In past seasons, the winners of all the major NBA awards would have been unveiled weeks ago. The league traditionally announced the biggest awards one-by-one while the playoffs were going on.
The regular season has been over for nearly 2 1/2 months but the league has kept the voting under wraps, except for announcing the finalists for each prize. We’ll finally learn tonight who captured the most votes for Rookie of the Year, Coach of the Year, Sixth Man of the Year, Defensive Player of the Year and Most Improved Player along with the biggest individual honor, the Most Valuable Player.
The NBA decided to hold back those announcements this year until after the draft by putting together a two-hour extravaganza on TNT.
All of the awards were based on regular-season performance. The two that hold the most intrigue are the Rookie of the Year and MVP selections. Joel Embiid posted by far the best stats among first-year players but appeared in just 31 games. We’ll find out if that was enough games in the voters’ minds or if his Sixers teammate Dario Saric or the Bucks’ Malcolm Brogdon brings home the hardware. Saric and Brogdon were the only unanimous selections for the All-Rookie Team, which was unveiled earlier today.
Russell Westbrook, James Harden and Kawhi Leonard are the three finalists for MVP but most people expect a tight race between Westbrook and Harden. Westbrook broke Oscar Robertson‘s triple-double record, while Harden put up monster numbers of his own after becoming the primary ballhandler in Mike D’Antoni‘s attack.
This leads us to our question of the day: Do you like the idea of having a postseason awards show following the playoffs or would you prefer that the NBA go back to announcing the major awards during the postseason?
Please take to the comments section to weigh in on this topic. We look forward to what you have to say.
It’s good like this. Now it doesn’t take our attention away from the playoffs.
lol Knicks don’t ever have to worry about the playoffs
That hurt bro
2.5 months after the regular season is way too long to wait for these awards. If it keeps up like this, the talk about including playoff performances in the MVP talk will only gain steam and it’ll eventually change.
These are regular season awards, right?
The best players in the league don’t care about the regular season any more. It’s all about championships and we just witnessed the most anti-climactic championship race in memory.
So we don’t even care about the playoffs anymore.
And I’m supposed to care about something that (a) was of no consequence; and (b) finished 77 days ago?
Terrible, terrible idea.
what ^^ he said
This comment needs a thumbs up button.
I mean it has an up arrow
If the awards only pertain to the regular season then they should be handed out within 3 days of the regular season ending. It’s not like these are super hard choices.
Exactly this. Just do them between the regular season and the playoffs. It’s not that hard to count votes, and that keeps the playoff performances from tainting the selections.
Old system – I would read about who won the next day. New system – I’ll read about who won the next day.
No this award show is pointless. The MVP of the league is either LeBron, KD or Steph but we will give it to someone else just because. Fwiw the year oscar averaged a triple double, and wilt averaged 50/20, the MVP was bill Russell. Stats aren’t everything
This whole award show thing is unneccessary. Either make it right after the regular season (and before the playoffs) or announce it during the playoffs (like the old format). Honestly, if they announce it before the playoffs you might see better play from certain players who were finalists for awards and feel they got robbed (play with a chip on their shoulder).