NBA SEASON AWARDS 2023-2024
The Official 2023–2024 NBA Season Award Ballot
My complete picks & rankings for MVP, Rookie of the Year, Most Improved, All-NBA, Worst Team All-NBA, Bench Mob All-Stars, Tim Duncan All-Stars, and everything else in between…
THE NEW 2024–2025 NBA LEAGUE YEAR ALREADY STARTED JULY 1, so let’s get some 2023–2024 awards in the books as a way to review the season that was. That means staples like MVP, Rookie of the Year, Most Improved, DPOY, COY, and 6MOY, along with the usual personal specials — Sophomore and Junior of the Year, the Tim Duncan All-Stars, Worst Team All-NBA and the many other All-NBA levels, the Bench Mob All-Stars, and other made-up awards to track the season looking back.
What’s the point of doing all this now in August, with the season already well in the rear view mirror and all these awards long since given out? I find it a great way to look back on the season without the madness of recency bias and that awful MVP “debate,” and it’s a great way to evaluate the league as a whole and see where everything stands going forward.
I won’t go as in-depth as in the past but wanted to get these picks on the record. Here’s past years for picks and any needed explanations:
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Alright, let’s look back on the 2023–24 season and pick some NBA awards…
MVP (2023 ballot, 2022, 2021, 2020)
Tier I — Alone at the Top, Like Usual
1. Nikola Jokic
I didn’t think this season’s MVP race was particularly interesting. It was for awhile, while Joel Embiid actually played like a legit MVP contender for the first time in his career, but it turns out he can only play that hard without rest or injury so long, which of course is part of being valuable.
Jokic does it year in, year out, and he’s been a clear runaway MVP for me four years running now. We are watching greatness, and we should recognize it rather than being bored by it. Jamal Murray had his best regular season but basically every other Nugget got worse around Jokic and yet he took the team to a tie for the 1-seed anyway.
Just because the MVP race is over by February doesn’t mean we have to get bored and pretend others are in the race. Jokic continues to lap the field.
Tier II — We Got Next… But We Ain’t Jokic
2. Luka Doncic
3. Giannis Antetokounmpo
4. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander
I have these three a clear drop from Jokic but a giant leap above everyone else. Voters have to submit five names for MVP. I’d have rather left my fifth spot empty.
Ranking these three is tough, though. I thought Doncic had stalled out a bit but he had his best year yet, buoyed by his best 3-point shooting year by far. He also turned the Daniel Gafford and Dereck Lively combo into an All-NBA caliber center, as we saw in the playoffs. That’s Luka. It’s wild that he’s putting up an efficient 34/9/10 at age 24 and we’re collectively shrugging.
I thought Giannis had his best offensive season ever. He was more efficient on 2s and had more assists, with the addition of Damian Lillard allowing him to do a little less and be better at it. That’s the better role for Antetokounmpo, freeing more of his energy up for his devastating defense.
In some ways, SGA is a mini Giannis. He’s a two-way wrecking ball and a metronome with his scoring and production, and he was the best player by far on the West 1-seed, especially on offense. But breaking down the credit in Oklahoma City, I think voters gave too much credit to SGA and not enough to an elite shooting year by the team, great coaching and defense, strong depth, and most of all, an unreal rookie year by Chet Holmgren.
Chet’s presence opened up the offense for SGA and changed everything in defense. I think he was the award winner in Oklahoma City this year, not SGA… he just happened to do it in a year where Victor Wembanyama happened. And SGA was awesome too. I just thought the other guys were slightly more valuable because they had less help and had to do more.
Tier III — We Really Have to Vote for a Fifth Guy??
5. LeBron James
6. Tyrese Haliburton
7. Jalen Brunson
8. Joel Embiid
I really would not have enjoyed having to pick a fifth name for an MVP ballot.
I don’t think it was Jayson Tatum at all. That’s lazy and reductive just picking a best player from the best team — I’m not even sure it’s the right one, personally — and I don’t have Tatum top 10 on my ballot. Boston won because it had six awesome players, and if you watched the playoffs and didn’t see that, I don’t know what to tell you. Tatum is really good and really valuable. There’s just always going to be like 7–10 other guys more valuable.
Brunson was another popular pick. I don’t have a real problem with that. I thought Haliburton was definitely better as the engine of the league’s #1 offense while healthy, enough more valuable than Brunson that it makes up for his injury time.
Embiid would have been at least #2 if he played a full season — at worst — and in the Jokic tier. That’s how good he was. On a ballot crying out for #5, I honestly don’t mind just putting Embiid’s 39 games there. He was that good in those games.
Instead, I shocked myself and went with LeBron at the end of my ballot in what I rate his worst year since his rookie season. That’s just incredible. How do you have your worst season in two decades with your lowest usage in that span and worst DRTG ever and are still a top five most valuable player in the league as you head toward your 40s, dragging a horrendous roster to the playoffs along with my #9 guy Anthony Davis?
LeBron, that’s how. He’ll never be my GOAT, but #2 ain’t so bad either. Jordan never had a top five MVP finish after age 34, or even close. This is five full years later for James, with a professional career that started earlier, and a 14th top-five MVP finish by my voting, tying Kareem for most ever and beating MJ by four.
Kareem, not Jordan, is the guy we should be comparing LeBron to.
MVP honorable mentions outside the top 8:
Anthony Davis, Steph Curry, Jayson Tatum, Kawhi Leonard, Victor Wembanyama
All-NBA Teams (2023 ballot, 2022, 2021, 2020)
First Team All-NBA
Luka Doncic
Shai Gilgeous-Alexander
Giannis Antetokounmpo
LeBron James
Nikola Jokic
The new positionless All-NBA rules are silly, so I’m not using them. It’s far more useful and interesting to me to rank players by guard, forward, and center, like we have for the last 75+ years, so I’m sticking with that. And like usual for All-NBA, I’m less concerned with time on the court and more about measuring greatness and capturing the best players from that year.
No real surprises here — it turns out to be my five-man MVP ballot. SGA and LeBron take the place of Damian Lillard and Jimmy Butler last year. Dame fell… a long ways, as you’ll see below.
Second Team All-NBA
Tyrese Haliburton
Jalen Brunson
Kawhi Leonard
Jayson Tatum
Joel Embiid
Third Team All-NBA
Steph Curry
Donovan Mitchell
Jimmy Butler
Kevin Durant
Victor Wembanyama
Not a ton to say about these guys here that hasn’t already been said above, other than to point out that last name.
Yes, Victor Wembanyama was already that good right now as a rookie. In fact, if we counted the season from just January 1 forward, I rate Wemby as a top-five player in the entire league and would’ve happily included him on my five-man MVP ballot, even on the terrible Spurs.
4th Team All-NBA
Kyrie Irving
James Harden
Lauri Markkanen
Zion Williamson
Anthony Davis
Why stop at 1st, 2nd, and 3rd Team? Why not continue forward and rank and recognize more guys? These are the guys who just missed my cut.
Harden, Lauri, and Zion all finished on this exact team when I did this a year ago. The forwards continue to be the weakest position of the three, which is a strange turn after a decade or two where that position was absolutely stacked every season.
Anthony Davis was awesome and deserves to be ranked higher but he’s my fourth center, so rules are rules. It’s crazy how mid the Lakers were with LeBron and Brow still that good, somehow playing 145 games combined too, but that’s how bad that roster was — a roster the team is basically running back, by the way. Ruh roh.
6th Team All-NBA
Derrick White
Jamal Murray
Draymond Green
Evan Mobley
Kristaps Porzingis
Sixth Team means guys just outside the top 25, which also means borderline All Stars since we get 25 of those, and that feels about right for this crew.
Porzingis was 6th Team a year ago, and White joins him as teammates this time, which starts to pain the picture of just how good the Celtics were when they add two fringe top-25 guys to Tatum and the rest.
Draymond Green was just about as good as ever once he returned from that mess early in the season. This feels a touch high for Evan Mobley but he had a really strong close to the season and, again, the forwards are weak. Jamal Murray was a playoff disaster, but this was his best regular season.
10th Team All-NBA
Desmond Bane
Damian Lillard
DeMar DeRozan
Paolo Banchero
Isaiah Hartenstein
Ten times five is 50, which means these guys are right on the edge of the top 50 in the league.
That’s a tough look for Dame after making First Team a year ago, and after the Bucks emptied their wallets to get him. Has he really fallen this far this fast, or was he playing hurt and struggling to adjust to a new system, twice, after playing in Portland so long? I wonder if he jumps back up to 3rd to 5th Team range for another couple years. Milwaukee better hope so.
Isaiah Hartenstein! What a leap for a dude that’s made my Bench Mob All Stars a few times. He was sensational defensively and earned a $90 million contract from OKC for his outstanding play.
I really enjoy Paolo and DeMar ending up on this team together, like two moderate-efficiency-iso-scorers-leading-mediocre-offensive ships passing in the night.
15th Team All-NBA
Immanuel Quickley
Cade Cunningham
Mikal Bridges
RJ Barrett
Jusuf Nurkic
15th Team basically means league-average starters, and that’s either really exciting or really disappointing, depending on who you pick.
The Knicks traded Quickley and Barrett both to get OG Anunoby, who finished exactly one team ahead of his new teammate Mikal Bridges among my forwards. Barrett was quietly awesome after landing in Toronto, and Quick was really good as a starter too. This is a huge leap for him from my 6MOY pick a year ago. Anunoby is now vastly overpaid, and the Knicks gave a giant heap of picks and assets to get Bridges, a guy who really stalled out this year. I’ve long been a fan of Mikal, but New York had better hope Anunoby and Bridges are a heck of a lot better than Quickley and Barrett.
Keep an eye on Cade Cunningham, who may finally be putting things together. After the All-Star break, he put up 24/5/8 with a real leap on 3s, hitting 2.4 a game at 40% so both volume and efficiency. He had a 4.0 BPM over that stretch and would have been more like a 6th or 7th Team guard if I was judging just that stretch. Could he be a Most Improved winner?
Shouts to Jusuf Nurkic. Didn’t know he had that season in him, as the linchpin of an above average Phoenix defense with precious little help. And shouts to Frank Vogel, gone too soon. I fear the Suns don’t appreciate what he did for this defense but might learn the hard way now.
30th Team All-NBA — Worst Team NBA
Jordan Poole
Jordan Clarkson
Dillon Brooks
Patrick Williams
Isaiah Stewart
From one Canadian to another, the torch has officially been passed. What was once the Andrew Wiggins All Stars is now the Dillon Brooks All Stars, with Brooks reprising his familiar role as one of the single most damaging players in the NBA on a new team this season with an $80 contract.
Brooks was a little less bad than usual this year in Houston just by doing a little less, but he was also worse defensively, the only slight value he has. Isaiah Stewart is back a second straight season too. Detroit, what are you doing? This dude is not a starter and may not even be a second big.
This year’s LVP goes to Jordan Poole, and it wasn’t much of a contest. He had 17 PPG on over 15 shots at just 41% from the field, straight out of the 90s, with a 102 ORTG and 121 DRTG plus matching -2 OBPM and DBPM margins that are downright ghastly. Guess that’s one way to tank.
The Bench Mob All Stars
31st Team All NBA
T.J. McConnell
Malik Monk
Trey Murphy
Jonathan Isaac
Al Horford
Only starters make my first 30 teams, so we start over here with the top bench guys, aka the Bench Mob All Stars, still by position.
Unlike the starters, I thought there were more valuable forwards than guards. I might have to go six or seven deep on a 6MOY ballot before I’d pick a guard, though McConnell was particularly excellent running Indiana’s super fun bench unit.
Jonathan Isaac comes off the bench for health reasons; I have no idea why Trey Murphy is still coming off the bench. Per minute, those two would’ve been my 8th Team All-NBA forwards, but they’ll have to settle for 31st. I think Murphy is the second best Pelicans player, and Isaac ranks one spot higher for Orlando.
32nd Team All-NBA
Buddy Hield, Bogdan Bogdanovic, Kyle Anderson, Kevin Love, Naz Reid
33rd Team All-NBA
Russell Westbrook, Keon Ellis, Amen Thompson, Royce O’Neale, Jalen Smith
These 15 names tend to turn over a lot. Either you play well enough off the bench to get bumped to starter status, or you’re bench guys for a reason and fall off soon after. A few of these guys were already starting by season’s end. Only Westbrook and Monk made my Bench Mob two years in a row.
Typically our bench awards just lazily award scoring off the bench. Naz Reid was good but not the best sixth man, even on his own team. Kyle Anderson made a huge two-way impact and elevates defenses and benches everywhere he goes, and that’s why impact role players like Keon Ellis and Royce O’Neale make the list too.
Shouts to Amen Thompson! I don’t recall a rookie ever making my Bench Mob All-Stars. He is a truly special defender and athlete.
While we’re here, let’s use this to launch right into our Sixth Man of the Year and the other traditional awards.
Sixth Man of the Year
1. Al Horford
2. Trey Murphy
3. Jonathan Isaac
These guys got a combined one vote in the real thing. Great job, voters.
Murphy is a plus defender and an efficient scorer who adds versatility on the wing every NBA team could use. Isaac was maybe the best defender in the league this season in his 16 MPG.
But Al Horford to me was a very easy 6MOY pick. His role is smaller now, both by usage and minutes, but he’s still an incredibly high impact guy and just another reason why the Celtics are so stacked. I could make a case for Horford as the fourth or fifth best Celtic still. All of his advanced metrics are oustanding, and he played the seventh most minutes for by far the best team in the league.
An easy choice. You can keep your counting stats.
The 2024 Tim Duncan All-Stars
You can read the full explanation for the TD All-Stars here, but the basic premise is a collection of the best bargains in basketball. Two rules: you have to make $5 million or less and can’t be on a rookie contract.
I may have to change the dollar amount soon but stuck with the $5 million for now. Shouts to an honorable mention starting five of Alex Caruso, Malik Monk, Grayson Allen, Kyle Anderson, and Isaiah Harteinstein who all cost under $10 million but didn’t quite make the bargain cut.
My entire 15-man roster makes just over $39 million combined this season, just a few dollars less than one Tobias Harris.
You tell me — would you rather have Tobi or all 15 of these dudes?
The starters
Russell Westbrook, $3.8 million
Nickeil Alexander-Walker, $4.7m
Sam Hauser, $1.9m
Derrick Jones Jr., $2.0m
Jalen Smith, $5.0m
Our team has shooters galore, but Hauser showed in the playoffs that he can play some defense too. It’s no coincidence that the two Finals teams both had a key forward on a bargain contract. DJJ played the fourth-most minutes for the Mavs. NAW was a big key for a near 1-seed too.
As for Westbrook? Listen, our team is gonna need production somewhere! We have mostly role players. Let Russ cook. The man still puts up numbers and plays 110% at all times. He’s this year’s TD MVP, and Denver sure hopes he’s next year’s too.
The TD All-Stars bench
Jose Alvarado, $1.8m
Keon Ellis, $683k
Isaiah Joe, $2.0m
Kevin Love, $3.8m
Luke Kornet, $2.4m
-
Vince Williams, $2.3m
Sam Merrill, $2.0m
Simone Fontecchio, $3.0m
GG Jackson, $2.0m
Kelly Oubre, $2.0m
Normally this is the part where we talk about one year’s bargain being the next year’s overpay, but only DJJ, Joe, and Hauser got big raises, and even then, pretty reasonable ones. Some of these guys like Ellis, Williams, and Jackson are still on bargain deals for years to come. As the cap rises further and further, these dirt cheap rookie deals are insane bargains if you can find real contributors, basically for free.
Shootaround will be a ton of fun with Hauser, Joe, and Merrill competing and Fontecchio and GG pushing them at times too. Lots of specialists on this list, but that’s what you get for such a cheap price tag.
As always, there’s any number of other big men who could have also made the list. Friends don’t let friends overpay big men.
Rookie of the Year (2023 ballot, 2022, 2021, 2020)
1. Victor Wembanyama
2. Chet Holmgren
3. Brandin Podziemski
Chet Holmgren was absolutely phenomenal this season. I thought he was the biggest reason OKC made the leap it did, and I have him top three on my DPOY ballot as a rookie (spoiler). He would have been my ROY every other season this century outside of 2006 CP3, 2018 Ben Simmons, and 2019 Luka Doncic. Unfortunately for him, Victor Wembanyama exists.
I’m honestly not even sure I should start glowing about Wemby or it’ll be at least 1,000 words. I genuinely think we are somehow UNDER selling the season we just watched. This dude is going to win like 8–10 DPOYs, maybe starting this season. And he’s wayyy ahead of where he should be offensively too, and he got markedly better every couple months as the season went on.
From January 1 forward, Wemby had a 104 DRTG for an awful Spurs team while leaping to 25% assist rate, with the ball in his hands way more often. After the All-Star Break, he posted 24/12/5 with a 101 DRTG, averaging 4.5 blocks a game with an 8.2 BPM, fourth best in the entire NBA.
For about 15 NBA games, Wemby was an inefficient rookie, then he took a leap by mid November to quality starter, then jumped to 2–3 BPM by December aka high-end starter to fringe All-Star, then played around 7–8 BPM once the calendar turned to 2024, a genuine MVP contender. And he did all that on a terrible team with no point guard and no real help around him, finishing the season with a 10% block rate!!
And he’s 20. I need a shower.
First Team All-Rookie
Wembanyama, Holmgren, Podziemski, Amen Thompson, Trayce Jackson-Davis
Second Team All-Rookie
Dereck Lively, Brandon Miller, Jaime Jaquez, Cason Wallace, GG Jackson
After years of terrible drafting, the Warriors suddenly land two rookies on the First Team. Podziemski was part of all sorts of positive lineups and straight up better than Klay Thompson in many of them, and TJD was an immediate difference maker off the bench.
I don’t lean into volume and counting stats on rookies like our voting tends to, so Miller, Jaquez, and Jackson slip to Second Team but are worth recognizing. Miller’s leap from his first 37 games (15/4/2) to his final 37 (20/4.5/2.5) was pretty notable.
Cam Whitmore was a tough cut as my 11th pick but didn’t play enough.
Scoot Henderson, my ROY pick, was absolutely dreadful. Can’t win ’em all.
Sophomore of the Year (2023 ballot, 2022, 2021, 2020)
1. Jalen Williams
2. Paolo Banchero
3. Jabari Smith
Why don’t we do sophomore and junior awards too? Maybe because this class is a bit underwhelming at the moment.
My choice for ROY last season, Walker Kessler, finishes 4th here in a weirdly limited role for Utah, but my 2–3 from last year move up to 1–2. I’m really not quite as high on either JDub or Paolo as consensus. I need Williams to be taking more shots, especially 3s — 3.4 attempts is nowhere near enough if you’re supposedly a great shooter — and I need Banchero shooting less. I’m not sure either improved a ton this season.
Jabari Smith, on the other hand, took a clear step forward on both sides of the ball. He started making some shots and found efficient enough offense, and he settled into a positive defensive role on a team that took a huge leap on that side of the ball. He might be on that JJJ track.
First Team All-Sophomore
JDub, Paolo, Jabari, Walker Kessler, Dyson Daniels
Second Team All-Sophomore
Jalen Duren, Keegan Murray, Keon Ellis, Simone Fontecchio, Vince Williams
Keegan Murray’s been fine, but his teammate Keon Ellis was even more impactful down the stretch once inserted into the lineup as a glue guy defender. Dyson Daniels is a bigger, better version of that and has looked fantastic at the Olympics for Australia. I wonder if Atlanta will find him a much better partner for Trae Young than Dejounte Murray ever was.
Duren is super young and really intriguing. Detroit gets two reps with him and Fontecchio, and Memphis sneaks Vince Williams into the mix with a second straight undrafted and developed guy onto a team. GG Jackson makes the rookie team in the same spot, and I strongly considered Scotty Pippen here too, but he and Tari Eason just didn’t play enough.
Some notable names missing… I’m not sold yet on Andrew Nembhard. He was terrific for three playoff weeks, but I’m worried that was just hot shooting from deep. His regular season profile is pretty blah for that big contract extension he just got. Shaedon Sharpe and Jaden Ivey also miss the cut. Sharpe is looking very Jalen Green so far — not a compliment — and Ivey looks like a bust to me.
Junior of the Year (2023 ballot, 2022, 2021, 2020)
1. Alperen Sengun
2. Scottie Barnes
3. Trey Murphy
Four players from this class have already signed max extensions — and only one of the four made my top three here.
There are reportedly rumors that the Rockets are dragging their feet on Sengun, picking between him and Jalen Green. That’s lunacy to me. Sengun is one of the best young players in the league, full stop. More on him and Scottie below.
I’d give Trey the rookie max, but he’s not going to get it. I already have a spot reserved for him on my most valuable contracts list instead.
First Team All-Junior
Sengun, Barnes, Murphy, Evan Mobley, Franz Wagner
Second Team All-Junior
Jalen Suggs, Cade Cunningham, Josh Giddey, Herb Jones, Jalen Johnson
Those max rookie extensions went to Barnes, Mobley, Wagner, and Cunningham. What order would you rank those extensions right now?
I think I still take Cade first, even though I have him ranked last here — talked about him above. And sadly, I think I take Franz last. His 3 has stalled and his career progression has been pretty gradual. I really like him but isn’t he like a third or even fourth guy on a great team?
I’m not even sure he’ll end up more valuable than Suggs. The guys on this Second Team are at the top of my list for MIP contenders next season. Suggs may not get the number, but he’s just a pure winner. And we dump on Josh Giddey, but he averaged 15/7/6 from March forward with a 4.7 BPM. Stay tuned on whether Chicago got fleeced on that trade or if Oklahoma City actually sold low on a 21-year-old triple-double machine.
The names that are disappointed to miss here: Austin Reaves, Jonathan Kuminga, and Jalen Green. By your junior year, I definitely need more than just counting stats. Reaves was a sieve defensively and saw a huge (expected) regression in free throw rate. Kuminga I’m still not entirely sure knows how to play good basketball. Green is just a super inefficient scorer, and “breaking out” for a final meaningless three weeks of games to end every season.
Most Improved Player (2023 ballot, 2022, 2021, 2020)
1. Alperen Sengun
2. Scottie Barnes
3. Tyrese Maxey
Told ya we’d come back to Sengun and Scottie.
I adore Tyrese Maxey. He was a big betting hit for us, and I had him top five on my draft board. He was outstanding this year, though I thought he was already pretty good before and mostly just moved into a bigger starting role with a bit more playmaking. He wouldn’t have gotten my vote.
I could be talked into both Sengun and Barnes as deserving MIP winners.
Sengun’s improvement was more subtle but also more consistent. He didn’t see a huge numbers leap but increased usage led to more points and assists in a bigger role on a better offense. But most important was the leap he made on defense, from regarded as a huge negative to being a positive anchor on a top 10 defense, playing the most important defensive position.
Scottie improved at basically everything. He saw improvement in shot efficiency, free throw rate, rebounding, assists, blocks, you name it. And halfway through the season, he would’ve been my pick. But after January 1, his supposedly improved 3 dropped to 26% on just four attempts a game, so I’m afraid that part of the breakout may have been fake — and it’s still the most important skill he needs to add to his game.
That’s why Alpie gets my vote, by a hair.
Donte DiVincenzo and Collin Sexton were close misses. DDV suddenly become one of the league’s best 3-point snipers on volume, completely out of the blue. And Sexton is kinda good now!? The defense is still a disaster, but his shot certainly looks real and he took a huge playmaking leap. If the Jazz do end up trading Markkanen, I’d love to be the team that swoops in to steal Sexton on the cheap right after.
I really disagree with the MIP voting, as usual. I guess Scottie ended up being ineligible on too few games. Jalen Williams finished 4th but would be more like fringe top 10 for me, and I don’t see it with Coby White at all. Mostly just more minutes and usage, the worst kind of “improvement.”
I’ve mentioned Suggs a few times. He was a big improver and just misses the cut for me. Cade could have also been an MIP if we gave it out for season improvement — and so could Wemby, for that matter.
And let’s shout out a name I normally dump on! RJ Barrett was outstanding once he got to Toronto. He jumped to 62% True Shooting and saw a big uptick on 2s, both by volume and percentage, and his playmaking was better too. Maybe he just needed a better team context.
Suggs, Cunningham, and Barrett could be MIP contenders next season.
Coach of the Year (2023 ballot, 2022, 2021, 2020)
1. Joe Mazzulla, Celtics
2. Mark Daigneault, Thunder
3. Ime Udoka, Rockets
Daigneault won the actual award with 89 of the 99 first-place votes, and I don’t have any real problem with that the way he’s developed those kids and found his rotations. He’s second for me, and he was my winning choice in this award last year.
I’m bummed Udoka barely got a sniff. What he did this year in Houston was incredible. He built a top-10 defense out of spare parts and kiddos! And found a decent offense in there too. That roster had been an abject disaster for years and he showed up and turned them into a .500 club overnight.
Tom Thibodeau (Knicks), Rick Carlisle (Pacers), Willie Green (Pelicans), Jamahl Mosley (Magic), and Chris Finch (Wolves) were all in my mix too.
But I have to give the award to the oft-maligned Joe Mazzulla. Boston has to get credit somewhere, and if they are an all-time great regular season team without having a top-10 MVP candidate or a true go-to superstar, that’s just not something we’ve seen before — and at some point, we have to credit the coaching for elevating everything.
Mazzulla got his team to totally buy in. On offense, that meant bombing 3s like never had before, turning into the league’s #1 offense overnight. Boston was a low top-10 offense for four years before Mazzulla showed up, then leapt to #2 his first year with the influx of 3s, then somehow leapt 5.2 points per 100 to a historically great #1 offense with the added Porzingis spacing.
Mazzulla buy-in also meant a clear defensive identity and one that could turn up the heat in crunch time and in the playoffs, plus great 3-point % defense specifically. Those are coaching attributes, along with maximizing guys like Sam Hauser and Luke Kornet off the bench.
It’s time to give the man we called Mozzarella for years a little credit.
Defensive Player of the Year (2023 ballot, 2022, 2021, 2020)
1. Rudy Gobert
2. Victor Wembanyama
3. Chet Holmgren
For maybe the last time in awhile, the way Wemby looks, I didn’t have a clear frontrunner here and would be pretty content with any of these three winning.
The Spurs defense jumped from 28th to 13th in DRTG after the All-Star Break with Wembanyama. I can’t tell for sure but it looks like he legit put up something like a 5–7 DBPM over the back stretch of the season. He’s an absolute monster — though we never give this award to someone on the #22 defense.
Chet Holmgren changed everything for the Thunder. He’s an incredible shot blocker and his presence anchored Oklahoma City’s scheme and made everything else work with him cleaning up the back line for a top-five defense and 1-seed.
In the end, some of the numbers suggest Rudy Gobert was actually not quite as important or impactful as he had been in the past, but he is still the defensive anchor of a historically great defense that lapped the league, so I’m giving him the award as a representative of that elite Minnesota defense. The voters got this one right — though I’m stunned Holmgren didn’t even get a single vote on any ballot.
First Team All-Defense
Gobert, Wembanyama, Holmgren, Draymond Green, Bam Adebayo
Second Team All-Defense
Anthony Davis, Isaiah Hartenstein, Jalen Suggs, Jonathan Isaac, Joel Embiid
Third Team All-Defense
Nikola Jokic, Evan Mobley, Derrick White, Alex Caruso, Herb Jones
These teams don’t follow positions anymore, and that means I’m loading up on big men because they’re still by far the most impactful defenders on the court.
We seriously left Draymond Green off All-Defense and didn’t give him a single DPOY vote just because no one likes him anymore? The Warriors had a slew of bad defenders, either too old or too young to know how, and Green single-handedly made them an above average defense anyway. Once he came back from his time away, he was an absolute wrecking ball, as good as he’s been in a long time. It’s unfathomable that he’s a one-time DPOY.
Bam Adebayo was the third-to-seventh best defender, like he is every season, just like Anthony Davis. Both guys are much more valuable in the playoffs, and these are regular season awards. Sorry, not sorry.
Part of what made Embiid’s season so special this season was how awesome he was defensively too, on top of the massive scoring load. Philadelphia’s defense, not its offense, cratered without him.
I’ve talked about most of the rest of those guys already. Guards aren’t as impactful as bigs defensively. They just aren’t.
Nikola Jokic is a positive impact defender. I don’t know what to tell you.
Defensive Coach of the Year
Willie Green, Pelicans
We should award a Defensive COY too because every year we get one team that wildly outperforms its talent and finishes top-7 on that end with shocking personnel. It was Thibs and the Knicks three years ago, then Kidd and the Mavs, then Donovan’s Bulls last year. This year it’s Willie Green.
What kind of devil magic is Green doing down there in New Orleans? How in the world do you build the #7 defense around a team whose stars are Zion Williamson, Brandon Ingram, CJ McCollum, and Jonas Valanciunas, all objectively bad defenders. It just doesn’t make sense.
Sure, having Herb Jones, Dyson Daniels, Jose Alvarado, and Trey Murphy helps, but Green can usually only play a couple of those guys at once, and besides, this is scheme as much as anything else. The Pelicans force a ton of turnovers without getting into foul trouble, a rare combo, and they purposely allow the second most 3s but somehow have the second lowest 3-point percentage allowed.
That’s coaching and preparation and getting the right 3s from the right players and spots from your opponent. The Pelicans were actually pretty bad defending 2s — duh, defense built around Zion and JV! — but barely allowed any of them. Coaching, and not for the first time with Green either — he was runner up here last year. It’s wild what he’s coaxed out of this personnel.
I thought this would’ve been Udoka midseason for what he did with Houston, though some of the Rockets’ profile looks a bit fake with shooting luck and too many fouls. Still an amazing job. Obviously Finch gets plenty of credit for Minnesota too, though they have outstanding personnel.
Give Frank Vogel (Suns) and Taylor Jenkins (Grizzlies) some respect too. Vogel built an above average defense around Jusuf Nurkic and a bunch of mostly bad defenders. Jenkins literally had to use 33 players this season and somehow still finished with a top-12 defense. Impressive work.
Playoff MVP (2023 ballot, 2022, 2021)
1. Luka Doncic
2. Nikola Jokic
3. Anthony Edwards
4. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander
5. Derrick White
Finals MVP is a silly, small-sample award. We should definitely do Playoff MVP instead and recognize the best players over a long, grueling two-month playoff journey at the highest level. That should be the highest honor in basketball, not someone that got hot for seven games, but really just the four wins, but really just the ones we remember the most.
This actually might have been Doncic’s worst playoff run of his career on a per-minute basis, but he was still oustanding with 29/10/8 over four rounds and he was at his best in Dallas’s best series win, including that knockout punch game winner in Minnesota. When Doncic leads all playoff players in minutes, he’s going to lead in VORP too. A very obvious PMVP.
He was eliminated earlier than expected, but Nikola Jokic was still easily the best player in the playoffs. Rounding up to 29/14/9 on 63% True Shooting with a 12.8 BPM? Yeah, that’ll do the job. Jokic wasn’t perfect. He was terrible in a home Game 2 loss that set a negative tone against Minnesota and tired out in the elimination Game 7, but he was still so good and so valuable even in two rounds that he lands here. Denver lost because of Jokic’s supporting cast, not because of him.
Those two are easy, and then I’ve got four guys pretty even from there. SGA was the best remaining player but played a little less. Ant was better early in the playoffs but wore down and had a pretty rough WCF, but he gets credit for leading the comeback against Denver.
Like the entire rest of the article, I’m splitting up Boston’s credit among many great players, because that’s literally what we saw for two playoff months and all season long. I promise it’s a compliment, not a diss track, to have so many really good players that you didn’t have one single great MVP type guy. That’s why Boston won the only trophy that matters in the end.
I thought Derrick White was the most valuable Celtic in the playoffs. He shot the leather off the ball in round one, and he averaged over four stocks a game in the ECF and should’ve been MVP of that series. He also led the team in 3s, for a team built around bombing away, and he was the steadiest, most reliable two-way impact guy on the team.
Jayson Tatum just misses the cut, one spot after White. Hard to argue with 25/10/6 but he was just okay in both of the final two rounds and never really had a great stretch. And that’s okay! Steady but unspectacular is what the team needed, and Tatum is a champion. We just don’t have to pretend like he’s a top-five player. He just isn’t.
He’s still way more valuable than Jaylen Brown will ever be. Brown had the worst ORTG *and* the worst DRTG of any Boston starter. He had only four games all playoffs over 30 points, only five over three assists. He had only six playoff games at 4 BPM or better but eight with a negative BPM.
Brown had some big plays and moments but he is Boston’s worst defensive starter and its most replaceable one, not its most valuable. He’s also the worst contract in the league, by a wide margin, and his contract will ultimately be the reason this Celtics dynasty falls apart, not the glue that holds it together. But hey! He’ll probably make the Hall of Fame because of those shambolic ECF and Finals MVP trophies, so hooray for Jaylen Brown.
Brown certainly wasn’t bad though — again, the Celtics had six really great players, which is exactly the point. Brown was really good on a team with four or five even better players, and that’s part of what makes him so valuable.
One guy who was bad? Jamal Murray. He’s this year’s Playoff LVP unfortunately, edging out Bradley Beal and Aaron Nesmith for the “honors.”
Basketball is a team game, not an individual one. Look no further than Nikola Jokic. One year he dragged a team of dudes from the YMCA to the playoffs and got trounced there, despite playing well himself. Last year his teammates were good and Jamal Murray played at a borderline All-NBA level in the playoffs, and Jokic won a championship. This year Jokic was great again, but Murray was awful.
Now look, I know — Murray hit not one but two game winners in the Lakers series, the only series Denver won. But the Nuggets only needed Murray heroics because he was so bad the rest of the games. He finished the playoffs at 40% from the field and 47% True Shooting in 39 MPG, with an atrocious 98 ORTG way down from 122 his past two playoffs.
Murray clearly wasn’t fully healthy, but he also played very poorly, and I think he cost his team a clear spot in the Finals, and maybe even a repeat title. Denver’s margin of error is even thinner now with KCP gone and the depth dwindling further. Jokic will be awesome, but he needs help.
Jamal Murray was 4th on my Playoff MVP ballot a year ago. He’s last this time.
But hey… there’s always next season.
Brandon is a full-time NBA and NFL staff writer at The Action Network. You can also follow him on Medium or @wheatonbrando for more sports, television, humor, and culture. Visit the rest of Brandon’s writing archives here.
