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The NBA season ended on Wednesday night, so now we’re in the second of a maddening two-day stretch without basketball before the playoffs tip off Saturday afternoon. That means we’re going stir crazy for hoops, and we’re spending way too much time discussing and debating the oft-debated — usually with only the slightest bit of anger and emotion — end-of-season NBA Awards.
You know the usual ones we’re talking about already. We’ve been tracking the bigger awards, Most Valuable Player and Rookie of the Year, all season. But those are sorta boring this year because the consensus is awfully close to unanimous, certainly at DIME — as you’ll see, even though we all know some national writer is going to put a wrench in that whole unanimous thing. However, Sixth Man of the Year, Defensive Player of the Year, Most Improved, Coach of the Year and Executive of the Year are still left to be decided.
Lets basketball for a while before the fireworks get…lit on Saturday afternoon.
Most Valuable Player
USA TODAY Sports
Jack Winter
Steph Curry
Curry’s second-consecutive MVP should be the first unanimous vote in league history. The only year-long performance in the last decade that might match his this season is LeBron James’ 2012-13, an especially appropriate comparison considering it came for a Miami Heat team that once ripped off 27 straight wins – the most impressive team-wide feat in recent history before Curry’s Golden State Warriors went 73-9. But James, ridiculously, came one vote shy of topping every ballot. Here’s hoping voters don’t make the same mistake with Curry three years later.
Martin Rickman
Steph Curry
This one seems unanimous so I’m going to tell a story. One time when I went to karaoke in Chicago, I saw a guy singing Danzig’s “Mother.” He owned it, every single part of it, and got a crowd that was way more amped up to sing N*SYNC and Spice Girls into it. Everyone kind of stopped what they were doing, even the people at the bar trying desperately to get drinks turned their eyes to this guy. He was captivating. And his performance demanded respect. That’s Steph this year. Except with a lot more three-pointers.
Fred Katz
Steph Curry
He’s going to finish with one of the 10-best player efficiency ratings (PER) ever, behind only those held by only Wilt Chamberlain, LeBron James and Michael Jordan. No guard with a usage rate (the percentage of your team’s possessions that end with the ball in your hands while you’re on the floor) above 17 percent — below the league-average of 20 — has ever posted a true shooting percentage as high as his. Meanwhile, Curry’s usage is almost twice that baseline. We have never seen a season quite like this before.
Matt Rothstein
Steph Curry
Moving on.
Jamie Cooper
Steph Curry
I’d like to say I’ve made my case for Curry’s MVP campaign consistently over the course of the season in our bi-monthly Award Watch feature, but that would imply that he somehow needed my help in this endeavor. The only remaining question is whether he’ll become the first player to win it by unanimous decision, which absolutely should be the outcome when the final votes are tallied up.
Spencer Lund
Steph Curry
Steph leads the NBA in scoring, hyperbolic effusions of grandeur in 140-characters-or-less, and overwrought testimonials about his lack of vanity. Regardless of the buzz, however, he’s also a tremendous basketball player; perhaps no one NBA star has inherited quite so large a groundswell of childish wonder as Curry, too, which is really cool if you have a new nephew you’re excited to introduce to Steph at some point. But all that’s got nothing to do with his MVP candidacy. At this point, though, we’re tired of clanging the Steph is an all-around player bell.
For whom the bell tolls? It tolls for thee, and we can add Curry’s 2016 MVP to Benjamin Franklin’s short, but accurate epigram that “nothing can be certain in life, except death and taxes” — and Curry’s 2016 MVP.
Rookie of the Year
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Jack Winter
Karl-Anthony Towns
In a way, Towns’ imminent Rookie of the Year victory is more deserving than Curry’s similarly inevitable MVP win. He’s been the best first-year player on either end of the floor since the season tipped off in late October, and improved markedly as the 82-game grind reached the doldrums of January. There’s just nothing Towns is incapable of doing on a basketball court right now, a scary proposition for the rest of the league that will only grow more frightening as he, Andrew Wiggins, and the Minnesota Timberwolves continue on the path toward championship contention over the next few years.
Martin Rickman
Karl-Anthony Towns
He’s a super unique player who almost deserved to be on an All-NBA team as a rookie. Why wouldn’t he be Rookie of the Year? Towns can be any pro he wants to be, and his numbers are already crazy good. The Timberwolves are flailing around like a puppy doing puppy things, but with guys like Towns and Andrew Wiggins, they’re going to be a faithful League Pass company for years to come.
Fred Katz
Karl-Anthony Towns
There isn’t anyone close to Towns. In any category. His versatile defense is unique in an all-time rookie class. His skill set is unmatched. He looks like he’s even going to be a consistent three-point shooter by next season. I’m not sure any of us knows exactly how high Towns’ ceiling is, but I’m excited to learn it.
Matt Rothstein:
Karl-Anthony Towns
This should be a unanimous award, as Towns is already one of the most complete centers in the game. He’s a precocious double-double machine who’s strong enough on defense to protect the rim and quick enough to hold his own on perimeter switches. Somehow on top of all that he has solid range out to the three-point line. He experienced very little of the ups and downs that plague all rookies, especially his competitors for this award, and justified getting picked first overall 100 percent.
Jamie Cooper
Karl-Anthony Towns
Like Curry, KAT should win this one unanimously, as he was by far the best rookie this season. By this time next year, he’ll probably have added first-time All-Star, first-team All-NBA, Defensive Player of the Year candidate, and distinction as the league’s best center to his young resume. Kristaps Porzingis was a revelation for the Knicks — given the vastly-tempered expectations going into the season — and is a worthy candidate as well. The same goes for Denver’s Nikola Jokic, who came on strong in the second half of the season. But this award belongs solely to Towns.
Spencer
Karl-Anthony Towns
Right up there with LeBron, Chris Paul, and Tim Duncan as Rookie of the Year’s you knew were destined for Springfield. Should be unanimous like it was for us, like it should be for Steph, but we’ll all have fun mocking whoever selected someone else and their empty-air explanation.
Defensive Player of the Year
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Jack Winter
Draymond Green
The Warriors’ so-called “Death Lineup” is known most for its offense, but performance on the other end is what really makes that downsized unit dominant – and it all stems from Green’s wholly unique ability to play both bigger and smaller than his size suggests. Watching him switch onto point guards and centers on a single possession without consequence is one of the biggest joys in the league for basketball purists, as is his seamless ability to navigate his teammates through assignments on the fly and snuff out the opposition’s set before it’s even begun. Kawhi Leonard is a better individual defender than Green, and is more versatile than his reputation and the San Antonio Spurs’ scheme suggests. But Green is the fulcrum from which Golden State’s one-off defensive identity swings.
Martin Rickman
Kawhi Leonard
What amazes me most about Leonard this season is despite all the improvement on the offensive side of the floor, the defense hasn’t suffered even a little bit. Typically there’s a give and take, and if he was so focused on getting better at scoring, his energy would dip a bit when guarding people. It hasn’t. He’s still a lockdown guy who can take on the other team’s best player – no matter how unique that guy is – and guard multiple positions. He’s a defensive Game Genie, and it doesn’t seem fair at times, especially when you see him put up 20 points in a game at the same time.
Fred Katz
Kawhi Leonard
No one impacts a game on the defensive end like Leonard can. How dominant is Kawhi? Since 1989, only two wing players, Ron Artest and Gary Payton, had won Defensive Player of the year before Leonard earned the award last season. Now, Leonard is about to garner the trophy for the second season in a row.
Matt Rothstein:
Kawhi Leonard
You could easily make the case for Draymond Green because as a big man, he has more responsibility organizing the perimeter, but Kawhi is the best defensive player on one of the best defensive teams the NBA has ever seen. He’s the only guy I’ve ever seen not just bother, but stop (at times) players as varied as James Harden, LeBron James and Kevin Durant. He’s a one-man solution to the hardest problems on the court.
Jamie Cooper
Kawhi Leonard
Kawhi Leonard and Draymond Green are the two most versatile and tenacious defenders in the league, but I give Kawhi the nod here since the Spurs’ intrepid forward anchors the league’s stingiest defense and is tasked with guarding the best players at almost every position on a near nightly basis.
Spencer
Draymond Green
Kawhi and Dray are 1 and 1A, but Draymond is so important to the Warriors on the defensive end of the ball, that gives him my vote — for this year at least. Kawhi always has Tim Duncan behind him moving the guys around like they’ve got rubber tethers attached at the waist — Kawhi’s tether is just longer, super elastic and impossible to entangle with his teammates. But it still feels like a tether that Tim can manipulate at times, whereas Green is the hoarse-voided guy calling out picks on the loud speaker like a deranged high-school principal calling out assignments for the Warriors.
Dray is an undersized power forward and he’s almost never overmatched against the biggest bruising centers and peskiest point guards. He’s not as athletic as LeBron or Kawhi, but somehow has the wiles, the patience and the underrated quickness to thwart their offensive attempts anyway. He’s my DPOY, but either player works.
Sixth Man of the Year
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Jack Winter
Andre Iguodala
There’s no foolproof selection for this award. Iguodala was the obvious choice before he was lost for nearly all of March with a sprained ankle. Star-level players who come off the bench to ignite basketball’s best team with all-league caliber defense and steady, efficient playmaking are few and far between.
But the reigning Finals MVP missed 16 games from March 1 to early April, opening the door for several candidates in the process – including more traditional Sixth Man recipients like Enes Kanter, Will Barton, and Jeremy Lin. Iguodala’s absence, in fact, is arguably the biggest reason why Jamal Crawford – barely shooting 40 percent from the floor while dealing with his usual bouts of tunnel vision and defensive ineptitude – has emerged as a favorite for his second consecutive trophy.
No matter, though. Patrick Patterson, Ed Davis, Shaun Livingston, and others are more deserving of Sixth Man consideration than all-stats, low-impact guys in Crawford and Kanter’s vein. And does any player fit the antithetical description better than Iguodala?
Martin Rickman
Andre Iguodala
Tempting to go Tristan Thompson here, although he really gets the bulk of the minutes and only doesn’t start for show. What Iggy does is provide calm all the time he’s on the court. We saw it in the Finals, and we saw it as the Warriors won 73 freaking regular season games this year. They don’t need him to put up crazy numbers, or take over games with the starters out. They just need him to be who he’s always been – a super effective player who guys look to for guidance who can hit a big shot and play solid defense. His role is probably unheralded on Golden State if that’s even possible, and he plays it flawlessly.
Fred Katz
Will Barton
It kills me that this award consistently goes to a instant-offense, score-first guard. Can’t we foster some amount of intellectual diversity in picking the NBA’s best sixth man? So, I’ve decided I’m going to give this year’s Sixth Man of the Year to … an instant-offense, score-first guard.
USA TODAY Sports
Darn.
There are about a million viable candidates this season: Patrick Patterson, Ed Davis, Allen Crabbe, Enes Kanter, Ryan Anderson, Andre Iguodala and more. But, I went with Barton, who has been a mostly unheralded spark plug for Denver all year and deserves some recognition.
Matt Rothstein:
Andre Iguodala
Iggy’s willingness to come off the bench in Golden State, despite his pedigree, was nearly as important to the Warriors’ ascension as Draymond Green’s emergence. He’s a defensive ace and a true point forward, and he fills every non-scoring gap the Dubs have on the perimeter (while resurrecting his corner three-point shot this season). With Manu Ginobili no longer averaging even 20 minutes a game, no bench player has been as important to his team’s success as Iggy, even though he’s missed a sizable chunk of games. Shout-out to Jamal Crawford, though — if this was the Get Buckets award, he’d be the easy winner.
Jamie Cooper
Andre Iguodala
This was my biggest dilemma, by far. Going in, it was a toss-up between three players – Will Barton, Jamal Crawford, and Andre Iguodala – who have each been brilliant in their own right. Barton and Crawford average nearly double the points Iggy does off the bench in similar minutes, so I had to dig a little deeper. Barton then got eliminated almost immediately given his minus on/off numbers (although he’d be a solid secondary candidate for most improved), and as good as Crawford has been lately for an undermanned Clippers team, I had to go with Iguodala. No player up for this award means more to his team, and Iguodala’s plus-14.4 net rating far eclipses any of the other candidates and is the biggest indicator of his contributions on both sides of the floor.
Spencer
The Spurs. Look at their best three-man lineups who played at least 50 minutes together this season. A second team of Patty Mills, Kevin Martin, Manu Ginobili, David West and Boban Marjanovich doesn’t even feature Boris Diaw or Kyle Anderson or Jonathan Simmons. All of these players contribute something and will continue to into the playoffs. The Spurs’s bench is the Sixth Man of the Year and if you think this is a cop out because I don’t want the Warriors to sweep all my choices, then you would be right. (It’s really Iggy, and even with the Finals MVP And a Sixth Man of the Year award, Iggy will always be underrated; he’s one of the smartest people in all of basketball — front office included.)
Most Improved Player
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Jack Winter
Ian Mahinmi
There are three types of candidates for Most Improved Player: The youngster who bursts on the scene by taking advantage of additional playing time or offensive responsibility; the established star who manages to reach an even higher level of play than before; and the veteran role player whose improvement absolutely no one saw coming.
C.J. McCollum fits the former-most distinction, and he’s likely to run away with the award because of it. Curry, Leonard, and even Green will receive votes for getting better while leading their teams to historic seasons. But it’s Mahinmi’s performance that surprised most this season nonetheless, a reality evidenced by an increase of nearly 10 points in true shooting percentage and an assist rate that more than doubled. Maybe most impressive? The 29-year-old pulled it off while upping his usage and cutting his turnover rate.
Just last season, Mahinmi was a reserve who did nothing more than set screens and clean up garbage around the rim. He somehow emerged as an offensive cog for the Indiana Pacers one year later, reviving his career at the age of 29 and making voters reconsider time-honored qualifications for Most Improved Player in the process.
Martin Rickman
Giannis Antetokounmpo
I kind of almost think Ante can win this award next year too, especially if he really does end up working out with LeBron James over the summer. He took on a completely different position and he’s thriving. While he still has a long way to go, Antetokounmpo really turned the corner this year, and the light went on a bit. I’m really excited to see where he goes from here. Yeah, Steph could win, but I don’t want him to get an award he won’t have a place for – he’s going to have to consolidate eventually and he really doesn’t need all that stuff.
Fred Katz
Steph Curry
Normally, Most Improved goes to the second- or third-year player who just so happens to make a natural jump once he gets a minutes increase. That’s why C.J. McCollum will probably snatch the award this year. But has anyone improved more than Curry, whose playing the same amount, who was already performing at an MVP level and who hit more than 100 more threes than he did a season ago? Everything Curry has done has been better this year. This year’s Curry elicits the same reactions as watching last year’s Curry would’ve if you were watching while on molly. It’s euphoric.
Matt Rothstein
C.J. McCollum
In the course of one season, McCollum went from a bit player into one of the top 10 shooting guards in the league. His minutes tripled, but his production actually improved on a per-minute basis, which is staggeringly difficult with that kind of jump. There’s an argument for Steph here since he literally shed his human form and became a celestial being, but he’s going to win the MVP and make First Team All-NBA, so he’ll be fine. This award is spiritually meant for players who make the leap to stardom, and McCollum fits the bill.
Jamie Cooper
C.J. McCollum
For most of the season, I’ve been arguing (to no one in particular) that Steph Curry has legitimate claim to this title, but I’ve slowly come around to accept that the spirit of the award is to honor a previously marginalized player who made a spectacular leap. No one has been a bigger and more pleasant surprise than McCollum, although there’s certainly a case to be made for Giannis Antetokounmpo, who’s going to make everyone’s head explode if he does, in fact, make the shift over to full-time point guard next year. Still, the Blazers’ success this season with McCollum rising to star status while playing alongside a super-duper-star in Damian Lillard puts him over the edge for me.
Spencer
Kemba Walker
Will always be the Mike Conley of the East and probably won’t sniff an All-Star nod unless Kyrie really combusts. But his shooting improved enough this year — 48.6 true shooting percentage last year to 55.4 this season — that I want him included in the discussion even though he’s unlikely to win and McCollum as well as Mahinmi are both equally as deserving.
And really, that spike in true shooting was just a fancier way of saying you can’t go under the screen on him anymore when he’s outside 23 feet. He’s a real-life three-point shooter and Jeremy Lin and –somewhat — Lamb, Nic Batum and even Al Jefferson are reaping the rewards.
Coach of the Year
USA TODAY Sports
Jack Winter
Steve Kerr
Say what you will about Kerr missing 43 games with scary complications from offseason back surgery. Luke Walton warrants major praise for guiding the Warriors to a historic start while his boss was sidelined, and the league gave it to him by putting the part-time rookie head coach on the ballot.
Still, would Golden State have gone 39-4 in Kerr’s absence if not for his heavy imprint on this team’s culture? No way. Coaching is a multi-year exercise. Kerr began fostering the identity necessary for the Warriors to be the greatest team of all time during last season’s training camp. That they made good on it with a 73-win season is arguably his most impressive accomplishment on the sidelines to date, and makes him an easy choice for Coach of the Year – despite qualified competition like Gregg Popovich, Steve Clifford, Terry Stotts, Brad Stevens and Dwane Casey.
Martin Rickman
Steve Clifford
Kerr is going to win this most likely, and if not Kerr, then Popovich, but I live in Charlotte. I’ve been to Hornets games. I know this roster. And this is not a 48-win team. By any stretch of the imagination. I really don’t know how Clifford did it. And the amazing thing is there are stretches where the Hornets play perfect basketball. They rotate, they make the extra pass, they find wide open shooters, they cut down low. Sure there is talent on this team, and I’m not saying the guys are useless, but they’re a Trogdor of a basketball team — with random former college stars, a few top draft picks, Jeremy Lin, and Al Jefferson. It’s a very strange team, and somehow they were tied with three other teams in the playoff race and a bad loss against Washington away from the No. 3 seed in the East. Clifford deserves a ton of credit here for what he’s been able to do. They’ll likely get bounced in the first round against Miami, but that shouldn’t take anything away from what he’s done in Charlotte.
Fred Katz
Steve Kerr
Did Kerr coach half the games? Sure. But half the season? Nope. People talk about Kerr like he was away from the Warriors over the first few months of the year when he was recovering from back surgery. But it was still his system. He was still at practices. He was still talking to players. He was still in the locker room and collaborating with interim coach Luke Walton. It was still his team. And “his team” just finished with the greatest regular-season record in the history of this sport. Why give it to anyone else?
Matt Rothstein
Gregg Popovich
It’s literally the most boring choice possible, but the Spurs’ dominance was anything but routine this year. In a world without these Warriors, there would have been debates about this team’s place in history, and no one is anticipating Golden State having an easy time getting past them. All that has been done while integrating LaMarcus Aldridge and David West, diminishing Tim Duncan’s minutes and offensive role further without sacrificing his defense, and scheming around Danny Green’s outside shot deserting him for large chunks of the season. The Spurs once again metamorphosed without the hiccups other teams experience when integrating veterans (*cough* Cavaliers *cough*), and Pop deserves credit.
Jamie Cooper
Gregg Popovich
There’s just something keeping me from giving this award to Kerr, and it feels wrong, given that it was a serious health concern that forced him to miss half the regular season. I understand the (obviously problematic) rule that all those victories get credited to Kerr, along with the argument that Luke Walton was simply enacting Kerr’s philosophies in his absence, but in reality it seems to me that they split duties, so I’d be much more comfortable with them somehow sharing the award, which clearly isn’t going to happen, so I’m going with Pop, whose Spurs are in the midst of their greatest season in franchise history. They’re playing defense at a historic rate, and they way he continues to preside over the seamless transition from the old Big 3 to the new guard is nothing short of remarkable.
Spencer
Luke Walton
I’m just lazy, but people will actually vote for him, which they shouldn’t for the reasoning Jack gives above. The Warriors won 73 games. Steve Kerr is their coach. Steve Kerr is the 2016 Coach of the Year even if Luke led them for the first 30 or so games. If you think I’m being an unctuous Dubs supporter, they won 73 games. No one’s done that before. Ever. Still, Luke Walton because his dad is chill.
Executive of the Year
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Jack Winter
Masai Ujiri
Career seasons from Kyle Lowry and DeMar DeRozan have garnered the most attention during the Toronto Raptors’ best season ever. But Casey’s team wouldn’t have ended 2015-16 just below the Cleveland Cavaliers without contributions from ancillary pieces like Corey Joseph, Bismack Biyombo, Luis Scola, and Normal Powell – all of whom Masai Ujiri added on the cheap in the offseason. Reminder: Toronto signed DeMarre Carroll last summer, too.
Martin Rickman
R.C. Buford
Because I’m lazy and just assume he’s winning this every year, like how you go to a rib fest and you look at the truck with the “13-time winner” and just figure, yeah, they’re winning again, I’ll eat those. RC Buford destroys those rib fests.
Fred Katz
Bob Myers
Consider a vote for Myers, who didn’t make all too many moves this offseason, as a protest of the NBA’s worst end-of-season award. If the decision-making process behind being a strong executive involves thinking in the long-term, then how the heck does an Executive of the Year award exist? Couldn’t we not know who the Executive of the Year is until possibly half-a-decade down the line? Couldn’t the executive of this year be Sam Hinkie for all we know? We need a change. Make it an every-five-years award or give it out retrospectively. Award the 2011 Executive of the Year in 2016 and the 2016 Executive of the Year in 2021. But until then, I’m just going to vote for the guy who watched his squad roll off 73 wins. (FACT CHECK AFTER WEDNESDAY’S GAME)
Matt Rothstein
R.C. Buford
I swear, I still believe the Warriors are better than the Spurs, but San Antonio landed the biggest free agent of the offseason, something they had literally never done in franchise history before, and in doing so paved the way for continued dominance. They also convinced David West to take a massive cut in pay and playing time just to be on a winner. Buford is so often the forgotten man next to Pop’s brilliance, but he’s undeniably contributed to the most attractive organizational culture in the NBA, one that survives even seismic shifts in their roster construction. And oh man, what a roster.
Jamie Cooper
Neil Olshey
No team has exceeded expectations this season like the Portland Trail Blazers, and their unexpected success is the brainchild of general manager Neil Olshey, who through a series of savvy, under-the-radar, and fiscally-responsible moves engineered the current incarnation of this team.
Whether it was a combination of luck, alchemy or divine intervention, Olshey somehow managed to simultaneously blow up his nucleus and retrofit a roster that, despite all logic, just finished the season with fifth seed in the Western Conference. If that wasn’t enough, they should have about $30 million in cap space to work with this summer, not to mention all sorts of other assets they can bundle together to try and swing a larger deal or two.
Spencer
R.C. Buford
I don’t normally like to do this, but R.C. is going to be my pick until he retires. Here’s why.