the playoffs, but unlike many unexpected regular season leaps (2023 Kings come to mind), what Stone built took essentially no asset sacrifices and occurred with an eye toward the future rather than the present — such that it would have been impossible to predict this finish in 2024 when he made the bulk of these core acquisitions.
(HM: Koby Altman, Leon Rose)

Coach of the Year
1. Rick Carlisle
Consistently brilliant postseason. Slightly exaggerated by clutch player performances that required execution beyond what any coach could ever reasonably engineer, and probably could have managed minutes better in the Finals, but he was as much a story of the Pacers season as Haliburton was — and in the world of coaching, that is an incredible accomplishment.
2. Mark Daigneault
Even stronger regular season job than last year, with a historically elite result (best ever point differential!) despite Chet’s absence for half the year. The team’s horrific road struggles in the postseason needs to at least partially reflect back on him though.
3. J.B. Bickerstaff
With the postseason complete, I find myself less critical of a narrow first round exit to the Knicks than I expected I would be, so I am happy to credit him for a historic turnaround from the offseason with unheralded and uninspiring additions like Tobias Harris seeming unlikely to be the primary culprit. He might not be a championship level coach, but there is value to bringing a team out of the dregs — and for all the improvement we saw with the Cavaliers in the regular season, they still only managed five wins in the postseason.
(HM: Kenny Atkinson, Chris Finch, Tom Thibodeau)

Most Improved Player
1. Ivica Zubac
There was a flash of this last postseason, but no one was treating Zubac as a potential top five centre the way they are now. My skepticism that he will stay at this level is not appreciably different from my skepticism that other candidates mostly just found the space to take a couple of extra shots, and his age and tenure lend easier hindsight justification to any hypothetical subsequent falloff.
2. Dyson Daniels
A part of me was penalising Dyson for not improving the Hawks more. After all, the Hawks went from out of the playoffs to out of the playoffs, which is a far cry from what we saw from the Pistons, the Thunder, and in the regular season the Cavaliers. But the thing is, Dyson was not some random addition: he was replacing the ostensible second-best player on the team. There was no rapid roster improvement like with the Pistons, no expected internal improvement like with the Thunder (even if the extent of their improvement outpaced my expectations by around 5 SRS), and no dramatic coaching change like with the Cavaliers. Relative to the 2024 Hawks, the 2025 Hawks gained 800 Trae minutes but lost 2800 Dejounte minutes, 1800 Bogdan minutes, 2000 Saddiq minutes (generally offset by 1800 rookie Risacher minutes), 600 Jalen Johnson minutes, 700 Capela minutes (generally offset by 600 additional Onyeka minutes), and 700 Hunter minutes. So to me Dyson kind-of needs to have successfully covered Dejounte’s absence for their improvement to make any sense, and while Dejounte is not some spectacular player, that is still an impressive leap from someone who last season was not even in serious rotation for a fringe playoff team.
3. Christian Braun
Became a legitimately good playoff starter; ultimately I find myself less sold on the extent of improvement from Mobley, who was already pretty good, and Cade, who did not clearly perform at a full level beyond what he could have last year in a similar environment. Braun took one of the most obvious leaps of any player, and although it was not as significant a leap as what I felt we saw from Zubac compared to last season, or as sudden as what we saw from Dyson, he kept the Nuggets in a state of quasi-contention which I think would have been impossible if he remained a moderate bench talent.

Ivica Zubac — in his ninth year, became an all-star calibre player. Increased minutes while increasing rate production almost across the board (lowest per possession blocks of his career). Possibly my early favourite for the award, but he needs to maintain in the postseason.
Dyson Daniels — in his third year, became a reliable starter for a weak playoff team. Massively increased his minutes while simultaneously increasing his rate production across the board… although some part of that is because of his change in teams. Like I said, I dislike rewarding third year players here, but at least with Dyson we see substantial improvement (not always the case). Will note that third year player Christian Braun did something similar in terms of going from bench piece to reliable starter.

(HM: Evan Mobley, Cade Cunningham, Tyler Herro)

Sixth Man of the Year
1. Payton Pritchard
Great all year round, without the type of playoff drop-off I would need to see to remove him from what I felt was a comfortable regular season win.
2. Alex Caruso
I think there needs to be some penalty for playing like more of an eighth man in the regular season, but there is no denying that he was the standout sixth man for the postseason and conceivably secured at least one series win for the NBA champion.
3. Naz Reid
With his minutes increasing from the void left by Towns, I was actually more impressed by this season than I was by his NBA and RGM win last year. Still, his postseason case continues to be shaky enough that he stays at third place for me.
(HM: Ty Jerome)

Defensive Player of the Year:
1. Draymond Green
With Wembanyama’s injury, I think he qualified as the most valuable regular season defender per possession, and in the postseason there is still no one I would rather have as my defensive anchor. Favourable injury context lets him sneak in what is almost certainly one last time leading this ballot, as the best defender of his generation.
2. Rudy Gobert
Less impressive regular season than usual, but he kept the Wolves as a top defence, and in the postseason he showed why he remains the best non-Wembanyama rim protector. Like Draymond, every year seems as though it could be his last ballot appearance, but the next generation needs to step up (or at least play a full-ish season).
3. Evan Mobley
Moderately well-earned official award-winner, with an impressive regular season campaign covering a lot of holes for a relatively limited defensive roster. With time it is possible that I end up feeling Zubac or Amen were more deserving of this spot, but I am more confident in Mobley as an established all-defensive player right now.
(HM: Ivica Zubac, Victor Wembanyama, Chet Holmgren, Amen Thompson)

Offensive Player of the Year:
1. Nikola Jokic
2. Tyrese Haliburton
3. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander
These past two seasons have further entrenched my assessment that ball-handling is an essential trait for GOAT-tier offensive players. Because for as much as Jokic has been able to meld a lot of the best traits of other non-handling engines like Bird, Dirk, Shaq, Kareem, etc., we are entering an extended postseason stretch where we have seen him functionally frozen out of postseason games for inexcusably long stretches of play. I heard so much talk about how unique the Wolves were, how they just had a perfect defensive recipe… yet Jokic’s offensive production was similarly stymied this postseason, and the Nuggets as a team had similarly less offensive success than two teams against a common opponent (Suns/Mavericks against the Wolves last year, Wolves/Pacers against the Thunder this year). I have already seen plenty of attempted revisionism that Jokic singlehandedly took three games off the Thunder, as if no one is capable of remembering how brilliantly Aaron Gordon played throughout, or how brutal Jokic was in that Game 3 win, or how the Nuggets had a ten-point lead midway through the fourth quarter of Game 6 with Jokic being about as involved as Murray and Braun were. In the 2024 Player of the Year thread, I said Jokic was confronted with his offensive limitations and could take the leap if he found a way around them; I am curious to see how many more years I continue saying it.

However, unlike last year with Luka, I have a much tougher time saying Haliburton individually was the more spectacular and impressive offensive force. I have witnessed many reactionary fans exaggerate the cost of his “inconsistency” — something present in most players heavily reliant on their perimetre shooting — but there is a sufficient degree of truth to it in terms of whether he has managed to individually ascend as the league’s top offensive player (his production in wins versus losses this year is as stark as any player I have ever seen). And for as much as the Thunder disrupted Jokic offensively, Haliburton was even more disrupted (in contrast to Luka last year), and then ruptured his achilles without us seeing whether he could maintain his blistering start to Game 7.

Shai underwhelmed slightly in the postseason, but he kept a roster with severely limited ball-handling afloat en route to a dominant regular season and a title. Needs major passing development to ever push for the top spot here, but few other players could have successfully shouldered the scoring and playmaking load which the Thunder required.
(HM: Jalen Brunson, Steph Curry)

Player of the Year
1. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander
2. Nikola Jokic
3. Giannis Antetokounmpo
4. Tyrese Haliburton
5. Jalen Brunson
I would have needed to see a lot more from Jokic in that matchup with the Thunder to take him over Shai. Games 1 and 4 were brilliant. Game 3 was atrocious, Game 2 was bad, and Game 7 was irrelevant and ineffective. And then Games 5 and 6 were good… but the same was true of Shai. With opponent context, it is reasonable to call Jokic more impressive, but I did not come away feeling that he particularly outperformed Shai for the full series, nor were the Nuggets the team that gave the Thunder their closest challenge, and that is what he needed to do to overwrite Shai being a much more significant part of the season as the outlier talent on a record-settingly dominant regular season team and eventual title team.

Haliburton came close to edging ahead of Giannis, but it weighs too heavily that a) Siakam was nearly as impressive for the Pacers, and b) Giannis was visibly the best player in their head-to-head series by a level beyond anything we saw from Haliburton (outside of “clutch time”). NBA Cup MVP is also a notable success which other players cannot claim — and there too, he looked better than my #1 here, which to me indicates it is still possible for him to be the world’s best player on the right roster.

I rewarded Edwards in this spot last year for leading his team to the conference finals, but 2025 was a much less inspired conference finals run given the serious injury woes of their first two opponents. This year I was far more impressed by Brunson leading the Knicks to two games from the NBA Finals. He did not have enough to take his team past the Pacers, but he was impressive in the loss and in driving the upset of the Celtics the previous round (again, leading the series even before Tatum’s injury).
(HM: Jayson Tatum)

[Doctor MJ]

Woo, here we go! Personal Votes:

POY
1. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander (OKC)
2. Nikola Jokic (DEN)
3. Giannis Antetokounmpo (MIL)
4. Tyrese Haliburton (IND)
5. Jalen Brunson (NYK)

HM: Jayson Tatum (BOS), Donovan Mitchell (CLE), Anthony Edwards (MIN), Pascal Siakam (IND), Jalen Williams (OKC)

Starting at the top, the Notorious SGA took it all this year. Fascinating to see someone new emerge when they weren't supposed to be this level of player.

In this case, the signature stat for me with thinking about Shai this year is the all-season raw +/- leaderboard where Shai's #1 at +1084, and while his teammates Dort & Wiggins tie for #2 at 613. That 473 point gap between the #1 and everyone else, pretty sure we've never seen that before.

Now obviously, Shai's not going to lead every team to 473 better season points than everyone else. I think Shai's just about in the perfect situation. The team relies on him cooking individually on offense, and they provide the backbone to allow him to take risks defensively that of course can help with their offense. Nevertheless, I don't think anyone else can do what Shai does right now, and what he's doing is pacing the best team in the world in a manner that can't be reasonably dismissed as anything like an "ensemble".

Jokic grabs the #2 spot, and I think has a serious argument for #1. I'd say he brings more latent impact with him to any given situation that Shai or anyone playing right now, but at the same time, we've never seen Jokic lead a team through the kind of all-season the Thunder just had, and given his defensive limitations, I don't think you could expect a Thunder-type team built around him to work as well as it does with Shai.

I have Giannis basically down a tier from the top two as a candidate, but also never really had much doubt he would stay at the 3rd spot. We all know Giannis is possibly the most viscerally terrifying opponent in the entire league and puts up huge numbers, including generally on the +/- front, and that if he were leading teams to more chips he'd be a strong candidate for #1. He's not and so our different philosophies decide how to slot him in. I'm very much on record in being critical of Giannis because a) in the 2020s his defensive impact has been spottier than his MVP peak, and b) to me the entire premise of acquiring Dame Lillard needed to be about Giannis making adjustments around Dame as much as it was about Dame adjusting to Giannis, but harmonization has yet to really happen, and that's something some other offensive players would have been able to do much more adroitly. Still, this Bucks team was good and remember, they won the NBA Cup! Say what you will about that, but it's not like they beat nobodies to win it, they beat OKC and in that final game Giannis led his team in points, rebounds, assists, blocks & steals on his way to being named Cup MVP. That's not nothing.

Getting to the #4 spot is where I've been struggling as I've said, but I ended up going with the man of the moment Hali over a scrum of the other guys who are all included on either my ballot or my HM. I spent a lot of time with Hali vs teammate Pascal in particular who I think has a case for being the more cumulatively impactful player over the course of the season...but the team went with Hali, and so when they were there in Game 7 pushing OKC to the brink that no one else did, it was Hali who all the attention - opponent and spectator - was on, and the qualitative change in play of the Pacers when he went to the locker room was stark.

Then when I zoom out a bit and compared Hali with other offensive alphas, I just think the way Hali does it leads to a more robust style of team play than what more individualist alphas (including Shai) will get you.

For that final spot I have to acknowledge a reluctance to have two Pacers in my 5, and so leaned toward the quartet of individualist alphas (Brunson, Tatum, Mitchell, Ant). I had Tatum clearly ahead of the other before the 2nd round, and so it's a question of how much that 2nd round mattered for these guys. Here I'll say that Brunson left something of an indelible impression in contrast to Tatum in their series facing off - and yes there was some luck involved, but it just wasn't the finest moment for the Tatum Celtics before the injury with that serious run of lose-from-ahead games.

It's possible that Mitchell or Ant could have made the same impression on me if they'd played those Celtics, but this is where I'd note Brunson's tendency to get the better of Mitchell in past playoff series, and the fact that Ant still seems to go gently into that good night when he hits a good enough opponent.

I like to give 5 HMs for POY, so the final one goes to the #2 guy on the champs. Doesn't necessarily mean I think he was a top 10 player this year, but I do think he's in the conversation, and wow, what a remarkable rise for the young fella from Santa Clara!

OPOY
1. Nikola Jokic (DEN)
2. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander (OKC)
3. Tyrese Haliburton (IND)


HM: Steph Curry (GS), Giannis Antetokounmpo (MIL)

Alright so this is a bit of an unsatisfying vote because I'm not utterly in love with the team offense from Denver or OKC in the playoffs, but they keep their top 2 slots from the regular season. The 3rd spot is grabbed by Hali, who led the most effective offense in the playoffs with a higher on-court ORtg an On-Off ORtg, and is the player who makes me ask the question:

Should Hali be #1? I really do think he's got an argument.

Now, Jokic has the immediate rebuttal to me in that I think he's got most of the same strengths as Hali on offense, plus with far more ability to reliably volume score, and we know that Jokic had weak-shooting teammates around him where Hali had strong. I think keeping Jokic ahead of Hali just seems the rational way to be.

What about Shai vs Tyrese? Well, when Tyrese is at his best, I think he's the better offensive player, but as noted, he was inconsistent this year, which had everything to do with why OKC had the better offense by a good margin in the regular season. My general feeling was that Hali was making up ground through the playoffs...only for his body to fall apart again in Game 7 with what was likely an over-use injury despite playing less than Shai. In the end, I feel like when the guy leading in the regular season and he then leads his team to the title largely the same way, it shouldn't be easy to top him by being sometimes-spectacular.

Steph earns an HM this year. Had he not gone down to injury, he may have been a strong ballot candidate here, but I think the 3 ballot guys just accomplished more on offense this year.

Giannis earns the HM with his bull-in-a-china-shop game. As I've said, I have some criticism of the limitations of this approach, but I wouldn't say there's anyone else I'd look at who clearly led their team offense to a higher level come playoff time.

Before I leave the award though I'll mention the Cav back court of Darius Garland & Donovan Mitchell. I actually had Garland on my regular season ballot, but his injury took him out of contention. Mitchell was then clearly a serious contender, but I went with giving the nod to the last HM spot to Giannis.

DPOY
1. Draymond Green (GS)
2. Rudy Gobert (MIN)
3. Alex Caruso (OKC)


HM: Victor Wembanyama (SA), Ivica Zubac (LAC)

An exceptionally weak year for this award. Kinda feels like I have the top two defensive players of this past generation in my top 2 here by default. That's not true, but for both this was a year that I'm not sure how much people talk about when they talk about their respective careers despite continuing to be elite and leading the defensive teams winning playoff series.

Over to the 3rd spot, I spent a lot of time trying to figure out the most reasonable way to praise the members of the Oklahoma City Thunder for their defense in this vote. The 3 guys I was seriously considering were Caruso, Jalen Williams & Lu Dort. By my EPM VORP estimate in the regular season JDub deserved to be ranked the highest of the 3, followed by Caruso and then Dort. Then the playoffs happened and while all the guys deserved praise, Caruso to me was the one who leapt up even further. Were my all-season awards simply about something like a cumulative VORP, I expect I'd still have JDub ahead...but in the playoffs, to me Caruso was the Thunder's defensive MVP over the other two (though shout out to Chet Holmgren who I expect to be the top Thunder candidate in future years).

There's also just a part of me that feels like Caruso is the appropriate avatar for the Thunder defense this year, in part because he was the most important new addition and I do believe the legendary intensity he plays with is infectious. Earlier in his career, Caruso was a plucky underdog, now he feels like a role model for other pros.

For my HMs, obviously Wemby is the guy we'd have expected to win this award if he'd just stayed health, so, shout out.

For Zubac, this is the guy who topped my regular season defensive EPM VORP and while that didn't necessarily clinch that he'd be my RS DPOY choice, he was. However, that didn't mean I had as much confidence in him as Dray or Gobert in the playoffs, nor that I thought his presence would make OKC's defense better. For Zubac to maintain that placement, frankly, I wanted him to really show some dominance which would further the hot play the Clippers had to end the year...and presumably win 1 or 2 rounds in the playoffs...but that's not what happened. In the end, I didn't feel right putting him over the 3 guys on my ballot.

ROY
1. Zaccherie Risacher (ATL)
2. Stephon Castle (SA)
3. Jaylen Wells (MEM)


HM: Zach Edey (MEM), Jared McCain (PHI)

Okay so, this is an awful ROY class and that's just how it is. I don't want to argue hard for anyone, because I don't think any of them really proved all that much, but to give something of a window:

I spent a lot of time debating Risacher vs Castle. Toward the end of the regular season I elevated Risacher above Castle, but then after Risacher was basically nothing in the play-in, I began second guessing myself. Castle won the actual ROY easily, so maybe I should just stick with that, right?

ROY is a complicated award is it's traditionally not about the most valuable rookie (which I'd say was either Wells or Edey) so much as the guy who looks most like a future star...which often translates to whichever rookie has a team that let's him shoot the most. In the case this year, what was interesting though is that people generally seemed to agree that Risacher had only further entrenched himself as the top player from the draft class as a result of the season, and yet they weren't giving him ROY. PPG won again!

But, funny thing, while Castle did score the most PPG, Risacher had twice as many 30 point games as any other rookie (uh, 4 vs 2), and he led his team to a 3-1 record in those games. meanwhile the Spurs lost all (4) of Castle's 25+ games. It's not as simple as saying that these rookies were the difference between wins and losses there obviously, but in the case of the Spurs, this was a pretty clear cut case of a team punting on the season after their star got injured, and letting a rookie take primacy as the team lost and lost and lost, and there's basically no reason at all to think the Spurs are going to look to plan their future offense around giving Castle primacy unless he gets WAY better than he is now. By contrast, the Hawks may well see Risacher as their franchise player right now.

Giving Wells the 3rd spot over teammate Edey basically because the Grizz relied on his minutes more.

Final mention goes to McCain who had the ROY league early in the year until his injury.

MIP
1. Ivica Zubac (LAC)
2. Cade Cunningham (DET)
3. Evan Mobley (CLE)


HM: Jalen Williams (OKC), Christian Braun (DEN)

Alright so my perspective on this generally is that I'm looking at guy who emerge as all-star level for the first time. I believe the list of first time all-stars this year was Cade, Mobley, JDub, Sengun and Herro, and I also believe that Zubac deserved to be one of them and had a year that was at least good enough to be in the debate with the rest of those guys as to who the best player was this year. Here's where I'll also say that while I'm not opposed to naming young guys MIP, there's something special about when a veteran hits a new level.

Rather than give all my mentions to the all-star level guys, I gave a shout out in my last spot to Braun. While the Nuggets dealt with a whole lot of stagnancy from their supporting cast, Braun's breakthrough was a bright shining beacon of hope for Denver.

6MOY
1. Payton Pritchard (BOS)
2. Alex Caruso (OKC)
3. TJ McConnell (IND)


HM: Nickeil Alexander-Walker (MIN), Ty Jerome (CLE)

I think Pritchard is an absolutely classic 6th Man choice, and I thought his work in the playoffs was even more impressive. While I think Caruso was more valuable per minute, I'm reluctant to elevate him over Pritchard for the top spot here.

TJ slides in for the 3rd spot with fellow microwave Jerome also getting an HM.

Cousin NAW get an HM too, slightly over teammate (and defending 6MOY) Naz Reid. While Naz was eligible for the award, NAW was more consistently used as a bench player and feels like he really warrants at least a smidge of recognition.

COY
1. Rick Carlisle (IND)
2. Mark Daigneault (OKC)
3. Kenny Atkinson (CLE)


HM: BJ Bickerstaff (DET), Ime Udoka (HOU)

What a freaking legendary run this has been for Carlisle returning to Indiana. Exceptionally impressive the way the 'Cer players down the roation seemed just more resilient than any other team's rosters.

Daigneault is once again a strong choice for COY (he was my choice last year). Deserves heavy praise for this cutting edge Thunder defense, but he also had some clumsy moments in the playoffs which knock him back just a bit relative to the Rocky remake Carlisle put on.

Atkinson grabs the last spot on the ballot with his fantastic debut in Cleveland, and the man he replaced earns an HM for his debut in Detroit.

Last HM goes to Udoka who continues to develop a rep as a coach who can architect outstanding team defense wherever he goes. Damn impressive.

EOY
1. Sam Presti (OKC)
2. Rob Pelinka (LAL)
3. Mike Dunleavy Jr. (GS)


HM: Trajan Langdon (DET), Landry Fields (ATL)

Alright so I was am most impressed right now by Presti among execs, and this season was a critical moment for him as he traded a top draft pick (Giddey) for the perfect role player (Caruso), and signed iHart. These are the sorts of minor moves that you really want to a GM teach you a trick or two, and Presti's definitely a guy who can do that.

Lots of mixed feelings about Pelinka on here, but while I don't want to give him too much credit, I think he deserves a good amount of credit when his efforts schmoozing lead to the steal of Luka.

3rd spot to Dunleavy primarily for the Jimmy Butler trade.

HM to Langdon for righting the Detroit Piston ship. Still want to see this team become great rather than merely good, but good is a big improvement relative to where they were before.

The now fired Fields to me deserves HM in part because he got fired by his unwise owner. In a year where he got rid of Dejounte, and brought in surprisingly synergistic and effective talent to work together, he sure seems like he deserved better.

[Doctor MJ]

Hey folks, I've tallied the votes we have, and you can see them in this spreadsheet:

RealGM NBA All-Season Award Voting '24-25

But I'm going to extend this for a day, because of something weird that happened with Most Improved Player.

By my tallies, only 2 of us voted for MIP, and the two ballots were mirrors of each other resulting in a 3-way tie between Mobley, Cunningham & Zubac.

If no one else votes, I think I'm going to avoid naming a winner for the award, so please, can we get anyone else to vote and break the tie?

Speaking a bit more broadly: For the NBA awards I've never not named winners before, but when we started the WNBA awards last year there was an award (EOY) only I voted in, and so I didn't name a winner there. That's my general rule that I've never officially announced: If it's just my vote, it's not the official RealGM award.

In theory I'm fine with 2, but there are times where 2 people don't reach a consensus and this is one of those times. One thing to name a tie between two guys, but a 3-way tie with a 3-man ballot because only 2 vote? Nah, that's weird to me.

So please, help us out here!

One other thing:

There were some votes I wasn't able to count because the voter didn't complete the entire ballot. So remember:

For your POY vote to count, you have to have a 5-man ballot.
For your other votes to count, you have to have a 3-man ballot.

The reason is that if we're in a competitive race, as in between two guys, and they split the #1 & #2 votes, but one voter doesn't post a #2 vote, then his #1 vote will effectively count for more than other people's.

So check your ballots - there were a couple of you - and make changes in the next day if you're going to make them.

I'll be announcing the awards tomorrow with or without an official MIP winner.

[Djoker]

Added Most Improved Player (MIP) to my ballot!

[iggymcfrack]

Sure, I'll do a vote for MIP:

1. Ivica Zubac- Exactly what this award is supposed to be about IMO. A veteran of 8 seasons making a stunning breakthrough, more than doubling his previous career-high VORP while simultaneously making even bigger strides defensively to become an all-NBA player.

2. Christian Braun- Went from a bench player who only got 17 MPG during last year's playoffs to the 3rd most trusted player on a contender that took the champs to 7, taking huge leaps in both box and on/off stats in both the regular season and the playoffs. Finished with an on/off of +15 in the regular season and +24 in the postseason.

3. Cade Cunningham: Did everything you could want for a young player taking major strides as a passer, playmaker, and scorer, going from "will this guy ever learn to be a winning player" to nearly leading his team past a conference finalist as their undisputed leader.

[OhayoKD]

POY

1. Nikola Jokic
2. SGA

The last two MVPs and MVP runner-ups of the last two seasons. No real issue with someone voting for SGA out of deference for "best player on the best team" but it's important to acknowledge the quality of support Shai has been operating with. OKC were 5-1 (68-win pace) this year without the MVP posting a net-differential of +17.6.

Caveat: Every team they played during that stretch ended up missing the playoffs.

Counterpoint: OKC were sub.500 without SGA the year before this.

If one was to combine samples we get

2023-2025 OKC:
7-6 (44-win pace)
Net: +3.3

Personally, I think the answer of "how good does Shai have it" is somewhere in the middle. OKC's defense improved dramatically this season playing a bigger role in their success than their offense with off-season addition Alex Caruso playing a part. Additionally, given how young OKC are, internal improvement is to be expected.

This is no indictment. It makes sense you need a great team for a record-breaking regular-season. The trouble here is that OKC were not a record-breaking maybe-best-ever playoff team. And it's hard to argue that Shai didn't play a part in that. He wasn't missing his best two teammates like Kareem in 77 and available markers of production and efficiency did not improve or maintain as was the case with Lebron in 09 (the former) and Jordan in 92 (the latter).

That does not tell the whole picture, as these playoffs were a different game from the regular season in terms of ease of scoring, but ultimately the Thunder ended up playing like a 60-win team as opposed to a 70-win one, and it's hard to argue SGA didn't play a part. Especially with him being blown by significantly more than he was during the regular season.

Of course Jokic also saw a visible "production" drop offensively, but his defense was significantly more useful in the postseason than it had been in the regular-season, and the Nuggets have generally been a bad, if not historically terrible, team without Jokic including 2025 where they went 4-8 (27-win pace) in the games he missed. In that light, the Nuggets performance at a team-level was impressive, and to whatever degree you want to put that to the physical production of other Nuggets Jokic undoubtably deserves some credit himself: The Nuggets fired their head-coach and GM immediately before the playoffs, a move that would tank most teams. But with Jokic visibly taking a more active role in the "coaching" side, the Nuggets went the opposite direction, improving to the point they nearly garnered a 3-1 advantage on a +8 SRS favorite after knocking off a red-hot 50-win Clippers side. The impressiveness of the former certainly fades with Indiana playing them to an effective tie with Haliburton, but that hurts Jokic in an all-time sense, not in a comparison with the player at the helm for the Thunder's various postseason underperformances,

In their head to head face-off, Jokic looked the more valuable piece, even on defense.

Add that Jokic is emerging as an RAPM giant in his own right on top of already being a perennial WOWY giant and I would say he has an additional advantage in terms of equity statistically. While accomplishment is fine as a tiebreaker, I am not going to use it as an excuse to put inferior play over superior play and ultimately, baking in the postseason, Shai simply didn't play like the best player in the league.

3. Giannis

Perhaps higher if they hold on to win game 5. Certainly with the Bucks going 8-0 post-Lillard, I was excited to see what all-Giannis looked like. The result wasn't terrible, but not impressive enough for me to place him at the top on the basis of viscerally impressive "performance". Of course in hindsight, a short series vs Indiana is hardly an indictment. It's also worth considering the Bucks gave a better fight than the 64 win, near +9 SRS Cavaliers.

But ultimately, for a player who has demonstrated, repeatedly, the ability to force proximity where it shouldn't be there (2019 vs the Raptors, 2022 vs the Celtics), I'm disappointed. For what it's worth, if the playoffs ended after the first round, Giannis would probably have been #1 for me.

4. Jalen Brunson

Outplayed Haliburton and outplayed Jayson Tatum as the centerpiece of a legitimate contender.

5. Anthony Edwards

Took a jump from last year and led a good Minnesota team (would have comfortably won 50+ with reasonable health, knocked off a solid healthy opponent before dominating what the regular-season suggests would still have been a >.500 team). he shrunk considerably (though not nearly as much as people argue) as the focus of a historic defense and there's a little room for "Gobert is the real MVP", but I consider omitting off the ballot entirely pretty reactionary.

Edwards would have likely garnered more praise had he shot Minny out of game 4 to the tune of an ineffective team offense and a blowout defeat, but I'm not going to penalize a player for trading off scoring for playmaking when the defense is made to pay for it.

Lebron could have made it here if he avoided his groin injury and kept up his initial post-luka play. Steph could have made it if I decided to forget the first half of the season happened and that the Warriors were >.500 without him pre-Jimmy Butler. Instead we'll go with the guy who played poy-worthy basketball for the duration of the season.


OPOY

1. Nikola Jokic
2. SGA
3. Jalen Brunson

DPOY

1. Draymond Green
2. Rudy Gobert
3. Mobley

[Doctor MJ]

Player of the Year

Shai Gilgeous-Alexander (OKC)



This is Shai's 1st POY, and the first guard to earn the honor since Steph Curry a decade ago.

1. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander (OKC) (10 1st place votes)
2. Nikola Jokic (DEN) (3)
3. Giannis Antetokounmpo (MIL)
4. Tyrese Haliburton (IND)
5. Jayson Tatum (BOS)

Others: Jaylen Brunson (NYK), Anthony Edwards (MIN), Donovan Mitchell (CLE), Pascal Siakam (IND)

Offensive Player of the Year

Nikola Jokic (DEN)



This is Jokic's 5th straight OPOY, and this time he did it unanimously.

1. Nikola Jokic (DEN) (10)
2. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander (OKC)
3. Tyrese Haliburton (IND)

Others: Giannis Antetokounmpo (MIL), Jalen Brunson (NYK), Steph Curry (GSW), Donovan Mitchell (CLE)

Defensive Player of the Year

Draymond Green (GSW)



This is Draymond's 4th DPOY, which puts him just behind Gobert at 5.

1. Draymond Green (GSW) (7)
2. Rudy Gobert (MIN) (1)
3. Evan Mobley (CLE)
(tie) Ivica Zubac (LAC)

Others: Alex Caruso (OKC), Chet Holmgren (OKC) (1), Amen Thompson (HOU)

Rookie of the Year

Jaylen Wells (MEM)



Drafted with the 39th pick, Wells is the lowest drafted player to win our ROY.

1. Jaylen Wells (MEM)
2. Zaccarie Risacher (ATL)
3. Zach Edey (MEM)

Others: Stephon Castle (SAS), Donovan Clingan (POR)

Most Improved Player

Ivica Zubac (LAC)



At 27, Zubac is the oldest MIP we've ever chosen.

1. Ivica Zubac (LAC) (3)
2. Dyson Daniels (ATL) (1)
3. Cade Cunningham (DET)
(tie) Evan Mobley (CLE) (1)

Other: Christian Braun (DEN)

6th Man of the Year

Alex Caruso (OKC)



With Caruso winning, we've now given the award to undrafted players 5 straight years (Ingles, Payton II, Reaves, Naz).

1. Alex Caruso (OKC) (3)
2. Payton Pritchard (BOS) (2)
3. Naz Reid (MIN)

Others: Ty Jerome (CLE), TJ McConnell (IND)

Coach of the Year

Rick Carlisle (IND)



While this is Carlisle's first COY since we began giving the award in '14-15, it's definitely not the first COY-worthy performance from this legend.

1. Rick Carlisle (IND) (5)
2. Mark Daigneault (OKC) (2)
3. Kenny Atkinson (CLE)
(tie) Ime Udoka (HOU) (1)

Other: JB Bickerstaff (DET)

Executive of the Year

Sam Presti (OKC)



Presti wins unanimously. It is the 2nd time he's won our award, which ties him with Danny Ainge & Brad Stevens.

1. Sam Presti (OKC) (5)
2. Rob Pelinka (LAL)
3. Kevin Pritchard (IND)

Others: Mike Dunleavy Jr. (GSW), Trajan Langdon (DET), Rafael Stone (HOU)

Also: Vote for Chad Buchanan counted but attached to Pritchard. While Buchanan has the GM title, my understanding is that his boss Pritchard is still considered to be the "executive" for the Pacers in the context of this award.