It's been nothing if not an absolutely historic season thus far in the NBA. With the Warriors breaking the 1996 Bulls' regular season wins record and the Spurs equalling the 1986 Celtics' record for home wins in a season, the all-time bonafides of the league's top two teams aren't in doubt.
Yet, the perception has been that outside of those two teams, it's been a lackluster season.
To an extent, that's true. The West, outside of Golden State and San Antonio, has lacked the depth and quality that's defined it in this millennium. In the East, even Cleveland's play didn't really grab a lot of casual fan attention. Elsewhere in the East, most of other playoff spots were been very solid, dynamic teams that really only diehard basketball fans watched regularly.
However, the quality of play in the NBA is still at an amazing level. If you have League Pass, the vast majority of games are very watchable. Both scoring and pace are at levels not seen since the early 1990s and late '80s, widely regarded as the best era in league history.
The fact that only two teams were truly great for this past regular season is a quirk of the best, most entertaining sports league in the world, and not something to be frowned upon.
Such an entertaining league needs its fair share of awards, and that's what I'm here to do today. I'll go through the individual awards first, and then the All-NBA teams.
MVP
Stephen Curry, Golden State
Others considered: None
There wasn't any doubt after what, the middle of November? Heck, you could say Curry won this award on Nov. 4 against the Clippers when he dominated the last 6 minutes of that game. That was each team's fifth game of the season.
You've probably heard all these statistics before, but they have to be repeated yet again. Better 50 percent on all shots, 45 percent on threes, 90 percent on free throws. Thirty points per game. Four-hundred three-pointers in 79 games. Sixty-three percent effective field goal percentage as the main ball-handler on a team.
Of course, that tells so little of the story. There's the fact that he's a threat to drain a shot anywhere past midcourt. Everyone even thinks his three-quarter court heaves are going in. His ability to make the best defenders in the world look like absolute clowns. The way his warmups are artistic, spectator events. How he's unquestionably the best player in the league now, when six months ago, LeBron James and Kevin Durant were in that conversation. And last but not least, how there's a non-trivial argument for him also being named Most Improved Player in the league while still being the reigning MVP.
We were all really, really lucky to have been able to watch Steph's unbelievable season this year.
Rookie of the Year
Karl-Anthony Towns, Minnesota
Others considered: Not really.
I feel like a lot casual fans don't realize the extent to which rookies, even high lottery picks, are supposed to, well, suck. The NBA is a really, really difficult place to keep a job as a player, and being thrown into that fire as a 19- to 22-year-old makes it nearly impossible to make a transition to true, high-level contributor right away.
Karl-Anthony Towns wasn't just a high-level contributor in his first NBA season, he's already a top-10 big man in this league. He's an elite defender, solid rebounder, excellent mid-range shooter and great finisher. It's going to be a treat to see the ways he gets better from this point.
And while he's the only possible choice for Rookie of the Year, the group he was head and shoulders above was not a lackluster batch of rookies. Players like Kristaps Porzingis, Nikola Jokic, Myles Turner, Devin Booker and Josh Richardson, among many more, should all improve over the coming seasons.
Coach of the Year
Gregg Popovich, San Antonio
Others considered: Terry Stotts, Portland; Rick Carlisle, Dallas; Steve Kerr, Golden State; Steve Clifford, Charlotte
Now we get to the awards you actually have to think about! It was tough not to give this to Steve Kerr for, you know, merely coaching the best regular-season team ever. But, he did miss half the season, and people would be absolutely livid if an individual player won an award only playing 40 games or so.
The typical formula with the COY award is to give it to the coach who most exceeded preseason expectations, which would mean it's Terry Stotts' to lose. Stotts is a fantastic, fantastic coach. But as I'll write a bit later, I think more credit should be given to Portland's front office for replacing four of five starters with some underappreciated young talent, and having immense faith in C.J. McCollum after his first two uneven, injury-filled years in the NBA.
So, I'll hand this to Gregg Popovich, who yet again changed the style of play for his team. And this time, in throwing the Spurs back to their grind-out, shutdown defense roots that won San Antonio its first titles in 1999 and 2003, he swam against a largely league-wide tide of up-tempo 3-and-D smallball.
Furthermore, he managed the continued growth of Kawhi Leonard into a bonafide two-way superstar perfectly, while incorporating an All-NBA free agent into the mix in LaMarcus Aldridge.
Defensive Player of the Year
Kawhi Leonard, San Antonio
Others considered: Draymond Green, Golden State; Paul Millsap, Atlanta; DeAndre Jordan, Los Angeles
Let's get this out of the way: There's not a wrong choice here. Draymond Green and Leonard are both extremely deserving of this award, and I'm kind of hoping that they tie for it. Leonard is this generation's Scottie Pippen, but Draymond routinely guards all five positions amazingly.
I'm giving this to Kawhi in this space, because only one team had a defensive rating under 100 this season, and it wasn't the one that won 73 games.
Most Improved Player
C.J. McCollum, Portland
Others considered: Kemba Walker, Charlotte; Jae Crowder, Boston; Giannis Antetokounmpo, Milwaukee
As I mentioned earlier, there's a bit of a case to give this award to Steph Curry, but I don't think it's a great argument. While Curry has improved immensely, this award should go to a player that's made a leap in standing across the league. Curry was a superstar a year ago and recognized as the league's best guard, and now he's recognized as the league's best player. That's not enough of a gap to win this award.
A year ago, Kemba Walker was the Hornets' leading scorer and a clutch assassin. He's been both those things in 2016, but he changed his shot this season, resulting in seven-point increases in his three-point percentage and effective field goal percentage. He was also the focal point of an overhauled offense, jumping from 28th to 9th in offensive efficiency.
However, I give this to McCollum, despite less dramatic efficiency jumps than Walker, as he was able to shoulder a huge increased load on a Portland team that was supposed to be in a rebuilding year and ended up as the 5 seed in the West.
Last season, McCollum played 500 fewer minutes on his team than Steve Blake. This season, he took 18 shots per game and had an eFG of 52 percent. The degree of difficulty to go from fourth guy off the bench to second scoring option and a 20 ppg player in mere months in the NBA can't be overstated.
Sixth Man of the Year
Andre Iguodala, Golden State
Others considered: Ed Davis, Portland; Jeremy Lin, Charlotte; Jamal Crawford, Los Angeles; Evan Turner, Boston; Will Barton, Denver
I don't love this award because it feels arbitrary and outdated. Also, it seems like the usual formula for it is that someone wins it for scoring 15 points a night off the bench without regard for defense or efficiency.
And let's be honest, most of the really good players in the NBA are starting because, you know, having them in the game when it tips off and playing them the most minutes increases that team's chances of winning. Most good coaches will now stagger the minutes of their star players, so the whole "bench mob" psychological effect of having a superior player come in during the traditional early 2nd and 4th quarter rest times is a bit minimized.
Jamal Crawford is probably winning this thing for the third time for shouldering some of the scoring load for the Clippers when Blake Griffin was out. He also shot just 40 percent from the floor, and I can't take that seriously for a major individual award.
So, despite Andre Iguodala missing nearly the whole month of March, and having career lows in shots, minutes and points, I'm giving this to him for being a defensive badass and reinventing himself as a low-usage/high-efficiency bench guy since the beginning of the 2014-15 season.
Executive of the Year
Neil Olshey, Portland
Others considered: R.C. Buford
This one wasn't quite as easy as MVP or Rookie of the Year, but it was close. All the credit in the world has to be given to R.C. Buford for finding the continued diamonds in the rough, like Boban Marjanovic and Jonathon Simmons, and for having a plan for a few seasons now to bring Aldridge into the fold, when high-profile free agent acquisition aren't exactly the "Spurs Way."
But you have to give this to Olshey, who only had four players, Damian Lillard, McCollum, Meyers Leonard and Chris Kaman (who played all of 112 minutes this season), return from last year's team. Even in this era of shorter contracts, that's absurd. Cobbling together a team that could win 35 games would be an accomplishment for a GM.
The Blazers then went on to win 44 games, only seven down from last season, and ended up with the same effective playoff seed.
This all happened with Portland being dead last in salaries paid. My favorite Olshey quirk is that, with Lillard in the last year of his rookie deal, the player that was the Blazers largest salary cap hit was Anderson Varejao. Of course, Varejao has never played a game for Portland, but was acquired at the trade deadline only to be waived so the Blazers could hit the salary floor.
Not only did Olshey immediately put together an better-than-.500 playoff team, he did it by acquiring low-cost assets like Al-Farouq Aminu, Ed Davis, Mason Plumlee and Mo Harkless, giving the Blazers tons and tons of cap space for the coming rising cap rises and Damian Lillard's possible super-max extension.
All-NBA Teams
1st Team
Stephen Curry
Russell Westbrook
LeBron James
Kawhi Leonard
Draymond Green
2nd Team
Chris Paul
Kyle Lowry
Kevin Durant
Paul Millsap
DeAndre Jordan
3rd Team
Damian Lillard
Klay Thompson
Paul George
LaMarcus Aldridge
Andre Drummond
Others considered: Anthony Davis, New Orleans; Isaiah Thomas, Boston; Karl-Anthony Towns, Minnesota; DeMarcus Cousins, Sacramento; Jimmy Butler, Chicago; James Harden, Houston; Al Horford, Atlanta; DeMar DeRozan, Toronto; Kemba Walker, Charlotte; Gordon Hayward, Utah
I had some key principles when selecting these teams, the main ones of which were that team success matters and defense matters. Moreover, the All-NBA teams should tell a story to someone years from now about the players who stood above the others in that particular season.
In the first team, the only question for me was what to do with Draymond Green. He's absolutely performed at a first-team level this year, but is he more important than LeBron or Kawhi in the forward spots? I don't think so.
But with Green logging a healthy number of minutes at center this year and, perhaps more importantly, his comfort in guarding centers, I put him in the center slot. It also helped that there wasn't an obvious center choice on the first team, like Dwight Howard, Joakim Noah or Marc Gasol have been in recent years.
Paul Millsap being on the second team will probably surprise some who didn't watch the Hawks a lot this year, but he was an obvious selection for me. He's a multi-dimensional beast, and only Kawhi and Draymond were better two-way players than Millsap this season. Chris Paul and Kevin Durant should be no-brainers as well, but Kyle Lowry was also a necessary inclusion with how consistent he was through the season and how he was a huge part of Toronto's defensive improvement.
DeAndre Jordan probably didn't have quite as good a season as he did last year when he was on the third team, but I give him immense credit for being the anchor of an improved Clippers defense. I also wasn't a huge fan of the other choices at center.
Andre Drummond was one of those other choices, and is a defense and rebounding stud, but he's even more of an intentional fouling liability at the line than Jordan. If he improves to even 55 percent from the line, or the NBA changes the rules about fouling off the ball, he has strong first-team potential.
Lillard, Paul George and Klay Thompson were all fantastic, and in many other seasons might be on a first or second team. But the talent pool is exceptionally deep in the league right now, and there just aren't spots for them above the third team.
Aldridge was a tough inclusion over Anthony Davis since he didn't really look like his usual self at times in the first half of the season. However, he was absolutely brilliant after the All-Star break for a team that had an outside chance to win 70 games going into the final week of the season. I didn't want to punish Davis for his team's issues and unexpected coaching downgrade from Monty Williams to Alvin Gentry, but his numbers were down a bit in most categories, and he played in a career-low number of games after getting shut down late in March.
DeMarcus Cousins and James Harden are the two most controversial exclusions here, but I had no qualms about leaving them out. They each scored a ton of points and always got to the line, but did so as major chemistry issues on up-tempo, disappointing and dysfunctional teams that couldn't defend anybody.
This past regular season may have not been quite as competitive as some recent years, but it was still mesmerizing, historic, and played at a very high level. The players, coaches and executives named above were among the biggest reasons it was so good.
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