Like my brother, I too have compiled my list of NBA end of season awards. But my picks are considerably better than his since mine don’t involve any Portland Trailblazers winning. Of course my awards will be picked apart as being too biased, but I feel they’re pretty fair since I do pick apart what’s actually happened in the season to support my opinions. My brother was spot on with saying Elton Brand is Comeback Player of the Year, and since that isn’t a real award but he wrote about it anyways I had to put down two not real awards and write about it. Here we go.
Least Improved Player: Kevin Durant, Forward, Oklahoma City Thunder – Last year people saw Durant as one of two top MVP candidates. Over the summer people thought Durant was going to take LeBron’s MVP title away and become the best in the world. Then his point per game average dropped from 30 to 27, his field goal and three point percentage went down, his free throw percentage went down, and his rebounds went down. I’m not impressed by his performance. Russell Westbrook has seemingly been in the driver’s seat all season for OKC. Durant is still looked at as the top guy on the team, but he certainly hasn’t played like it all year. The MVP was supposed to be Durant’s crown this year, but instead he failed to live up to expectations.
Least Valuable Player: Vince Carter, Guard-Forward, Phoenix Suns – As long as Vince plays, he will win this award every year. He's been laying stink bombs in Orlando for a while, so they shipped him to the Suns. Since being traded to Phoenix his field goal percentage dropped five percent, and he’s sucked and been very Vince like. He missed numerous unnecessary threes in an important late season game against the Lakers and it cost the Suns, finally putting them out of playoff contention. I hate Vince Carter and I don’t think it is a coincidence that he is on the Suns and they failed to reach the playoffs.
Most Improved Player: Derrick Rose, Guard, Chicago Bulls – You can say this is my bias, but I can tell you you’re wrong. It is true. Nobody in the league improved over the course of the summer as much as Derrick Rose. Kevin Love will win this award but he is undeserving. Love is a stat chaser on a shitty team. His improvement into a double double machine has given his team two more wins than last year…meaning the Timberwolves have only won 17 games. Then we have Derrick Rose. Couldn’t get to the line or shoot free throws that well in his first two years, suddenly he’s shooting 86% and getting to the line at will. He was a miserable three point shooter in his first two years, hitting only 24.5% of his attempts which amounted to 32 made threes. Suddenly this year he’s a 33% shooter from deep and hit 128. People said he couldn’t shoot jumpers, all of a sudden he’s got a mid range game. People said he wasn’t clutch, all of a sudden he’s hitting big shot after big shot for the Bulls. He had more blocks this year than his previous two seasons combined. His three point percentage, free throw percentage, points, rebounds, assists, steals, and blocks all increased. His team went from the 8 seed to the top record in the NBA. Yes they have a new coach in Tom Thibodeau and Luol Deng has come to life, but Rose’s improved play and leadership is what has elevated the team more than anything.
Defensive Player of the Year: Grant Hill, Forward, Phoenix Suns – Dwight Howard will win since he blocks a lot of shots, but that’s a bunch of crap. All Howard does is block shots. Meanwhile Hill is 38 and plays on a Suns team handicapped by having Vince Carter as well as nobody else who can play defense and is called upon to guard the best player on every opposing team. No matter how young, no matter what position they play, it is Hill's job to stop them and he's played excellent all season. Hill’s stats aren’t great, but basketball isn’t just about the numbers. He has to anchor his entire team’s defense and is relied on to give them hope on an entire side of the court. Howard’s defense consists of big blocks rather than actual manning up and playing defense. I’m not impressed by what he does. Grant Hill however is another story.
Rookie of the Year: Blake Griffin, Forward, Los Angeles Clippers – Oh come on this isn’t even worth explaining. He’s been historic, from his numbers to his dunks. He had this award sealed by the time he lit the Knicks up in the season's first month.
Sixth Man of the Year: Glen Davis, Forward-Center, Boston Celtics – My brother was spot on with everything he said about this award. Lamar Odom will likely win, but how are you a sixth man when you’ve started most of the season? Jason Terry is another candidate, but I’d like to see him do something more than score. Big Baby Davis is one of the most important pieces of the Celtics team. He is their back up power forward and center, meaning at 6’9” he’s up against guys much taller than him down low and he still outhustles them. He leads the NBA in charges taken as well. He’s a workhorse. Without Baby the Celtics would be cooked. He is relied on to make all the energy plays for the team and his hustle is what often seems to keep the C’s in games.
Coach of the Year: Tom Thibodeau, Chicago Bulls – This was a three way tie between Thibs, Doug Collins in Philadelphia, and George Karl in Denver. At the end of the day I had to go with Thibs not because he coaches my favorite team, but because he took a team that won 41 games the year before and turned them into the best team in the league behind 62 wins. He helped rebuild the roster over the summer in order to craft a savvy defensive squad. Then shit got rough when Carlos Boozer and Joakim Noah, his two post forces, both missed larges amounts of the season. Thibs still got the Bulls to play through it, turning Luol Deng from a player Bulls fans would love when he played well and absolutely hate when he played poorly into one of the most important players on a championship contender. Hell, Thibs made the Bulls into a contender. Everybody on the team has bought into his defense first philosophy, and the Bulls have been a juggernaut because of it. Karl has done so much with a Nuggets team people thought would do so little, and Collins has made the 76ers a team worth caring about, but at the end of the day no coach has completely transformed the culture of their team and made them play better than anybody could have imagined like Tom Thibodeau in Chicago.
Most Valuable Player: Derrick Rose, Guard, Chicago Bulls – If there was one award here that really should need no explanation, it would be this. But of course there are idiots out there who don’t agree with this choice and I’m so proud to say I’ve been a fan of Rose since the day the Bulls drafted him so I have to explain it. If you have followed the NBA at all this season and don’t think Poohdini is the MVP of the league then you are either high, a Miami Heat front runner who refuses to believe anybody not named LeBron is good, or a stat geek. People point to advanced statistics to try to say Rose isn’t MVP. I don’t give a fuck if his efficiency rating isn’t as high as LeBron’s or Dwight Howard’s, they don’t have to do anywhere near as much as Rose. Rose has to create everything for everybody everywhere. For me the Most Valuable Player award is about more than just numbers. There are certain criteria people need to live up to in order to qualify as el jugador más valioso, and Derrick Rose lives up to them:
1. He inspires and motivates his teammates through hard work and leadership. This is the most important piece to being the MVP. Rose is at the gym first, leaves last, and has busted his ass from the summer on because he wanted his team to go to new highs. His teammates absolutely love him and his undying and intense work ethic. Rose has shown a Michael Jordan-esque will to succeed since July of last year. LeBron, Wade, and Bosh joined up in Miami and Rose went out of his mind improving every aspect of his game to lift his team, and his teammates love it. Every time Rose is on the court his team believes they can win. No deficit is too large, no situation is too dire, and no team is too good for the Bulls to rise up and succeed. That mindset comes from the example Rose sets as a leader. Rose makes the Bulls, the city of Chicago, and every Bulls fan believe that no challenge is too great to be met.
2. His stats have improved. That isn’t always necessarily the most important since stats don’t tell the whole story, but as his game has gotten much better the Bulls have also gotten much better. Rose has made the case for Most Improved, and that level of improvement has propelled the Bulls to championship contenders. I’d say that makes him pretty valuable.
3. Rose leaves opposing fans and players, and even his teammates in awe. Look at the show he put on against the Knicks in the Garden the other night. Every dunk made even the Knicks fans pop. The Bulls play in other cities and fans will chant MVP for Rose. Players and coaches on other teams have been talking about what an animal Rose has been and how phenomenal his game is. His own teammates are consistently blown away. There’ve been at least 20 games where afterwards Carlos Boozer is freaking out about something Rose did. LeBron, Bosh, Juwan Howard, Doc Rivers, Kevin Durant, and countless other players and coaches have declared Rose to be the MVP this season. To stun your peers and get fans of other teams to freak out when you bust a move on their team is pretty special.
4. In the big games and big moments, you can count on him. When the game is on the line, you can put the ball in his hands. I was reading an article a week or two ago about how Rose’s shooting numbers in the last five minutes of the 4th quarter aren’t that impressive, but if you lower the time down to the last three minutes of the 4th then Rose is a beast. When the game is in the clutch moments, Derrick Rose has proven to be the most clutch player this year. He’s made big shot after big shot after big shot all season. The Lakers found out. So did Houston. Rose single handedly willed the Bulls into overtime against the Pacers with a massive 4th quarter surge. He’s put the team on his back and carrued them to victory in the big moments so many times. LeBron missed four straight game tying or winning shots in a row at one point in the season, but Rose has buried teams consistently. Rose has stepped his game up against Boston, Miami, Los Angeles, Orlando, and dropped a career high 42 points on the then-league best San Antonio Spurs. In the games and moments you need him to play big in, he plays huge. That’s pretty valuable to me.
So with all that taken into consideration, how am I supposed to pick LeBron James because he has a better player efficiency rating? Or Dwight Howard, who gets suspended for getting too many technicals and costs his team? There’s only one MVP this season, and that is undoubtedly Derrick Rose.
That’s that. I probably won’t do playoff predictions since I don’t want to jinx teams I like, but I’ll write something on the playoffs at some point. Keep fighting.
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