NBA SEASON AWARDS 2022
The Official 2022–23 NBA Season Award Ballot
My complete rankings & picks for MVP, Rookie of the Year, Most Improved, All-NBA, Worst Team All-NBA, Bench Mob All-Stars, Tim Duncan All-Stars, and everything in between…
THE NEW 2023–24 NBA LEAGUE YEAR OFFICIALLY STARTED JULY 1, so let’s get some 2022–23 awards in the books, shall we? That means all the staples like MVP, Rookie of the Year, Most Improved, DPOY, COY, and 6MOY, plus the 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.
So what’s the point of doing this now, with the season already in the rear view mirror and all these awards 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.
I’m not going to 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 2022–23 season and pick some NBA awards…
MVP (2022 ballot, 2021, 2020)
Tier I — A One-Man Race, and It Was Never Close
1. Nikola Jokic
The MVP dialogue this year turned toxic and then some, and I really don’t want to get into it again. The playoffs showed how little a “debate” this ever was, but the truth is that Jokic was the clear MVP by February and everyone just got bored and made up reasons to turn this into a nonsense debate about race and two-way value and everything else.
The truth is that Jokic is my clear runaway MVP a third straight season, and maybe we just need to accept by now that we’re all watching greatness and recognize it accordingly. Some of the advanced metrics I trust most rate Jokic so far ahead of the field that there’s a bigger gap between him and #2 then from #2 to missing the top 10 all together. He’s lapping the field.
Tier II — Never Should’ve Won, But a Clear Runner Up
2. Joel Embiid
We called this a three-man race. It wasn’t three (it was one, really) because by the end of the season, Embiid had pulled away from Giannis and the rest of the field. This is more like Tier 2A and 2B, but my definition of tiers is being comfortable moving guys around in any real order within the tier and I can’t make a case for Embiid finishing anywhere but #2.
He was truly spectacular — in the regular season — and for once, would’ve been a genuinely deserving MVP in a lot of other seasons. Just not this one.
Tier III — 3 Names, Not 2, that Should’ve Made Every Ballot
3. Luka Dončić
4. Giannis Antetokounmpo
5. Jimmy Butler
This was definitively Antetokounmpo worst season of his prime. He did more than ever but got less efficient and the Bucks suffered because of it. That was hidden with the three great defenders until the mediocre overall offense was exposed in the playoffs. I can’t make any credible argument for Giannis to be MVP. I ultimately edged Luka one spot ahead of him because he does more to make Dallas’s offense as good as Milwaukee’s defense. That’s my same top four as last year, just with Giannis down two spots.
But the story here is Jimmy Butler, every bit as valuable as Luka and Giannis this season even before the playoff run. Butler finished top 4 in win shares, win share %, BPM, VORP, and EPM, ahead of Giannis in every one of those, and played as many games as almost everyone else in this top 10. The numbers are a bit depressed because Miami plays slow, but he carried a bad offense and added All-Defense on the other end.
Jimmy Butler remains an absolute superstar, and every few playoffs everyone else remembers to notice. It ain’t just Playoff Jimmy, y’all.
Tier IV — The Rest of the Top 10 & Injury Honorable Mentions
6. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander
7. Jayson Tatum
8. Damian Lillard
9. Steph Curry
10. Donovan Mitchell
Tatum was the worst player of this 6–9 group by the metrics and does not really belong in the top tier of MVP contenders, but he played 6–800 more minutes than the others here on a 2-seed so I split the difference and stuck him at #7. Could Tatum have dragged that super young OKC roster to a shock play-in berth like SGA? I’m not so sure.
Dame was straight up just as good as Steph this year — and better on offense. This might have been his best season ever. There’s a reason the whole world is waiting on Dame trade news. He is every bit as valuable as Kevin Durant, more reliable, and better at elevating his team, and he will move the title picture.
Durant would’ve made the top 10 if he hadn’t played only 47 games. I considered him at #10 anyway because he was so good, and Donovan Mitchell really doesn’t quite belong in that top 10. Durant is one of five injured guys who had better seasons than some of that Tier III but missed out to injury, because you have to play to have value. Shouts to LeBron James, Anthony Davis, Kawhi Leonard, and — whoa — Tyrese Haliburton. And Hali ain’t last in that group either.
All-NBA Teams (2022 ballot, 2021, 2020)
First Team All-NBA
Luka Doncic
Damian Lillard
Giannis Antetokounmpo
Jimmy Butler
Nikola Jokic
For one last season (grumble, grumble), we still officially have positions for All-NBA, so I will adhere to the rules. Sorry Joel Embiid, we only get one First Team center and you’re not it. Like usual, for All-NBA I’m less concerned about time on the court and more about measuring greatness and just capturing the best players from that year.
No surprises. Luka, Giannis, Jokic repeat. First Team debuts for Dame and Butler, and a long time coming.
Second Team All-NBA
Steph Curry
Shai Gilgeous-Alexander
Kevin Durant
LeBron James
Joel Embiid
Third Team All-NBA
Tyrese Haliburton
Donovan Mitchell
Kawhi Leonard
Jayson Tatum
Anthony Davis
Steph and LeBron were the two guys to drop from last year’s First Team, all the way to Second Team. Durant and Embiid made Second Team last year too, which means Shai is the only other new addition after a huge leap.
Big shake-up of guards with only Luka and Steph repeating All-NBA from last year for me. Gone are Ja Morant, Trae Young, Chris Paul, and Dejounte Murray, dropping down to 4th, 7th, 9th, and 15th Team All-NBA respectively. But not respectfully. Woof.
4th Team All-NBA
James Harden
Ja Morant
Lauri Markkanen
Zion Williamson
Domantas Sabonis
Why stop at 1st, 2nd, and 3rd Team? Why not continue forward and recognize more guys? These are the guys who just missed my cut, even as a couple made the real thing.
I honestly didn’t expect Lauri to finish so high, but he was good and the forwards have been weak the last couple years. We’ll get back to him. Zion was still so awesome even in his 29 games that I had to slot him here, a couple tiers ahead of any other forward.
Harden makes 4th Team a second straight year. He’s not an MVP anymore but that’s still a top 20 player and a guy that can change the title picture on the right team, where he doesn’t have to be a star. Philly was a legit title contender this year (until Embiid got hurt).
6th Team All-NBA
Jalen Brunson
Desmond Bane
Pascal Siakam
Aaron Gordon
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. What’s interesting is with the 65-game minimum starting next year, some of these guys probably end up getting a spot. I don’t love that, personally.
Porzingis is a huge addition for the Celtics and firmly re-establishes them as East favorites for me. Boston goes as their bigs go, and Al Horford and Robert Williams took a step back this year. Porzingis has played at this level for three years now, and I think people are underrating how big of an addition he is to the Celtics — far more valuable than Marcus Smart (22nd Team for me, and sham of a DPOY) and Grant Williams. Besides, Boston still has its best guard:
10th Team All-NBA
Derrick White
LaMelo Ball
Cam Johnson
OG Anunoby
Bam Adebayo
Do the math and you get top 50 here. That’s probably surprisingly high or low accordingly for some of these guys, but we have got to collectively stop overrating Bam Adebayo, a very nice but not superstar player. You see him, OG, and White make this list on the strength of great defense mostly.
I think folks are ready to write off Ball and shouldn’t be. His teams are good when he plays and has literally any help at all, and he took a ginormous leap on 3s this year from 4 attempts a game to 38% on 10+.
Cam Johnson is the name that shocked me here. Is he really a top 20 forward? He’s been an elite shooter and quality defender on multiple teams and versions of teams now for two years. He deserved that fat contract.
15th Team All-NBA
Dejounte Murray
Klay Thompson
Jerami Grant
Harrison Barnes
Nikola Vucevic
Oh hey, speaking of fat contracts! Welcome to the overpaid guys.
15th Team basically means league-average starters, and that is pretty disappointing for the salary these guys are getting. Four of the five just signed massive deals this off-season, and everyone here is badly overpaid. Grant signed maybe the worst deal of the summer. He, Barnes, Andrew Wiggins, Tobias Harris — all of them right about league average, and really, really expensive. Vooch had a genuinely good season but is still average at best and on the wrong side of the aging curve. Hooray Bulls.
It’s a serious problem that Klay and Dejounte are on this list though. Thompson is, as my buddy Raheem Palmer would say, Larry Holmes status. His defense has fallen way off and he was always overrated in the first place, so with less efficient scoring and no jump in the playoffs, he’s becoming a real problem for Golden State.
The Hawks traded the sun, moon, and stars for Dejounte Murray, and he was wildly disappointing. His defense dropped off, his offense regressed with less usage, and he’s never been efficient. He solved Atlanta’s backup PG problem but isn’t good with Trae Young. Everything he does with the ball is just less touches for his far better teammate, and he can’t shoot so he’s not useful off the ball. And now he just signed a huge extension. We’ll see if Quin Snyder can fix this, but Dejounte looks like a one-time All Star and that trade last summer is looking like a disaster… but at least it wasn’t for Rudy Gobert, who wouldn’t have even ranked this high.
30th Team All-NBA — Worst Team NBA
Killian Hayes
Reggie Jackson
Dillon Brooks
RJ Barrett
Isaiah Stewart
What was once the Andrew Wiggins All Stars might have to be renamed the Dillon Brooks All Stars now that one of the single most damaging players in the NBA just got $80 million for four years.
Brooks had a -3.9 BPM and -1.1 VORP on 49% True Shooting with a 102–114 ORTG-DRTG differential… despite playing the most minutes on the West 2-seed. Do you have any idea how hard it is to be that bad and play that much for a team that good? Brooks is a good one-on-one defender but not as good in team defense, and he’s actively damaging on offense.
Killian Hayes and Isaiah Stewart have been strong candidates for this team for a few years already, but I tend to leave rookies and young guys off my Worst Team All-NBA if possible. Those two and RJ Barrett no longer qualify.
Brooks is this year’s LVP though. This is not his first time on 30th Team All-NBA, and I doubt it’ll be his last.
31st Team All NBA — The Bench Mob All-Stars
Immanuel Quickley
Malcolm Brogdon
Austin Reaves
Brandon Clarke
Larry Nance Jr
Only starters make my first 30 teams, so we start over here with my top bench guys. Clarke makes 31st Team aka First Team Bench Mob a second straight season. Reaves was better once he started late but fits under the rules. We’ll get back to him, and to the Quickley vs Brogdon debate.
32nd Team All-NBA
Delon Wright, Russell Westbrook, Kenrich Williams, Bobby Portis, Onyeka Okongwu
33rd Team All-NBA
Tyus Jones, Malik Monk, Norm Powell, Xavier Tillman, Christian Wood
I always pick 1st, 2nd, and 3rd Team Bench Mobs. Interestingly, Tyus Jones is the only other repeat name of the 15, and none of the 15 were here two years ago. Turns out guys this good off the bench either get promoted to starter status or are bench guys for a reason and fall off soon.
We tend to give the bench awards and recognition to the scorers, but I prefer the guys who come in and make big impact and sometimes close games. Delon and Kenrich were super valuable glue guys, and Okongwu should be starting.
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. Immanuel Quickley
2. Malcolm Brogdon
3. Austin Reaves
This was a two-man race, but I think the voters got it wrong. Brogdon was terrific early but wore down late as usual, and Quickley played 600 more minutes and made a bigger impact. He graded out similar to guys like Bradley Beal and Zach LaVine, meaning he’s less a 31st Team guy and more of an 11th Team player. Brogdon was great too, though, and Boston really missed his paint touches once he was hurt in the playoffs.
The 2022 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 really wanted to get Bruce Brown on here, considering what he just did for the Nuggets on their title run, but he made $6.5 million so he doesn’t qualify. He did make it the last two seasons though, and I think it’s probably time to expand this to more like $7 million next year with rising salaries.
The starters
Austin Reaves, $1.6 million
Max Strus, $1.8 m
Herb Jones, $1.8m
Kenrich Williams, $2.0m
Jarred Vanderbilt, $4.0m
Normally we spot a champion or two on the TD All-Stars, but it’s no surprise we see three starters here from the two surprise play-in Conference Finals teams. I cheated a little starting Max Strus here since he really wasn’t good at all during the regular season but this lineup needed a shooter with all the defense around and it felt right to have one of those undrafted Miami Heat guys on the team after their Finals run.
Austin Reaves is this year’s TD MVP. He took a huge leap and played like peak Gordon Hayward from about the All-Star Break forward for the Lakers, including the entirety of the playoffs. He posted 17.6/3.5/5.5 on 44% 3s after the break, then matched that in playoffs on more 3s. He’s a top 20 wing right now and, though he’s now too expensive for this team going forward, his 4-year $52-million contract was the best deal of the summer.
The bench
Jose Alvarado, $1.8m
Gabe Vincent, $1.8m
Josh Okogie, $1.8m
Donte DiVincenzo, $4.5m
Daniel Gafford, $1.9m
Dennis Smith Jr, $1.8m
Isaiah Joe, $1.8m
Trey Lyles, $2.6m
Our entire starting lineup costs $11.2 million, and we get the full roster for an easy $29 million.
But alas! One year’s bargain is the next one’s overpay. Those two Miami guys, Strus and Vincent, signed $100 million deals combined. Reaves and Herb combined for that much too. DiVincenzo got $50 million. Somehow Okogie is back on the minimum and might be the fifth Phoenix starter next year, so sign him up for a spot on those 2024 TD starters right now.
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 (2022 ballot, 2021, 2020)
1. Walker Kessler
2. Jalen Williams
3. Paolo Banchero
NBA Twitter went wild when Walker Kessler “stole” a couple first-place ROY votes, but I think he’s the pick. He didn’t score double digits or have much usage, but he did record a 140 ORTG with a wild 70% True Shooting, and he was a genuine force defensively, enough so that I considered him for my All-Defense teams at the most competitive position.
That’s just not supposed to happen for a rookie, and it’s more impressive to me than a high-usage low-efficiency 20 PPG from Paolo. Jalen Williams ranked ahead of Banchero by the end of the season too. From February 7 forward, he put up 19/5/4 on 55/44/89 shooting, and those were meaningful games (unlike Paolo) as OKC pushed for the playoffs with Jalen their clear second best player.
Jalen’s 3.8 BPM during that stretch ranks 8th best among all rookies over the final 25 games of a season since the start of 2010 behind Ben Simmons, Luka, Embiid, Kessler, Kawhi, Kyrie, and Jokic. Heck of a list to make.
First Team All-Rookie
Kessler, Williams, Banchero, Keegan Murray, Bennedict Mathurin
Second Team All-Rookie
Andrew Nembhard, Tari Eason, Jaden Ivey, Mark Williams, Jalen Duren
No positions for All-Rookie, so this is just a top 10 rookie ladder in order. The rest of the First Team is very easy, with Murray and Mathurin a cut above the rest before a serious drop-off.
For Second Team, I opted for guys who were better in slightly smaller roles (other than Ivey) rather than splashier draft picks like Jabari Smith and Shaedon Sharpe who had more counting numbers. Surprised by the addition of Duren and Williams, centers that were quite good as rookies down the stretch.
Sophomore of the Year (2022 ballot, 2021, 2020)
1. Evan Mobley
2. Franz Wagner
3. Alperen Sengun
Why don’t we do sophomore and junior awards too? In this case, maybe because the sophomore class is looking a little bit depressing. Even these three guys should all be fighting for third in a better class.
Mobley was excellent defensively but hasn’t leveled up on offense yet. Wagner rates super well by EPM (+3.1) and does a bit of everything for Orlando. He’s one of those guys that makes everyone better. Sengun looks like the next in the line of Jokić and Sabonis as pivot men in the middle — the question is which one he’s closer to.
First Team All-Sophomore
Mobley, Wagner, Sengun, Trey Murphy III, Austin Reaves
Second Team All-Sophomore
Josh Giddey, Herb Jones, Scottie Barnes, Quentin Grimes, Jose Alvarado
Pretty disappointing list.
Giddey has the counting numbers but can’t shoot and doesn’t rate well in a lot of the advanced metrics. I’m not convinced he’s part of the next really good OKC team. Scottie Barnes had a super disappointing year too, dropping to 8th among sophomores here after (wrongfully) winning ROY.
This group is missing the two names at the top.
Cade Cunningham played only 12 games and didn’t look good. Jalen Green joins a list of 24 names to put up 20 points and 2 assists by his age 20 season — but also ranks last or second to last on that list in every advanced metric behind guys like Andrew Wiggins, Shareef Abdur-Rahim, Devin Booker, and Anthony Edwards. I’m not sold yet.
Junior of the Year (2022 ballot, 2021, 2020)
1. Tyrese Haliburton
2. Desmond Bane
3. Zion Williamson
This junior class looked disappointing last year but came around in a huge way this season, so maybe there’s hope still for those sophomores.
These three played only 56, 29, and 58 games but all looked like stars and have now been (correctly) paid accordingly. Zion didn’t play much but might still have been best of the three, and Haliburton would’ve made All-NBA if he played a bit more. Hali and Bane don’t flash like traditional stars, but they’re efficient do-everything guys who shoot, pass, finish, and fit on any team in the NBA.
First Team All-Junior
Haliburton, Bane, Williamson, Anthony Edwards, LaMelo Ball
Second Team All-Junior
Immanuel Quickley, Tyrese Maxey, Xavier Tillman, Cole Anthony, Onyeka Okongwu
Ant and Ball went at the top of the draft (with James Wiseman, yikes) and are doing just fine thanks, rounding out the First Team here. Edwards is still similar to that Jalen Green trajectory even if he oozes stardom, though he’s a bit closer to Booker or Allen Iverson. Ball gets dumped on and needs to improve his finishing and free throws, but he’s become a bit underrated. These guys just got their max extensions too, and the top of this class is looking prettay, prettay good.
Quickley was my 6MOY and Maxey is a budding star. I was impressed how much Cole Anthony improved on both ends this year in a lower usage role off the bench, and Tillman and Okongwu should step into bigger roles this fall. Devin Vassell and Isaiah Joe were worth considering too. Great bounce back by the junior class!
Most Improved Player (2022 ballot, 2021, 2020)
1. Lauri Markkanen
2. Jalen Brunson
3. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander
Normally I end up with a wildly different MIP ballot than the actual tally, but the voters and I are nearly in lockstep here.
I never saw this coming from Markkanen. He got better at… everything? His 2s were up to 59% on more volume, his 3s were up, he got stronger and used that to improve on the boards and get to the line, and he did the rare combo of getting way more efficient on way higher usage.
I had this as a close race between him and Brunson (because SGA was already quite good), and though Brunson led the #3 offense, he also had more help while Lauri was on a trash can tanking roster and still managed to be that good all year. I’m good with either of them winning, and my one quibble with the voters is that they had Brunson a distant third. He was my pick before the season, so maybe we just saw this coming too easily.
Haliburton is similar to SGA but already showed his coming leap in 26 games for Indiana last spring. That’s an interesting comparison to Mikal Bridges, who made a similar but even bigger leap after coming to Brooklyn, and that could be a warning of too-good-already before we expect Mikal to win MIP next season.
Fox was my other pick before the season and he made a big leap but was also about this good before last year, so maybe he was more of a bounce back and just needed to be separated from Haliburton. Jackson and Claxton were huge improvers defensively, which is never going to grab voter attention.
Coach of the Year (2022 ballot, 2021, 2020)
1. Mark Daigneault, Thunder
2. Mike Brown, Kings
3. Taylor Jenkins, Grizzlies
Mike Brown did an amazing job with the Kings, elevating a 30-win team, unlocking the Sabonis-Fox combo, and developing winning culture. He was unanimous COY and I get it. But I was even more impressed with what Mark Daigneault did with the Thunder.
Sabonis and Fox were already All-Star level guys, but OKC went nearly .500 and finished top half of the league on both offense and defense somehow. This despite a team of entirely young guys, two top-3 players under 21, and a top 7 that includes Isaiah Joe, Aaron Wiggins, and Kenrich Williams and basically played all year without a center. Coaxing that roster to .500 ball and a postseason berth ahead of Luka and Dame teams was a miracle.
Looks like Jenkins missed his voting window after last year but I’ve got him top-3 a second straight year coasting to a 2-seed despite missing 21, 24, 19, and 40 games from his top-4 guys (Ja, Bane, JJJ, Adams). Memphis had no business winning 51 games this year, so I put him ahead of JB Bickerstaff and Joe Mazzulla, my 4–5 finishers who went 3–4 in voting.
Two guys that caught my attention but didn’t get a vote: Jamahl Mosley and Willie Green. Mosley finished 29–28 after a 5–20 start and did a nice job with Orlando’s defense and a very young roster. Green got only 84 games combined from Zion and Ingram plus a poor McCollum season but coaxed good defense and rotations out of the rest of his roster to stay above .500. Keep an eye on those two as coaches on the rise.
Defensive Player of the Year (2022 ballot, 2021, 2020)
1. Jaren Jackson Jr
2. Evan Mobley
3. Anthony Davis
JJJ was the real winner by a small margin, but he’s a pretty clear pick for me. Memphis was a below average defense until he returned to the lineup and finished #2. He had nearly a 10% block rate, a huge leap from what already led the league last year, and all the numbers check out.
Mobley is a DPOY in waiting. He was the best defender on the league’s #1 D. I’m not sure how Anthony Davis didn’t even get a vote. He might’ve been the best per-minute defender (like Draymond Green last season) and 56 games isn’t enough below the other guys to leave him off.
I’m leaving Brook Lopez off my ballot. He was good, but we saw in the playoffs what we should’ve already known — that Giannis is the best and most important defender on that team. He was next off my list, just ahead of Nic Claxton who probably finishes top-3 if Brooklyn doesn’t blow it up.
First Team All-Defense
Alex Caruso, Derrick White, Evan Mobley, Giannis Antetokounmpo, Jaren Jackson Jr
Second Team All-Defense
De’Anthony Melton, OG Anunoby, Jimmy Butler, Draymond Green, Anthony Davis
Third Team All-Defense
Jrue Holiday, Delon Wright, Herb Jones, Robert Williams, Nic Claxton
I’m still following positional rules here, otherwise we’d just get a bunch more centers ahead of most of these guards with Lopez, Embiid, Bam, Gobert, and others in consideration.
I did cheat a little bit and moved guys down a position where it was close (Mobley to F, OG to G) but Melton makes my All-D teams a second straight year and I was excited to recognize Derrick White and Alex Caruso on the First Team. Caruso was the one great defender for the Bulls and really disrupted things, and we saw how great White is defensively in the playoffs.
Not pictured: Marcus Smart.
Defensive Coach of the Year
Billy Donovan, Bulls
There should be a Defensive COY too because every year we get one team that wildly outperforms its talent and finishes top-5 on that end with shocking personnel. It was Thibs and the Knicks two years ago, then Kidd and the Mavs last year. This year it’s Donovan.
How in the world is that Bulls roster the #5 defense?! Caruso (and some late Pat Beverley) are great at the point of attack, but what else is there? Donovan coaxed the best defense ever out of DeRozan and Vucevic and those guys played under Pop, Casey, Clifford, and Vogel, all notably terrific defensive coaches. Well done, Billy D. Shouts to runner-up Willie Green.
Playoff MVP (2022 ballot, 2021)
1. Nikola Jokić
2. Jimmy Butler
3. Devin Booker
4. Jamal Murray
5. LeBron James
Finals MVP is a goofy small-sample award, so 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, and there’s little question that Jokić wins in a runaway. I wrote about how amazing Jokić was on his run. He’s already a top-30 all-time player and on a trajectory for the top 10.
I thought the top-3 was pretty straightforward, and there’s little question Butler finishes #2 on the ballot. Even with the injury, he had some huge individual scoring games, repeatedly came up big in the clutch for a team that played close games for two months, and led the team with big impact on both ends.
We are seriously underrating Jimmy Butler. He was #3 on my PMVP ballot a year ago and the winner in the 2020 Bubble. Only 30 players in my all-time NBA ranks have at least three top-3 PMVP finishes, and the lowest one is ranked #41 all-time. Considering the entire season and postseason, you can make a pretty easy case that Butler was the second best and most valuable player in basketball this year. He’s an all-timer hiding in plain sight.
Booker was molten lava for a month, the best per-minute player in the playoffs outside of Jokić, so that was good enough for third on my ballot ahead of Jamal Murray, despite a genuine star turn. This is about the age point guards tend to breakout, so we might need to accept that this isn’t Bubble Murray anymore, just a second superstar in Denver.
Which Laker was more important on their playoff run? I thought Davis was more important but LeBron was more consistent, so he got the edge for the final spot. Jayson Tatum is just off the ballot too, which seems to be becoming a bit of a theme. Is there another level there?
The Playoff LVP is a back-to-back winner in Dillon Brooks, who managed to score 10.5 PPG on almost 13 shots, making 40% of his 2s and 24% of his 3s on 39% True Shooting and smack talking LeBron along the way. He had a -7.5 BPM, which might be worse than a fan you pull off the street.
A couple Splash Cousins were in the running. Jordan Poole and the corpse of Klay Thompson were terrible and held back the Warriors. Poole was really damaging and I’m demoting Klay from Splash Brother.
Deandre Ayton also makes the list for a lackluster performance that effectively saw him benched for Jock Landale. I’m sure he’ll be a great fourth banana for that Phoenix superteam next year. Shall we start the games now?
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.
