NBA Awards Predictions
The NBA season is so close I can almost taste it. Predicting various outcomes of the NBA season is one of my favorite preseason past-times. This season however, I have an audience and that is exciting for me. Every year the NBA awards have some intrigue but are a little chalk. So here is how these predictions are going to work.
I will go award by award, starting with the least important in my eyes and ending at the MVP award. For each award I will highlight the two picks I believe to be the legitimate front runners. However, before each section is complete, I will be giving a dark horse entry to keep and eye out on. So without carrying on the introduction too long, let's get right to my predictions.
Sixth Man of the Year
It feels a little right and also sad to be putting this as the least important award, but it’s true. The Sixth man will in all likelihood be going to either Lou Williams or Dennis Schroeder. Williams is the odds on favorite because he always is and had it not been for his very own teammate last year, he may have won it again. That teammate is no longer on the Clippers and it leaves the door wide open for Williams to take the spot again. Schroeder has the opportunity to be the best player off the bench for the best team in the NBA. The argument feels a little MVP race-ish but it's a good one. Schroeder will be getting plenty of playing time on the Lakers and stands to upgrade that team significantly. He could be a difference maker for them and as a result, he should be and currently is in second place via Las Vegas odds to win this award.
My dark horse for this award is Tyler Herro. He currently sits at around +1500 to win the award. Those odds for preseason award predictions are not too high but we are starting off easy. If Tyler Herro can take the next logical step in his progression then he has a legitimate shot at this award. Herro looked amazing in the playoffs last year, but the spotlight got to him in a few games. That won’t happen in the regular season and Herro has the potential to be one of the four most important players for the Heat this year.
Most Improved Player of the Year
Most improved player is always a weird one to look at the odds for. However I love the two guys you can get the lowest odds on. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander is the best player currently on the Oklahoma City Thunder’s roster. He will be the focal point of that offense and he has the talent level required to carry an NBA team’s offense. With that alone it makes him a great pick to potentially win the award. The other guy sitting at +1000 is Deandre Ayton. Ayton missed over half of the season last year for a PED suspension. But when he came back he looked phenomenal. He was looking like he had taken the steps necessary to start showing Phoenix he is the guy they expected to get with the first overall pick in 2018’s NBA draft. If Ayton can continue his trajectory and finally start establishing himself as a dominant big man in the NBA, he can easily win this award. Having Chris Paul on the roster doesn’t hurt.
My dark horse here is Christian Wood. Wood was the best asset the Pistons had before trading him away. Wood is a surprisingly talented forward that saw a decline in his stats last year as a member of the drawing Pistons. With a new, offensively minded team, Wood is the type of player that can really thrive in an offense built around a fast paced offense full of shooters.
Rookie of the Year
Rookie of the year is such a gamble this year. The easiest pick to make is Lamelo Ball. I don't believe in Ball like a lot of other analysts and reporters do. I think he has way too much to prove and he somehow has an uglier shot than his other NBA brother. However, LaMelo is a gifted passer, and a natural scorer that will have complete autonomy to do just about whatever he wants on a Charlotte team that is almost entirely devoid of gifted scorers and offensive players. My other favorite in this category is James Wiseman. Wiseman has ended up in the perfect situation he could have. Wiseman will slot right in as Golden State’s starting center and will get all the time in the world to develop. With Steph Curry leading the way and rewarding the big man for the work he does. Wiseman is who I would bet on to win it.
There are so many great long shots for this category, whether it be Deni Avdija or Patrick Williams. My favorite long shot however, has got to be Isaac Okoro with the Cavs. Okoro is a fantastic defensive player with a good knack for scoring when he needs to. The thing with him is he is another good rookie on a bad team and he will have plenty of time to shine amongst the players already there. It’s a long shot but I like the thought of it.
Defensive Player of the Year
My two favorites to win it this year are Anthony Davis and Bam Adebayo. Davis might be the best defensive player in the league and a strong case can be made that he should have won the award last year. Davis has continued to get better and better at defense as the years go on and he is one of the few players in the league that can legitimately guard the point guard and the center. Davis is a defensive monster. Just look at the trouble he gave Jimmy Butler last year in the Finals when Davis was guarding him. Bam is one of those few other players that can guard the one to the five. That type of versatility is maybe the biggest strength you can have as a defender in the NBA. Bam has the potential to be the next great big man in the league and it is absolutely plausible that he uses this award and season to springboard that assent to being a superstar in the league.
For my dark horse I really wanted to pick a guard and that's hard to find. So the one I went with was Jrue Holiday. Being across from Giannis and Kris Middleton will allow Holiday to not feel so much of a scoring burden. He will be allowed to do the thing that makes him so valuable, and that’s lock down one of the other team’s two guards. Jrue is genuinely the only guard I see as having a shot at this award. Ben Simmons is not a guard, just stop it.
Most Valuable Player
We have made it. The moment everyone was waiting for, the biggest award for the biggest names. This year is one of the most wide open MVP races we have seen in a while. Steph Curry and Kevin Durant are coming back from injuries, and Giannis would have to do something absolutely unheard of to threepeat. So as we go into the season we have one guy that people love to win, a bunch of guys with a great shot to win, and I have my dark horse. For this award I am actually going to highlight three front runners though. The first of which being Luka Doncic. What Luka did in his second year compared to his first is actually unparalleled. He went from 21 to 29 points per game, 42% to 46% field goal percentage six to nine assists per game, and if that wasn’t enough he led the league with seventeen triple doubles. If Luka continues his path he will win the next five MVPs and there won't be a damn thing anyone can do about it. He looks the way John Havlicek looked back in the 60s. Except Luka is doing it against the most talent rich set of NBA players we have ever seen. It is genuinely hard to believe how good Luka is at only twenty-one years old.
The next leading candidate for me is LeBron James. I could just stop the entry there, it is LeBron James. I won't but I could. LeBron James was thirty-five years old last season and made a genuinely strong argument for MVP towards the end of the season. In a shorter season we may get to see that end of the year form from LeBron much earlier and that could well result in another MVP award in LeBron’s trophy case. Plus LeBron's one of the five greatest players in NBA history and until he shows otherwise he will always be a leading candidate for MVP.
Finally my last front-runner is Steph Curry. Steph is a former two time MVP and with a lot of time off and basically his own team for the first time since his NBA breakout, all the pieces are there for Curry to absolutely shoot the air out of the ball and average 37 points per game with eight assists and three steals. Curry is the greatest shooter in NBA history and it isn’t particularly close. Steph with the pieces he has around him now has the opportunity to remind everyone who the best player on the 2015-2019 Warriors teams was.
As for my dark horse, I am going a little personal with this pick. I am choosing my favorite player in the NBA, Damian Lillard. For years now Lillard has been snubbed from various awards and All-Star games and All-Pro teams. We got a glimpse of angry, Thanos-level Dame last season in the bubble before he got hurt and it was genuinely terrifying. Dame Time is no longer just a thing NBA fans like to joke about. Dame Time has been officially recognized by the United States government as the period of time where there are less than seven minutes to go in an NBA game in which Damian Lillard is participating. Lillard has another level to his game, another ceiling he can bust through, and if he does, watch out NBA. This man will snatch your soul.