Glad to finally participate in this. What I tentatively have so far:
POY
Jokic
Curry
Giannis
Gobert
Embiid
Luka
Kawhi
What Jokic is doing this season is nothing short of historic. I was already singing his praises last year, but this year has been another level up, and given a strong postseason, it might go down as the greatest offensive peak for a center in history and one of the greatest offensive peaks period of all time. A 130 box score ORTG on his volume and usage is pretty absurd.
Weirdly, it seems to me that people are underrating Curry. Is he really doing anything different from his 2016 regular season besides winning less because of a much worse roster? Not to mention that after they stopped playing Wiseman, the Warriors have looked kinda good. He's having his third 8+ OBPM year, and the first since his back-to-back MVP seasons except with much worse spacing and BBIQ on his team. The fact that there are significant concerns for whoever the #1 seed is (including a healthy Jazz team, I'd say) in taking out the Warriors should speak to his ranking. Speaking of the Jazz, I also think that perhaps there is some winning bias associated with Gobert's high ranking on some lists. I understand the rationale: he's the anchor of the fourth best defense and a big catalyst for their third best offense. To those who have watched him more than I, where has Gobert improved this season? How much different is he from last year, or the year before that? I'm not sure if this is still accurate (what with Mitchell's injury and Conley rest), but I recall reading a stat that said the Jazz were on the low side of games missed due to injuries/COVID protocols. Adds some context to their success I guess. But to his credit he's still producing and not missing games, so I have him fourth. Giannis is ahead, because well, I think he's been a better player and quietly having another great RS.
It's a shame Embiid missed games again this year, he is having an amazing season and per minute I'd probably put him right behind Jokic. The Sixers this year are +12 with him on, which is better than the Bucks when Giannis is on, and it's not really clear who has the better roster (I'd lean Bucks tbh). And lastly I have Luka and Kawhi right behind, Luka for just not being as good as the rest and Kawhi for missing games. A great postseason can bump any of these guys up though of course. Guys like LeBron/Harden/AD have quite some ground to cover if they wanna sniff the top 5.
6MOY - I truly think it's a shame that Clarkson will probably win this award in real life. He had a super hot start, but it turns out he's still that prototypical, relatively inefficient Crawford-type player that checks into games with the sole purpose of getting their own shots up, and I'm not really a fan of that. I'm not sure if Ingles qualifies, but I'd go with him over Clarkson. But a huge shoutout to Derrick Rose, and this is not a homer take at all, if he was with the Knicks for the whole season he would easily run away with it. The Knicks are 23-11 when he plays, good for a 55 win pace. Over the last 18 games where we've really started winning, he's putting up 18 ppg, 4.4 app and 1.5 tov on 62.3 TS% with a 14-4 record. It's amazing how much he's refined his game, his floater and jump shot are absolutely money right now.
MIP - I thought Wood was going to run away with it before the season began and it was looking like a good prediction at the beginning of the season. I now have a Randle shrine in every room of my home.
COY - This is a pretty stacked year for COY, Thibs, Snyder, Monty, Rivers, and McMillan all have cases. Depends on playoffs, so I'll put Thibs as my homer placeholder.
