Wednesday, April 12, 2017

Banter's 2017 NBA Awards


Today marks the final stanza in a chaotic, indecisive and statistically hyperbolic NBA regular season. Uncertainty and disbelief were abound:"Can Joel Embiid please stay healthy?", "When will it click for the T-Wolves?", "Which PED did the Heat start taking?", "What is Rob Hennigan's endgame?", "How many times can Draymond Green kick someone in the junk?", "How long until a Kings fan assassinates Vivek Ranadive?"...The questions were endless.

True to form, this year's awards races were also highly nebulous. One award's would-be landslide winner fell victim to a technicality, four were contested battles among numerous worthy contenders, and a final one - the most important - required literally hair-splitting four historic individual seasons.

Let's try and make sense of the madness, with Banter's 2017 NBA Awards:

ALL ROOKIE TEAMS
First: G-Malcolm Brogdon, G-Buddy Hield, F-Dario Saric, F-Marquese Chriss, C-Joel Embiid
Second: G-Jamal Murray, G-Tyler Ulis, F-Jaylen Brown, F- Rodney McGruder, C-Willy Hernangomez



ROOKIE OF THE YEAR: DARIO SARIC 

Joel Embiid created the ultimate awards conundrum this year, putting forth a historic rookie season, only to have it cut short by a minutes restriction, and ultimately a torn meniscus. Embiid's health was the room's proverbial elephant well before he was drafted, a scenario that's only underscored now that he's proven himself a generational talent.

The cold reality is that I simply can't in good conscience give an award to a guy who barely played in a third of the season's games, regardless of how sensational he was in that time.

While few other rookies stepped forward to make a legit ROY claim, Dario Saric gave the Sixers plenty of hope for the future after Embiid went down. While he's struggled with his shot from distance, Saric is clearly a crafty-passing, multi-gifted threat who the Sixers can count as a core piece now that #TheProcess has begun to build. That the rest of the rookie class was so weak only makes him stand out more.

Regards To: Joel Embiid, Malcolm Brogdon
Preseason Pick: Joel Embiid (if only...)

SIXTH MAN OF THE YEAR: JAMES JOHNSON

Up until this season, Johnson had spent his career flashing obvious skill and athleticism, but bouncing from team-to-team amid nebulous character and discipline issues. Few outsiders knew exactly why he pissed off every coach, but it was clear that given the opportunity, he could be a valuable addition to an NBA rotation.

Said opportunity came this year when the Heat were seemingly lottery-bound, and stud swing defender Justise Winslow went down for the year. With nothing to lose, Erik Spoelstra tossed Johnson major minutes off the pine.

Shedding a visible amount of his bulk, Johnson was still mean as ever, though noticeably quicker off the dribble and on re-jumps. Not only did Bloodsport uphold his reputation as a defensive wrecking ball, but became a multi-faceted scoring threat, secondary ball-handler, and crunch-time staple for the surging Heat. His 13/5/3.5/1/1 line came on 48% shooting with a top-20 defensive rating. Not sexy, but damn effective.

He brought a wider array of assets off the bench than anyone not named Andre Iguodala, playing a crucial role in the Heat's midseason miracle. Also an outside contender for MIP, Johnson's unlikely explosion couldn't have happened for a more appropriate team.

Regards To: Zach Randoph, Eric Gordon, Andre Iguodala, Greg Monroe, Lou Williams
Preseason Pick: Brandon Knight (possibly drunk at the time)

MOST IMPROVED PLAYER: GIANNIS ANTETOKOUNMPO


2016-17 was the year of the Greek Freakout; an explosion of cataclysmic magnitude which had been observed on the horizon for years, but whose breadth was not fully understood at the time.

Instead of making the leap to NBA All-Star this year - the toughest leap to make as a basketball player - he leapfrogged to legit fringe MVP candidate.

The Freak may have hinted at this production after his move to point guard late last season, but having all his pieces come together this well, so soon, is transcendent. Giannis is about to finish Top 20 league-wide in points, rebounds, steals, blocks and field goal%, top-25 in assists, and his advanced stats portfolio has skyrocketed among the NBA's best.

What he did this year was nothing short of versatility history, and devastating for the rest of the league, knowing they'll be fed a steady diet of Antetokounmpo Stew for the next decade-plus. Leading a playoff team in all five "popcorn stat" categories at 22, a typical Giannis sequence can see him covering the stereotypical roles of all five positions. The guy does literally everything but shoot (even going from "god-awful" to merely "sub-par" in that department).

His rapid ascent is the only reason the Bucks weren't already dead in the water once Khris Middleton returned and resurrected their defense. When Giannis' shot arrives, it's all over for the rest of us.

Regards To: Nikola Jokic, Otto Porter, Myles Turner, Rudy Gobert, Bradley Beal
Preseason Pick: Myles Turner (not far off)

COACH OF THE YEAR: ERIK SPOELSTRA

This was supposed to be a down year in Miami. Hell, as recently as mid-January when the Heat were 20 games below .500 and about to punt the season's remainder for better draft position, it was a down year.

But then alchemist Erik Spoelstra engineered an imaginative and massively unlikely turnaround, weaving a rag-tag bunch of castaways and no-namers into one of the NBA's hottest teams. Miami is 28-11 since the season's midway point, their entire roster playing above expectations, and even at that greater than the sum of their parts.

Spo dramatically flipped this team's identity on both sides of the ball at a juncture where nobody could've blamed him for rolling over and playing dead. He was inventive enough to craft free-wheeling, 3-bombing lineups from a scrapheap, motivating journeymen like the aforementioned Johnson, noted headcase Dion Waiters and perpetually lost Wayne Ellington to play out of their minds with unprecedented consistency.

He did more with less than any coach in the NBA this year, did so seemingly overnight, on the fly mid-season, and as legendary competitor Pat Riley prepared to raise the white flag. In an award race that values an abstract variety of accomplishments, Spo's resonate loudest.

Regards To: Gregg Popovich, Mike D'Antoni, Scott Brooks, Brad Stevens
Preseason Pick: Quin Snyder (valiant effort)

ALL-DEFENSE TEAMS
First: G-Chris Paul, G-Tony Allen, F-Kawhi Leonard, F-Draymond Green, C-Rudy Gobert
Second: G-Patrick Beverley, G-Andre Roberson, F-Giannis Antetokounmpo, F-Anthony Davis, C-Hassan Whiteside


DEFENSIVE PLAYER OF THE YEAR: DRAYMOND GREEN 

There was only so much holding him back. After losing this award narrowly to Kawhi Leonard in back-to-back seasons, it was finally Draymond's turn this year, and not because of some reputation nod (which should hold no governance over any award).

Draymond Green was the most versatile, disruptive, and simply best defender in the NBA this season, crushing the widespread preseason doubts about the Warriors' D. Instead of crumble, Golden State was within a hair of the league's best defensive rating all season, and Green was the glue holding it all together.

He defends all five positions at an elite level, able to switch effortlessly in pick-and-rolls, thus rendering the NBA's most common offensive weapon useless against him. His name is plastered at or near the top of every advanced defensive metric, and he joins Giannis Antetokounmpo as the only players to rack up both 100 blocks & steals.

Early on, the Warriors' surprise success on D was falsely attributed to Kevin Durant's increased effectiveness, a fallacy laid bare when he missed over a month without their D-rating budging an inch. Draymond was the difference all year, making this award undeniably his.

Regards To: Rudy Gobert, Kawhi Leonard, Anthony Davis 
Preseason Pick: Draymond Green (bullseye)

ALL-NBA TEAMS
First: G-Russell Westbrook, G-James Harden, F-LeBron James, F-Kawhi Leonard, C-Anthony Davis

Second: G-Steph Curry, G-John Wall, F-Giannis Antetokounmpo, F-Jimmy Butler, C-Marc Gasol
Third: G-Chris Paul, G- Isaiah Thomas, F-Kevin Durant, F-Draymond Green, C-Rudy Gobert 


MOST VALUABLE PLAYER: RUSSELL WESTBROOK

Westbrook just put forth a one-man act of destruction unlike any the NBA has ever seen (ball-hogging and stat-padding accusations notwithstanding).

He dragged one of the shallowest and least-proven rosters in the NBA to a 6-seed, for a franchise his re-signing directly rescued from a crippling rebuild (talk about value).

He led the league in scoring at a clip bested only three times in the past 20 years. To boot, he posted a better assist % than the assists per game leader, with whom he just happens to be tangling for this award.

He was the epitome of the eye test, a dizzying blur of perpetual motion who loomed with omnipresence; equal parts Bugatti Veyron and nuclear warhead.

He was beyond clutch in a litany of close calls, single-handedly winning innumerable games, like his much-fabled triumphs in Orlando and Denver.

As you perhaps have heard, he averaged a season-long triple double, breaking what was long thought to be among pro sports' untouchable records.

And he absolutely decimated some of the NBA's most valued advanced metrics this year, not only leading the league, but doing so by margins that weren't close at all (per Basketball Reference):



Westbrook also shattered the NBA's all-time Usage % record this season, or in layman's terms, the Thunder leaned on him more than any single team did a player in league history. While some might argue if it was for better or worse, a variety of statistics tell us OKC would have been completely fucked without him.

Westbrook did everything for a team that was only even remotely competitive because he did everything for them. History has predicated that the MVP must come from a top-3 team, but in a season where individual performances made an absolute mockery of historical precedent; this award should do the same. Ball-hogging and all.

Regards To: James Harden, LeBron James, Kawhi Leonard
Preseason Pick: Kawhi Leonard (so close, yet so far)

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