With the major NBA regular season award announcements coming shortly, our members broke down the most interesting races and highlighted the most deserving player for each award. Our picks for MVP, Rookie of the Year, Defensive Player of the Year, and Coach of the Year are below.
Most Valuable Player — Nikola Jokić, Denver Nuggets
Vice President Eli Pattison ’22
There have been more different frontrunners and plot twists in this year’s MVP race than any in recent memory, but now that we have reached the end of the regular season the deserving winner is obvious—Nikola Jokić should be your 2020-2021 MVP. In a year defined by the league’s biggest stars missing time due to injury, Jokić has played in every one of Denver’s games. But Jokić isn’t merely lacing up his sneakers for every contest. In each game this year the Joker put up absurd numbers and did things on offense that have never before been seen.
Sure, there are other viable candidates for the award. Stephen Curry put together one of the most spectacular one-man show offensive seasons in NBA history and was arguably the best player in the league this season. But giving the MVP award to a player on a team that finished the season just a tick above .500 would be unprecedented. The only time since 1983 that the MVP was on a team that finished outside of a top three seed in their conference was when Russell Westbrook of the sixth seeded Oklahoma City Thunder won the award, with much criticism, in 2017. The Warriors entered the play-in tournament with the eighth best record in the Western Conference, making Curry an unlikely MVP choice despite his historic season and league leading 32.0 points per game. Joel Embiid and LeBron James had phenomenal seasons as well, but lost too much time to injury to be worthy of the trophy. Chris Paul transformed the Suns from a fringe playoff team to the two seed in the West and a bona fide finals contender, but CP3 doesn’t have the individual stats to stack up with the other candidates. Giannis Antetokounmpo had another excellent season, but both his individual statistics and his team’s record are worse than they were in his back-to-back MVP seasons in 2019 and 2020. Voters won’t be giving the Greek Freak the MVP for a third year in a row, particularly after his disappointing exits in the playoffs the past two seasons.
No such holes can be poked in Jokić’s body of work. He has 15.6 total win shares this season according to Basketball Reference, 4.3 more than the next highest player. The difference in win shares between Jokic and the second ranked player, Rudy Gobert, is equal to the distance between Gobert and the 25th ranked player, Utah sixth man Joe Ingles. It’s not just the cumulative stats stemming from Jokic’s durability that make his case for most valuable however—he ranks first in seemingly every per-minute and per-possession measurement of value this season as well. Jokić’s Win Shares per 48 of .301, his PER of 31.3, his Box Plus/Minus of 11.7, his VORP of 8.6, and his EPM of 7.9 all lead the NBA. If leading the league in nearly every advanced stat wasn’t enough, Jokić cemented his case for MVP when the Nuggets reeled off wins after Jamal Murray’s ACL injury. Left for dead as a contender when the Nuggets lost Murray’s 21.2 PPG for the season, Jokic instead led the Nuggets to a 9-1 record in the first ten games without his team’s other star player and a 13-5 record overall after Murray’s ACL injury, leaving little doubt that he is the NBA’s Most Valuable Player in the 2020-2021 season.
Rookie of the Year — LaMelo Ball, Charlotte Hornets
TJ Parekh ’24
In a virtually two-way battle between two of basketball’s brightest young stars, the Rookie of the Year award will most likely end up in the hands of either LaMelo Ball or Anthony Edwards.
Ball, the flashy talent who has dominated SportsCenter reels since his freshman year of high school, is currently the frontrunner to win the award at -1050 odds, according to FanDuel Sportsbook. Truthfully, Ball’s critical acclaim is warranted by his tremendous play and prolific numbers. He averaged 15.7 PPG, 5.9 RPG, 6.1 APG, 1.6 SPG, and 0.4 BPG this season. Beyond his terrific playmaking ability, he is also alleviating the worries of his pre-NBA doubters. He has proved his shooting ability and relative efficiency, going 35.2% from downtown while taking 5.1 3’s per game (this confidence is something his big brother Lonzo could use!). Despite missing 21 games due to a fractured wrist (and tending to it down the final stretch of the season), Ball was the engine of the Hornets team and led rookies in assists, steals, and Player Impact Efficiency (PIE) at 12.1. The point guard also joined high profile names (Kawhi Leonard, Jimmy Butler, and Dejounte Murray) this season to average at least 15 PPG, 5 RPG, 5 APG, and 1.5 SPG while playing at least 70% of their team’s games. He ended the season with a 109.9 defensive rating, and despite room for improvement, the Hornets were better on the floor defensively with the Ball brother than without. Overall, Ball outshined all other rookies consistently and drove the Hornets to their best season in recent memory, making it to the play-in round.
Anthony Edwards gained traction in the ROY race due to both Ball’s injury absence and his own strong play in the second half of the season. His peak actually seems to exceed that of Ball’s in that his best game score (similar to PER or Box +/-) of 37.2 is higher than Ball’s 32.6, per StatMuse. In his final 36 games, Edwards looked like an entirely different player than in the first half averaging 23.8 PPG, 5.3 RPG, 3.4 APG in more minutes; as a result, Minnesota went 16-20 in their second half after going 7-29 in the first half. He is also one of two teenagers in NBA history (the other being LeBron James) to have multiple 40-point performances. He also joined James and Kevin Durant as the only rookies to drop at least 40 points, 5 assists, and 5 rebounds in his most efficient game of the season. Edwards led this year’s rookie class in total production (due to his high volume of play) but still was unable to match the start to finish performance of Melo. Perhaps if there was a Most Improved Rookie award, AntMan would find himself taking home some hardware at the NBA Awards Ceremony. Next year, if Edwards increases his efficiency and adds a defensive presence to his repertoire, he could eclipse the star power of LaMelo.
In all, based on this year’s performance alone, LaMelo Ball is shaping up to be the deserved Rookie of the Year and one of the most promising teens the league has seen.
Defensive Player of the Year — Rudy Gobert, Utah Jazz
Noah Yusen ’23
Due to the rise of prolific scorers and playmakers around the league and the concentration of offensive talent in the form of dynamic duos — think LeBron James and Anthony Davis, James Harden and Kevin Durant, Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown — the need for efficient defensive big men has become ever more important to combat hyper-offensive threats.
Notable defenders from the 2020-2021 season include, unsurprisingly, reigning NBA Defensive Player of the Year Giannis Antetokounmpo and the intimidating paint-giant Joel Embiid, despite both having lost some floor time during this already short season due to injuries. They sport more-than-respectable defensive ratings of 107.3 and 105.8, respectively, compared to the league-average defensive rating of 112.3, and both reside comfortably in the top 10 for defensive rebounds per game. Certainly without a dearth of talent, the 76ers have also been bolstered by a mobile and versatile Ben Simmons, who proved his defensive prowess this season. With Embiid locking down the paint, Simmons is often pitted against opponents’ top guards, and his ability to slow both them and their playmaking abilities down is a defensive capacity that cannot be fully expressed with stats (though 1.6 steals per game certainly starts us off on the right track).
However, to ignore the consistency of Rudy Gobert and yet another superb defensive season of his would be insanity, and his case for Defensive Player of the Year is certainly the strongest. It is nearly impossible to poke holes in the incredible season of the Stifle Tower. He has a miniscule defensive rating of 100.9 and a league-leading 10.1 defensive rebounds per game. His 2.7 blocks per game trails only the Pacers’ Myles Turner, though Turner has only played 47 games compared to Gobert’s nearly-full-season 71. Additionally, his league-leading 8.00 defensive real plus-minus dwarfs nearly everybody else in the league (Clint Capela is second for the stat with a DRPM of 4.98). Finally, Gobert has almost single-handedly handed the best-record Utah Jazz the third best defensive rating in the league. Thus, although Simmons has cemented himself as one of the league’s top defenders, Gobert should be rewarded with his third Defensive Player of the Year award in the last four seasons.
Coach of the Year — Tom Thibodeau, New York Knicks
Vice President Eli Pattison ’22
Who could have possibly predicted before the season that the New York Knicks would have home court advantage for a first round playoff series? That the Knicks exceeded literally everyone’s expectations and put together one of the most surprising regular seasons by any team in the last decade is credit to their head coach Tom Thibodeau, my pick for NBA Coach of the Year.
This season’s field is a crowded one, with many candidates able to make a viable case as to why they are deserving. Monty Williams should be in the running for helping to turn the Suns from a team that missed the playoffs last year into the two seed in the West. Steve Nash deserves consideration for his ability to navigate injuries to his superstars, manage egos, and expertly craft different lineups in his first season as Brooklyn’s head coach. Quin Snyder also needs to be mentioned for outperforming expectations and coaching the dominant Utah Jazz to the NBA’s best record. However, all of these coaches have far more talent on their roster than Thibodeau does. It is likely that the Suns’ ascent to the top of the Western Conference had more to do with the addition of Chris Paul than Monty’s coaching, and both the Brooklyn and Utah rosters are stacked with all-star talent.
The Knicks were supposed to be awful this year. ESPN’s preseason RPM projections picked the Knicks to finish 13th in the Eastern Conference, with a 2% chance of making the playoffs. Their Vegas over/under win total of 22.5 was tied for the lowest in the league. It was hard to have much optimism for a team that finished 21-45 last season and whose biggest offseason acquisition was Nerlens Noel.
Thibodeau is a defensive-minded coach, and much of New York’s shocking improvement is due to the complete transformation of the Knicks’ defense in his first season. Under Thibs, the Knicks posted a 107.8 defensive rating this year, good enough for fourth in the NBA and a massive improvement over last season’s 23rd ranked defense. They also held their opponents to 44% shooting from the field and 34% from three, both of which were lowest in the league. They also ranked in the top five in opponent points off turnovers, fast break points, and points in the paint. Thibodeau transformed the Knicks with an organized defensive scheme that prioritizes full effort and accountability, things that the Knicks’ teams of the past have been lacking. He saw buy-in from the entire team, ranging from 2019 #3 overall pick RJ Barrett, who doubters were quick to call a disappointment after his rookie season, to Alec Burks, a ten-year NBA journeyman on his sixth team.
The Knicks’ turnaround this season was such a surprise that the Ringer published an article about their hot start when they were only 4-3. The fact that they finished 41-31 is downright shocking. Since they brought back essentially the same roster as the dismal 2019-2020 team, Thibs deserves most of the credit for their massive improvement in record and on defense in his first season. No coach did as much with as little to work with this year than Tom Thibodeau, the deserving Coach of the Year.