The actual NBA awards season won't kick off until April 19, but doesn't it make more sense to hand out hardware when memories of each team's defining players are still fresh? The playoffs are right around the corner, and they have a way of shoving half of the league out of our minds. Let's celebrate every squad's key figures now, before their accomplishments fade from memory. MVP is a must, but we'll try to stay flexible from there, using a team version of one of the other major awards to highlight praiseworthy contributors. Defensive Player of the Year, Sixth Man, Rookie of the Year, Most Improved and all the rest are available. Lastly, we'll come up with a miscellaneous catch-all to cover anything we missed. In all, that's 90 awards. Recipients, please keep those acceptance speeches on the short side. We've got a lot of these things to get through. MVP: Dejounte Murray The Atlanta Hawks are still clearly built around Trae Young, who graded out better than any of his running mates by Dunks and Threes' Estimated Plus/Minus and averaged a team-high 26.4 points and 10.8 assists. But Young's season ended with a hand injury after 51 games, which will result in Murray logging several hundred more minutes than him and every other Hawks player. In addition to that massive edge in quantity, Murray produced some quality stats while filling in as the full-time lead ball-handler during Young's time on the shelf. He'll head into the final week of the season averaging 22.5 points, 6.4 assists, 5.3 rebounds and 1.1 steals on a 55.8 true
shooting percentage that isn't all that far behind Young's 58.1 percent. Also notable: Atlanta's net rating with Murray on the floor is marginally better than it is with Young. Most Improved: Jalen Johnson A short-list candidate to win the leaguewide version of Most Improved until he officially fell short of 65-game minimum, Johnson is the no-brainer pick on his own team. During a legitimate breakout campaign, the preposterously athletic forward more than doubled his rebound and assist averages while adding over 10.0 points per game in scoring. Johnson is a hellacious transition threat and one of the game's best highlight-generators, but the 22-year-old also became a three-point shooter good enough to pull defenders out of the lane, opening up avenues for teammates. Guys who can punish defenders at close range like this shouldn't also be able to hit 35.6 percent of their triples—especially after converting under 29.0 percent in each of his first two seasons. Flying Under the Radar Award: Bogdan Bogdanović One wonders what Bogdanović has to do to get serious Sixth Man of the Year consideration. His best finish for that award was sixth place in 2021-22, and he's been more productive in each of the two seasons since. The combo guard is on pace to set a new career high in 2023-24 by cracking 2,200 minutes for the first time in his career while also hitting over 200 threes and leading Atlanta in Estimated Wins . His fit alongside either Murray or Young gave the Hawks lineup flexibility while ensuring they could operate, when healthy, with two dangerous pass-dribble-shoot threats in the backcourt at all times. MVP: Jayson Tatum Despite being the best player on the best team during the regular season, Tatum isn't going to get serious consideration for the real-deal MVP award. Maybe that's disappointing for him and Boston Celtics fans, but it's also a testament to Tatum's maturity. He recognized the depth of talent around him and sacrificed shots and touches for the good of the team. Considering Boston will be this year's only 60-win team and hasn't had anyone come close to loosening its grip on the East's top seed for months, his slight step back clearly paid off. And when a somewhat restrained season produces 27.2 points, 8.3 boards and 4.9 assists per game on a 47.4/38.0/83.5 shooting split, it speaks to just how dominant Tatum truly is. Defensive Player of the Year: Derrick White Five players in the entire league have accumulated at least 80 blocks and 70 steals this season, and White is the only guard among them. By that measure, the 29-year-old is the most disruptive backcourt defender in the league. Another way to frame it: White achieved the unimaginable feat of making Jrue Holiday the second-most impactful defensive guard on his own team. Better Than We Planned It Award: Kristaps Porziņģis and Jrue Holiday Holiday needn't feel too bad about White outshining him on D because the veteran guard managed to make such a difference on the other end. Maybe the 12.6 points per game don't leap off the page, but Holiday blew past his previous career high by hitting 43.3 percent of his triples and blocking more shots per 100 possessions than ever before. All fellow new addition Porziņģis did was become the best high-volume post-up player in the league while holding opponents to the lowest field-goal percentage inside six feet of any primary rim defender not named Rudy Gobert. Did we mention KP's three-point shooting also unlocked unstoppable five-out looks for Boston's league-best offense ? Everyone expected Holiday and Porziņģis to lift the Celtics, but these two exceeded even the most optimistic expectations. MVP: Mikal Bridges Anyone expecting Bridges to perform like the first-option star he resembled in 27 post-trade games with the Brooklyn Nets last year will leave 2023-24 feeling disappointed. That's a little unfair, as Bridges is still going to wind up leading the Nets in total points, assists, steals, made threes and minutes—all while routinely checking the opponent's most dangerous wing scorer. If his averages hold, Bridges will be one of four players in the entire league to average at least 20.0 points, 4.5 rebounds, 3.5 assists and 2.5 made threes across 70-plus games. Almost anyone in the league would take that as a disappointing "down year." Defensive Player of the Year: Nicolas Claxton It was tempting to go with Dennis Smith Jr. in this spot, as the backup guard again showcased some of the most smothering point-of-attack defense while also wreaking havoc off the ball. Smith actually tops Brooklyn by a mile with a plus-3.0 Defensive Estimated Plus/Minus, which puts him in the 98th percentile in that stat leaguewide. Claxton, though, is going to amass nearly 1,000 more minutes of court time. And that's to say nothing of how his combination of switchability and rim protection is harder to find than lockdown one-on-one perimeter defense. On track to finish with three times as many blocked shots as any teammate and holding opponents to a lower conversion rate inside six feet than DPOY candidate Anthony Davis (on roughly the same number of shots defended per game), Claxton is the clear pick here. Buckets Galore Award: Cam Thomas Your mileage may vary on Thomas' ability to play winning basketball, but his suspect defense and tunnel vision don't detract from a truly rare ability to generate shots and points against tough coverage. Thomas is Brooklyn's leader with 22.1 points per game, and nobody on the roster comes anywhere close to matching the number of pull-up shots he hit this season. His average of 3.1 isolation points per game is right around that of more celebrated alphas like Jalen Brunson and Paolo Banchero, and Thomas actually produced higher points-per-play rates than either of them. MVP: Miles Bridges The Charlotte Hornets' leader in total minutes, points, assists, steals and Estimated Wins , Bridges might have won this award if several other key players hadn't missed so much time. But with LaMelo Ball (22 games), Mark Williams (19) and Cody Martin (28) available for so few games, and with PJ
Washington, Terry Rozier and Gordon Hayward dealt away, the 25-year-old forward had MVP honors in the bag. We'll see if Charlotte's new ownership has an interest in keeping the free-agent-to-be around on a long-term deal this offseason. Rookie of the Year: Brandon Miller Ball was an All-Star in his age-20 season, and yet Miller showed enough as a rookie that he might have already taken over as Charlotte's most important young player. Thought to be more of a support piece than a future star, Miller exceeded expectations by adding new wrinkles ( self-sufficient scoring , a surprisingly tight handle, serious bounce ) to the length, defensive prowess and three-point shooting we knew he had. If his averages hold, Miller will be the only 2023-24 rookie to top 17.0 points per game while shooting at least 36.0 percent from long range. We Might Have Something Here Award: Tre Mann Late-season samples can be misleading, and there were reasons beyond the Oklahoma City Thunder's depth that limited his opportunities on his previous team, but Tre Mann looked like a legitimate rotation guard after coming aboard at the trade deadline. Mann has turned in 16 double-digit scoring games this season, and all but one of them came with Charlotte. Crafty on the ball and averaging nearly 5.0 assists per game with the Hornets, Mann, just 23, might be the kind of rising talent a rebuilder like the Hornets desperately needs. MVP: DeMar DeRozan The team-high 23.6 points would have gotten the
Job done on their own, but DeRozan's late-game performances put his MVP status over the top. Only the Golden State Warriors' Stephen Curry has more total close-and-late points than DeRozan this season, but
Chicago is a plus-91 in his 181 clutch minutes. That's miles better than the Dubs' plus-18 in Steph's 137 minutes. The Bulls are a Play-In team with a low ceiling as it is, but imagine where they'd be if not for the 23-15 record DeRozan helped them produce in the games where the score was within five points in the final five minutes. Most Improved: Coby White White's growth this season might be substantial enough to win him the real version of this award. He went from averaging 9.7 points and looking like an iffy third guard a year ago to 19.3 points per game and assured long-term starter status in 2023-24. This is White's fifth season, but he just turned 24 and may still have another level-up in him. With Zach LaVine going down and Lonzo Ball losing yet another season to injury, White's emergence was a real bright spot and might have been just as important to Chicago's survival as DeRozan's clutch heroics. Wait, He's Only Making How Much? Award: Ayo Dosunmu On most teams, White's three-year, $33 million contract would stand out as a screaming deal. But Dosunmu, who's on pace to set career highs with 12.0 points and 39.6 percent shooting from beyond the arc, signed for even less (three years, $21 million) last summer. Though he hasn't quite established himself as a front-line starter like White, Chicago's other breakout guard brings a level of energy and defensive intensity that should make him a positive two-way rotation piece going forward. MVP: Donovan Mitchell Mitchell won't crack the 65-game mark this season, but he was good enough prior to falling off the pace to figure prominently in the All-NBA discussion. Averages of 26.8 points, 6.0 assists, 5.1 rebounds and 1.8 steals show why Mitchell made his fifth straight All-Star Game, and the on-off data shows how badly Cleveland needed his production. On the year, the Cavs' net rating was a team-high 9.2 points per 100 possessions better with Mitchell on the court. Already established as a premium scorer, Mitchell deserves credit for committing more energy to defense and facilitation. Those assist and steal numbers above are both career bests. DPOY: Jarrett Allen Allen has a real argument to knock Mitchell off the team MVP perch. The 25-year-old center can't compete with Spida on the scoring front, but Allen was easily the most frequently available of the Cavs' Big Four. EPM grades Evan Mobley and several others as the more impactful per-play defenders, but Allen is going to log nearly 1,000 more minutes than his frontcourt partner. If there's one player most responsible for Cleveland finishing with a top-five defense for the second year in a row, it has to be Allen, its leader in blocks and defensive rebounds by a monstrous margin. Held It Down Award: Craig Porter Jr. You could alternately title this one the "Right Place, Right Time Award," as Porter had a knack for chipping in just when the ailing Cavs needed him. With Mitchell out of action for a Nov. 19 game against the Denver Nuggets, the undrafted rookie scored 21 points off the bench to secure a surprising 121-109 win over the defending champs. He also put up 19 points and eight assists in a 109-95 win over the Bulls in which Darius Garland, Mitchell, Evan Mobley and Caris LeVert all sat out. Porter was good enough to get his two-way deal converted into a four-year standard contract in February, meaning he'll be bringing shrewd court sense, the ability to pierce the paint and, of course, great timing to the Cavs rotation for the foreseeable future. MVP: Luka Dončić What's there to say? Dončić is putting up preposterous numbers on the season, logged a 73-point game and generates enough open threes for teammates that the Dallas Mavericks can put multiple defense-first players with reputations as non-shooters (Daniel Gafford, PJ Washington, Derrick Jones Jr., Dereck Lively II, Dante Exum) into lineups that, lately, have destroyed the competition. A good bet to lead the league in scoring, Dončić is also averaging over 9.0 assists and 9.0 rebounds while getting up over 10.0 threes per game for the first time in his career. A third-place MVP finish feels likely, and it's never been harder to figure out how playoff opponents will stop him from doing whatever he wants. Rookie of the Year: Dereck Lively II Rookies tend to struggle. Rookies tend to struggle on defense in particular. Rookie big men tend to struggle more than most. Lively may never be a three-level scorer, but he bucked trends by arriving in Dallas and immediately changing games for the better on D. Mobile, long, quicker afoot than most expected and a stellar lob threat on the other end, the 20-year-old, 7'1" center is a lock to post a positive DEPM . Opponents attempted 3.1 percent fewer shots at the rim with Lively in the game, a 90th-percentile figure among bigs—rookie or otherwise. The Sweet Sound of Silence Award: Kyrie Irving You know how art museums and classical concert halls tend to be quiet places? That's so you can devote your full attention to the art on display. For the first time in a while, the noise around Irving, whose game absolutely qualifies as fine art, didn't prevent anyone from appreciating him. Irving is on pace to average at least 25.0 points with a true shooting percentage above 60.0 percent for the second straight year. Only this time, all that production came without controversy or non-injury-related absences. Silence never sounded so good. MVP: Nikola Jokić To an even greater extent than Dončić in Dallas, it feels a little silly to make a team MVP case for Jokić. "Duh" doesn't quite cover it when you're dealing with a player very likely to win league MVP for the third time while leading everyone in the NBA (with at least 1,000 minutes) in on-off differential. The Nuggets' net rating jumps by 24.0 points per 100 possessions with Jokić in the game, right in line with the plus-24.8 he posted to lead the league a year ago. We know some of that swing owes to the lack of a difference-making backup, but most of it is about Jokić's unparalleled ability to dominate games with his brain. Nobody picks apart defenses like he does, and no single strategy has yet been devised to keep the Joker from exerting total control over the other nine players on the floor. Defensive Player of the Year: Aaron Gordon Peyton Watson might have a longer reel of "where'd that guy come from?" blocks, but Gordon's ability to hold up in isolation against lightning-quick guards, bruising bigs and everything in between means the world to Denver's scheme. With a plus-2.2 DEPM that ranks in the 94th percentile and a well-honed instinct for rotating into correct help position, Gordon is proof that great defense isn't always about block and steal rates. Overkill Award: Michael Porter Jr. The Xenomorph in the Alien movie franchise is a perfectly evolved killing machine. Strong, vicious, immune to fear and scarily clever. It's an apex predator, like the Nuggets. When MPJ goes on a heater, it's like the part where you find out the Xenomorph's blood is acid strong enough to burn through a spaceship's hull. Like, seriously? That feels unnecessary! Denver is 16-3 when Porter Jr. goes for at least 22 points this season. MVP: Cade Cunningham Even teams that tie the all-time record for consecutive losses have MVPs, and Cunningham handily earns that distinction for the Detroit Pistons. Jaden Ivey is the only Pistons player within even 300 points of his team-leading total, and Cunningham's hit rates from all over the floor improved over previous career highs. Considering Detroit's general lack of spacing and the clunky fit of virtually every backcourt teammate, it's impressive Cunningham was able to climb within a few percentage points of a league-average true shooting figure while also cranking up his assist rate. Cunningham will be the youngest of six players to average at least 22.0 points and 7.0 assists this year, and his supporting cast is nowhere near as accomplished as the ones surrounding the other five (Nikola Jokić, Luka Dončić, LeBron James, Damian Lillard and Trae Young). Rookie of the Year: Ausar Thompson Thompson would also earn Defensive Player of the Year for the Pistons if we allowed double dips, and the hyper-athletic 21-year-old actually has the best runner-up case for team MVP by some measures. Due mostly to his 97th percentile DEPM figure , Thompson is within spitting distance of Cunningham for the lead among Detroit players in Estimated Wins. If Thompson doesn't make four or five All-Defensive teams in the next half-decade, something will have gone shockingly wrong. Trust the Flashes Award: Jaden Ivey It's almost impossible for a guard to help an NBA rotation if he can't threaten defenses from deep, so it's understandable if you've sold your stock on Ivey after watching him hit 32.0 percent of his triples this season. Just know you're still not getting any of my shares. Despite the shooting struggles (it's also not ideal that a player with his downhill jets is hitting just under 50.0 percent of his twos), Ivey showed enough flashes during his second season to sustain the hopeful among us. Ivey has that sudden kind of burst that can't be taught, and he marries it with real craft as a finisher . It's way too early to give up on a player with athletic advantages like Ivey's. MVP: Stephen Curry Slippage should be the expectation in an age-35 season, and Stephen Curry certainly showed some. Of course, when downtrending numbers still get you a 61.5 true shooting percentage and the league record for clutch threes , it's a good illustration of how much more Curry could lose from his peak level and still grade out as a massive positive. Golden State still relies on Steph to a ridiculous degree, as its offensive rating loses 6.0 points per 100 possessions when he sits. In the clutch, Curry's impact is even more pronounced. He leads the league in total points when games get into official crunch time, an incredible achievement given how little incentive opponents have to cover anyone else. Rookie of the Year: Brandin Podziemski Podziemski is always going to struggle as a finisher, doesn't have the ability to create three-point looks for himself and totes a concerning 61.8 percent hit rate from the free-throw line. But the crafty left-hander injects pace and thoughtful passing into lineups that need them, and his knack for making winning plays was enough to earn him a spot in the first unit over franchise icon Klay Thompson for a good chunk of the year. A savant at tracking down loose balls and the league leader in charges drawn, Podziemski is also a flat-out elite rebounder for his position. It's a tight race right now, but with Kevon Looney's role dwindling, Podziemski is likely to lead Golden State in total boards on the year. Two Timelines Award: Jonathan Kuminga James Wiseman is long gone, Moses Moody can't ever seem to stick in the rotation and this year's rookies, while exciting, are ticketed for supporting roles. That leaves Kuminga as the lone torch-bearer for the Warriors' much-derided "Two Timelines" gambit. Good thing the third-year forward broke out in a big way. Overwhelmingly strong and an A-plus run-and-jump athlete, Kuminga became an ace rim-attacker this season. With the speed to blow past defenders, the bounce to finish over contests and the body control to draw shooting fouls at a rate that ranks in the 95th percentile among forwards, Kuminga seems like a player destined to generate posters and live at the line. That he also showed developing craft on pull-up jumpers, lockdown on-ball defense and vastly improved help instincts further underscores Kuminga's potential to become a two-way All-Star. MVP: Fred VanVleet Several factors contributed to the Houston Rockets re-emerging as a competitive franchise after three straight years in the cellar, but VanVleet's arrival in free agency might have been the most significant. In addition to bringing toughness, tenacious defense and badly needed adult-in-the-room energy, VanVleet is on pace to post a higher true shooting percentage and lower turnover rate than he did in his All-Star season of 2021-22. The 30-year-old's diminished shooting frequency was part of a pass-happier profile that'll see FVV put up an assist percentage over 30.0 for the first time ever while comfortably leading the Rockets at 8.1 assists per game. Most Improved Player: Alperen Sengün Prior to a gruesome ankle injury, Sengün probably would have won MVP honors over VanVleet. But because the breakout center's time off means he's going to finish no higher than fifth among Rockets in total minutes played, and because Houston's surge into the Play-In fight started right when he went out, Sengün will have to settle for Most Improved. With career highs in points (21.1), rebounds (9.3) and assists (5.0) per game, the third-year center provided proof of concept that he could be full-time offensive hub. A nasty-yet-skillful isolation game and slick passing made Sengün a tough cover all year who should have gotten more All-Star consideration than he did. This Time It Counts Award: Jalen Green It's not necessarily a bad thing, but we might have to blame Green for Sengün's lost team MVP. Had Green's annual late-season scoring
explosion not been integral to the best run of Houston's year, maybe we would have carried on believing Green was an empty-calorie scorer and Sengün was the glue holding the entire Rockets' operation together. March was easily the best month of Green's short career. He averaged 27.7 points, 6.3 rebounds and 3.9 assists while posting a 61.3 true shooting percentage across 15 games. And unlike past surges, Green's numbers led to team success. Houston won 13 of those 15 contests. MVP: Tyrese Haliburton Playing like a modern-day version of Steve Nash (with actual three-point shooting volume), Haliburton was among the league's top half-dozen MVP candidates before a hamstring injury changed his season. Everything that happened after the All-Star break still counts toward his total, but Haliburton's first-half numbers—21.8 points and 11.7 assists per game with a 62.6 true shooting percentage—feel more representative of the year he had. The Pacers looked like a truly special offense when Haliburton had his full giddy-up, sprinting up and down the floor, sharing the ball and racking up points. They haven't been quite the same since, but Haliburton is now a two-time All-Star and on the short list of the NBA's best offensive players. "Rookie" of the Year: Pascal Siakam Obviously, Siakam isn't a conventional rookie. But he's a first-year Pacer, and it would feel like we were ignoring one of the biggest stories surrounding the team if we didn't acknowledge (and celebrate) Siakam's arrival at the trade deadline. In a little less than half a season, Siakam is on track to lead Indy in points and rebounds per game. The Pacers' plus-3.7 net rating with the two-time All-NBA forward on the floor is well above their overall figure of plus-2.3, and a team that already liked to run got out in transition even more often with Siakam pushing the pace. A huge offseason payday is coming, but Siakam's fit has been good enough to justify it. Shock the System Award: T.J. McConnell Smart playoff teams will find ways to exploit him, probably limiting his minutes to specific matchups. But that shouldn't detract from the way McConnell put a charge into every game he entered this season. Perfectly happy to embrace Indiana's uptempo leanings, McConnell brought a jolt in transition and even managed to make half-court sets feel frenetic for the opposition. His off-time pull-ups in and around the paint made him just enough of a scoring threat to preserve passing lanes for shooters and cutters. McConnell won't figure heavily in Sixth Man of the Year voting, but there might only be a handful of players in the league who singlehandedly intensified the action like he did. MVP: Kawhi Leonard It was never a question of ability for Leonard, so it should come as no surprise that he's a lock for his first All-NBA team since 2020-21 after posting his healthiest season in eight years. Believe it or not, Leonard has a shot to log a career high in total minutes. How about that for load management? The numbers—23.7 points, 6.1 rebounds and 3.6 assists on a 52.5/41.7/88.5 shooting split—are as stellar as ever, and they come with fairly frequent flashes of the predatory steals and smothering stops that earned Leonard his pair of DPOY honors back in the day. It was truly refreshing to watch Leonard reclaim a full alpha role over such a long and uninterrupted stretch. Sixth Man of the Year: Norman Powell Among players who have appeared in at least 60 games while starting fewer than two of them, only Malik Monk and Bobby Portis have scored more points than Powell. And neither of them can sniff his 63.3 true shooting percentage. Powell is shooting 43.6 percent from deep, and his slashing attacks are critical to propping up a Clippers offense that sometimes looks a little slow and static. He's likely to finish the year as the only reserve to hit at least 150 threes and 130 free throws , making him the quintessential scoring spark off the bench. Embracing Reality Award: James Harden and Russell Westbrook Former greats don't tend to handle their career twilights gracefully. The same irrational confidence and single-minded drive that made them stars becomes a hindrance when skills and roles diminish. That's why we need to credit Harden and Westbrook for accepting supporting gigs behind Leonard and Paul George. Harden is shooting less frequently than at any point since 2010-11, but he's also well above his career hit rate of 36.4 percent from three. Westbrook's energy and (gasp!) defense off the bench have provided valuable jolts in LA, and it's no coincidence that the dozen games he missed with a fractured left hand were among the team's most uneven, producing a 6-6 record and making it hard to remember the juggernaut that reeled off a 25-5 stretch earlier this year. MVP:
LeBron James This award absolutely could have gone to Anthony Davis, who's been exceptionally durable all year and is about to become the first player since Kareem Abdul-Jabbar to average at least 24.0 points, 12.0 rebounds, 3.0 assists and 2.0 blocks with a true shooting percentage north of 60.0 percent. That said, LeBron James tops AD in EPM and Box Plus/Minus , and he has a more positive impact on the
Los Angeles Lakers' net rating swing . L.A. is 8.2 points per 100 possessions better with James than without, while Davis' impact is only plus-2.6. Plus, how do we deny James a team MVP when he's on track to hit over 41.0 percent of his threes for the first time ever and somehow improved across the board in his 21st season? No one should ever normalize 25.4 points, 8.1 assists and 7.3 rebounds per game in an age-39 campaign. DPOY: Anthony Davis Davis doesn't walk away empty-handed, as his 91st percentile DEPM is more than good enough to earn him some hardware on a Lakers team that doesn't have much else in the way of impact defenders. For the 12th year in a row, Davis is posting elite block rates while rarely fouling, and his 95th percentile defensive rebound rate is a career high. None of that accounts for a deterrent effect that might actually be more valuable than any of Davis' other contributions. Opponents attempt 3.4 percent fewer shots at the rim with AD in the game, one of the top reductions throughout the league. Still a Steal Award: Austin Reaves So what if he didn't get the nine-figure deal some of us thought was coming in 2023 free agency? And who cares if he's not in the highest tier of efficient scorers in the league anymore? Austin Reaves is still giving the Lakers 15.9 points, 5.6 assists and 4.4 rebounds with a true shooting percentage well above the league average . Production like that on a four-year, $53.8 million deal? That'd be a bargain at twice the price. MVP: Desmond Bane Bane has missed more games than any other team's MVP so far, but that's perfectly on-brand for this season's Memphis Grizzlies. No team was more devastated by injuries and absences than this one, which set the NBA record by using 31 different players. Despite missing two full months with an ankle sprain, Bane still leads all Grizzlies in Estimated Wins and Value Over Replacement Player , both of which are cumulative stats that should penalize him for so much time on the shelf. He'll finish the season with Memphis' highest scoring average (Morant excluded) and a comfortable lead in total assists. Overextended as an initiator (career-high 29.3 assist percentage ) and first-option scorer, Bane still managed to keep his true shooting percentage above the league average . DPOY: Jaren Jackson Jr. Jackson's defense this season fell short of the standard he set by winning DPOY in 2022-23, but he still led the Grizzlies in total blocks and steals while suppressing opponent shot frequency at the rim by 2.0 percent (81st percentile) and knocking down accuracy inside six feet by 8.2 percent . Jackson isn't in the running to repeat as the NBA's Defensive Player of the Year, but he did more than enough to earn that distinction on his own team. Look What We Found! Award: GG Jackson II Vince Williams Jr. is going to finish no lower than fourth among Grizzlies in total minutes played, and it's hard to imagine how much worse off his team would have been if not for his steady playmaking and terrific backcourt defense. The No. 47 pick in 2022 emerged from obscurity to become an adequate starter. Though Jackson can't match Williams' playing-time volume or scoring efficiency, the rookie's upside makes him far more intriguing. The youngest player in the league this season, Jackson was expectedly inconsistent. But he showed off everything from Eurostep finishes in transition to smooth step-back three-point shooting when he hung 35 points on the Warriors in a March 20 loss, part of an 11-game streak of double-figure scoring. MVP: Jimmy Butler The Miami Heat outscored the opposition by 194 points in Butler's 1,762 minutes through the end of March. Though Bam Adebayo is on pace to finish with over 400 more minutes than Butler, Miami is only plus-30 during his court time across the same span. That underscores Butler's indispensability to a Heat team sorely lacking reliable shot creation. In his age-34 season, Butler's per-36 numbers are closely in line with the ones that earned him an All-NBA second-team nod last year. He'll finish with fewer than 65 games and therefore be ineligible for his sixth career All-NBA nod, but he's been essentially the same two-way star when on the floor. DPOY: Bam Adebayo Rudy Gobert's return to form and Victor Wembanyama's emergence mean Adebayo won't win Defensive Player of the Year, but he's one of five or six players whose name has to come up in the conversation. Still underwhelming as a rim-protector, Adebayo makes an impact as one of the most matchup-proof switch defenders in the league. His athleticism and mobility make attacking him in space a non-starter, and it's also worth noting that his defensive rebound rate is at career-best levels, ranking in the top 10 percent among bigs for the first time in his career. Cool Moves; Where'd You Get 'Em? Award: Duncan Robinson Robinson proved in last year's playoff run that he was more than a long-range threat, uncorking surprising fake-and-go drives and much more off-the-bounce verve than defenders expected. So it's not quite right to say he unlocked totally new dimensions in his game this season (while also getting his three-point percentage up above 40.0 percent for the first time since 2020-21). But where'd this come from? Heat fans would have passed out if you showed them a Duncan Robinson behind-the-back smitty a few years ago😭 pic.twitter.com/RIBIieZrb7 Robinson is on track to eclipse his previous career highs in assists and free-throw attempts per game, developments that stem from his increased comfort as an on-ball weapon. With his 30th birthday coming during the first week of the playoffs, Robinson is proof it's never too late to add some new wrinkles. MVP: Giannis Antetokounmpo A likely top-five finisher for the real award, Antetokounmpo is finishing up what's quietly been one of the best seasons of his decorated career. He's never averaged more than the 6.5 assists per game he's currently handing out, and he's already set a new career high with a league-leading 820 made field goals. If his averages hold, he'll produce the first season of at least 30.0 points, 11.0 rebounds and 6.0 assists since Oscar Robertson did it over 60 years ago . Clutch Player of the Year: Damian Lillard Only Stephen Curry and DeMar DeRozan will finish with more total clutch points than Dame, who added to his career list of ice-cold game-winners when he drilled a deep, leaning three at the buzzer in overtime to beat the Sacramento Kings on Jan. 14. The Milwaukee Bucks are plus-78 in Lillard's 134 clutch minutes , and only Stephen Curry has hit more triples in close-and-late situations. For a Bucks squad that so often struggled with late-stage offensive execution, Lillard has been the as-advertised solution. How'd He Only Get the Minimum? Award: Malik Beasley Say what you want about his suspect perimeter defense and how he and Lillard basically functioned as turnstiles for opposing guards all season, but don't let that obscure the fact that Beasley is on track to start almost 80 games while hitting 42.0 percent of his threes. Players on one-year minimum salaries are sometimes lucky to see 80 minutes in a season. Beasley isn't perfect, but he's still easily one of the biggest bargain signings of 2023 free agency. MVP: Anthony Edwards Defense is the real strength of the Minnesota Timberwolves, but Edwards garners team MVP honors for his impact on the other end. Minnesota puts up an offensive rating that'd rank just outside the top 10 with Edwards in the game but falls to bottom-three territory when he sits. Rudy Gobert is the main reason Minnesota is tops in defense, but he has help from the likes of Jaden McDaniels, Nickeil Alexander-Walker, Kyle Anderson and even Edwards. Meanwhile, if the Wolves take Ant off the floor, nobody has been capable of preventing their offensive efficiency from falling off a cliff. His 26.1 points and 5.1 assists matter more here than they might on another team with better offensive depth. DPOY: Rudy Gobert Gobert is highly likely to collect the real-deal Defensive Player of the Year award this season, putting him in the rare four-timers club alongside Dikembe Mutombo and Ben Wallace. No one who defends as many close-range shots per game as Gobert comes close to limiting opponent accuracy like he does, as his 48.3 defensive field-goal percentage inside six feet is nearly two full percentage points lower than the man at No. 2, Kristaps Porziņģis. In addition to his typical paint dominance, which also includes knocking down opponent attempt rates near the rim by 5.5 percent, a 98th percentile difference , Gobert has looked better defending in space. Best Rotation Player Nobody Recognizes Award: Nickeil Alexander-Walker Neither of his first two teams, the New Orleans Pelicans and
Utah Jazz, seemed to know what to do with NAW. So the 6'5" Canadian spent time as a point guard, a bench gunner, a wing stopper and everything else in between across his first few seasons. None of those roles totally stuck, but the experimentation helped make him ready for anything. So when the Wolves need someone to bring the ball up and initiate offense, Alexander-Walker and his 73rd percentile assist rate among wings can do that. When they need someone to check Desmond Bane or Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, NAW's two most frequent matchups this season, he can handle that, too. And when an offensively starved squad is desperate for someone to get buckets, Alexander-Walker can casually erupt for 28 points, like he did in an 18-point thumping of the Clippers on March 12. MVP: Depth Zion Williamson would be the easy pick, and Brandon Ingram a logical second choice. But this year's New Orleans Pelicans aren't where they are because of their stars. In fact, the Pels' net rating is 6.1 points per 100 possessions worse with Zion on the floor than off, and Ingram's on-off impact is just barely positive. New Orleans' preferred starting five—CJ McCollum, Herbert Jones, Ingram, Williamson and Jonas Valanciunas—has been outscored in over 900 possessions together. That's why we have to make this MVP a one-off exception that acknowledges Trey Murphy III, Jose Alvarado, Dyson Daniels, Larry Nance Jr., Naji Marshall and even rookie Jordan Hawkins. Those reserves ensure New Orleans always has five difference-making forces on the floor, something most teams can't pull off. When the Pelicans start peppering in one or two bench players, usually midway through the first quarter and then throughout the game, good things happen. DPOY: Herbert Jones Jones is probably the best wing defender in the league, a rangy terror off the ball and a suffocating smotherer on it. On pace to be one of three players to log at least 2,000 minutes with block and steal rates over 2.0 percent, Jones' disruptive impact is beyond question. And when tasked with locking down the toughest individual assignments, he excels. Jones has spent more time on Paul George and Shai Gilgeous-Alexander than other matchups this season, and he's held both below 40.0 percent from the field. Secret Ingredient Award: Trey Murphy III Slot Murphy into Williamson's spot alongside the other four regular starters and, boom, you get a plus-20.6 net rating. Replace Ingram with Murphy in the first unit and, wham, plus-7.4. Toss him out there with Williamson and three backups and, holy smokes, a plus-29.6 net rating results. Four of the five most used units that include Murphy are well into the black, and three of them are plus-20.0 or better . It's almost like having a deadly shooter with ultra-deep range, great length on the wing and a propensity to attack the rim like it insulted him tends to juice the lineup data. MVP: Jalen Brunson Any time a player takes 47 shots and it kind of feels like he had to for his team to stay in the game, it's a good sign he's said team's MVP. Brunson's high-volume night against the San Antonio Spurs on March 29 netted him 61 points and included the most attempts since Kobe Bryant's 50-shot farewell game in 2016. On track for an All-NBA nod and sure to set new career highs if his current 27.9 points and 6.6 assists per game hold, Brunson is the reason the
New York Knicks still have a shot at a top-four seed despite myriad injuries and several weeks without a single member of their starting frontcourt available. Clutch Player of the Year Award: Josh Hart and Miles McBride This isn't a clutch award in the conventional sense, but instead one that acknowledges two Knicks players who stepped up at a critical time. With several key teammates out due to injury, Hart and McBride met playing-time demands that seemed extreme even for Tom Thibodeau, perhaps the hardest-driving, old-school, "play him until he drops" coach in the league. Hart averaged 41.6 minutes per game in March and played every second of a seven-point win over the Warriors on March 18. McBride saw 35.5 minutes per game last month, topping 43 minutes eight times. These two will be living in cold-plunge tubs all summer. Let It Fly Award: Donte DiVincenzo DiVincenzo has never been better, and he's never shot more threes. This doesn't feel like a coincidence. One of the best mid-level signings of the summer, DiVincenzo has missed just one game all season and is in a dead heat with Hart for the Knicks lead in appearances. On track for a career high 15.3 points per game, DiVincenzo added over 3.0 long-range attempts per contest to last year's average, sacrificing nothing in terms of efficiency. On the year, he's third in the league in total threes made and is the only guy averaging under 29.0 minutes per game to crack the top 10. MVP: Shai Gilgeous-Alexander SGA hasn't just been the best guard in the league this season. He's finishing up one of the best years we've ever seen from a backcourt player. Just seven other guards have ever averaged at least 30.0 points and 2.0 steals, each of them first-ballot Hall of Famers. That number shrinks to three—Michael Jordan, Stephen Curry and James Harden—if you also require a true shooting percentage above 60.0 percent. Gilgeous-Alexander is a little unlucky to be putting up such a brilliant season during Nikola Jokić's prime, and Luka Dončić's late surge could result in a third-place MVP finish. But among Thunder players, there's no doubt about who's mattered most in 2023-24. Most Improved Player: Jalen Williams Williams should win the NBA's actual Most Improved Player award after lifting his game from quality-starter status to that of a full-blown star. J-Dub's three-point hit rate is up to elite levels now at 43.1 percent, and that's while generating far more self-created off-the-dribble looks than he did a year ago. Capable of running the offense from the point, working his way to the right elbow for fading jumpers he seemingly never misses and getting all the way to the basket with authority, Williams is showing flashes of a ceiling that resembles a strange combination of Kawhi Leonard and James Harden. Nobody's saying he'll match the careers of those all-timers, but a second-year leap this massive means we have to start invoking major names when drawing comparisons. Three's Not a Crowd Award: Chet Holmgren This could be alternately titled "Guy Who Would Have Run Away With Rookie of the Year In Any Normal Season" Award, but there's more than one way to honor Holmgren's stellar efforts. Between SGA and J-Dub, the Thunder have a pair of high-end shot creators and two-way stars. Holmgren gives them a stretch big who can defend the rim and even create his own looks against mismatches. The way he forces defenses to expand their zones of coverage creates space on offense. His back-line help allows for more aggressive schemes on the defensive perimeter. OKC was going to be in good shape with Gilgeous-Alexander and Williams, but Holmgren is the one who'll allow this team to become more than the sum of its parts. MVP: Paolo Banchero An All-Star for the first time, Banchero's solid step forward as an offensive player might not be getting the credit it deserves because the Orlando Magic are so defined by their play on defense. After falling just short of the modest 30.0 percent mark from deep as a rookie, Banchero is hitting a respectable 35.1 percent of his triples now. Combined with an uptick in his assist numbers from 3.7 to 5.3 per contest, the 2022 No. 1 overall pick is rounding into form as a multi-pronged threat. He's on track to lead the Magic in total points, rebounds and assists while hitting over 100 more free throws than his next closest teammate. DPOY: Jalen Suggs Suggs' offensive strides are even more significant than Banchero's. After making just 21.4 percent of his treys as a rookie and 32.7 percent a year ago, Suggs' shiny 40.1 percent knockdown clip from deep means defenses can no longer ignore him as a spot-up shooter. Still shaky on the handle and a long way from grasping the nuances of pick-and-roll ball-handling, the third-year guard's shooting means he has bankable offensive value now. Enough about that, though. Suggs' offense is secondary to some of the best backcourt defense in the entire league. Seemingly unscreenable and a nightmare to attack in space, Suggs instructs his matchups on what it's like to be attacked by a swarm of hornets. He's everywhere at once, inducing a level of panic that flips the offense-defense dynamic, rendering the ball-handler the one under threat. Per-Minute Defensive Player of the Year: Jonathan Isaac Isaac is the
basketball equivalent of a major league pitcher who comes into the game and throws 105 miles per hour but can't be used for more than a batter or two. If there were no volume requirement for Defensive Player of the Year, and all that mattered was the sheer level of dominance a player exhibited whenever he was on the floor, you'd be hard-pressed to find anyone more deserving than the Magic's rangy big man. Isaac is barely playing more than 15.0 minutes per game, but he's capable of guarding all five positions, defending the rim and blowing up plays wherever they're initiated. He has the highest DEPM in the entire league and is joined only by Victor Wembanyama among players who've logged at least 50 games with a block rate above 7.0 percent and a steal rate above 2.0 percent. MVP: Joel Embiid The 65-game requirement has no sway here, which allows the Philadelphia 76ers' obvious MVP to earn an award for playing about half of a season. Embiid was averaging a league-leading 35.3 points per game alongside 11.3 rebounds and a career-high 5.7 assists when he went down on Jan. 30. At the time, the Sixers were 29-17 and within a couple of games of top-seeded Boston in the East. From that point until he returned on April 2, the 76ers went 11-18 with a minus-4.9 net rating that ranked 22nd in the league. If that doesn't state an MVP case, nothing does. Most Improved Player: Tyrese Maxey Maxey's case for leaguewide MIP is tricky. Shouldering a much larger load than ever before, he upped his per-100-possession scoring, rebounding and assist rates while getting to the foul line at a career-best frequency. Anyone who says he's undeserving of MIP consideration on the grounds he simply played more minutes hasn't been paying attention. Maxey was a deserving first-time All-Star. That said, his increased usage and scoring volume came with a significant drop in efficiency. After posting a 60.5 true shooting percentage last season, he's down to 57.2 percent this year, right at the league average. And he couldn't keep the Sixers from plummeting down the standings when Embiid went out. Falling short of the real award doesn't do anything to change the fact that Maxey clearly grew the most of anyone on his own team. Thanks For Being There Award: Paul Reed The Sixers didn't want to rely on Reed as much as they had to, but the backup center gave them everything they could have wanted when pressed into duty as a starter. Lineups featuring Reed at center have a plus-2.3 net rating on the season, and the most used iteration of Reed-at-5 groups (which includes Maxey, De'Anthony Melton, Kelly Oubre Jr. and Tobias Harris) is a plus-15.1 over 150 possessions. As a starter in place of Embiid, Reed averaged 10.3 points and 7.6 rebounds while hitting 52.5 percent of his shots from the field in 25.8 minutes per game. That 11-18 mark during the two months without Embiid would have been a lot worse if not for Reed. MVP: Kevin Durant Devin Booker deserves credit for taking on a new role (and he'll get it momentarily), but Durant has been the Phoenix Suns' best player over the course of the season—and especially when his team needed him most. Injuries kept Booker out of all but two of the Suns' first 10 games, and Beal appeared just six times prior to
Christmas. Durant adopted the iron-man mantle to compensate, playing 19 of the Suns' first 21 games and ranking fourth in the league with 36.6 minutes per game through Dec. 2. Remarkably, his full-season minutes-per-game figure has gone up since then, putting him on track to log more total court time than he has in any season since 2013-14. The Suns are fighting to avoid the Play-In, but they might be a lottery team if not for Durant's durability and efficient 27.5 points per game. Most Improved Player: Grayson Allen Always a dangerous long-range shooter, Allen is on track to lead the league in three-point percentage while setting new career highs in points (13.4), assists (3.1), rebounds (3.8) and Box Plus/Minus. Though he'd eclipsed the vaunted 60.0 percent true shooting threshold in three of the four seasons before this one, the 28-year-old is all the way up at 68.7 percent in 2023-24. Who Needs a Point Guard? Award: Devin Booker High assist numbers are nothing new for Booker, who averaged 6.8 and 6.5 dimes per game in 2019-20 and 2020-21, respectively. He's narrowly ahead of his previous career high with an average of 6.9 this season, and much has been made of that number among those lauding Booker for playing a significant amount of point guard for a Suns team that never deigned to sign an established player at the position. The real indicator of Booker's growth has nothing to do with assists, though. To really appreciate the role at which he's now excelling, look to his turnovers. He's coughing up the ball just 2.5 times per game. The only other players averaging as many assists and as few turnovers as Booker this year: Tyrese Haliburton, Fred VanVleet, Damian Lillard and Tyus Jones. It's also pretty cool when your starting point guard can get you 50-plus points three times . MVP: Malcolm Brogdon Brogdon hasn't played since early February when an elbow injury knocked him out of the lineup. It's hard to imagine him returning to add to his season total of 39 games. That he winds up as his team MVP says everything you need to know about the Portland Trail Blazers' season. Brogdon is Portland's leader in Estimated Wins and EPM, with the former being a cumulative stat. So, yes, you're reading that correctly: A guy who'll play less than half the season provided the most total catch-all value. In addition to that, Brogdon has the best net plus/minus of any Portland player who logged at least 1,000 minutes. His minus-81 only looks bad until you compare it to the ones produced by Jerami Grant and Anfernee Simons, both of which are over four times worse. Rookie of the Year: Scoot Henderson Most metrics have Duop Reath, Toumani Camara and, well...almost every other rookie on planet Earth grading out as more positively impactful than Henderson was this season. We're giving him something of a pass for his brutal first year and focusing on the long-term upside and flashes of potential that made him the No. 3 pick. In his best moments, Henderson shows you what he can become. He makes good transition reads that belie an unselfish makeup. He uses his strength to put frail defenders all the way under the basket before rising to finish. He freezes his man with deft hesitation dribbles. We didn't see nearly enough of those skills this season, but they're there. Diamond in the Rough Award: Dalano Banton It's not the second half of a drain-circling Blazers season if a young player doesn't put up intriguing numbers while nobody's paying attention. Anfernee Simons did it two years ago, Shaedon Sharpe surged late in 2023, and Banton is taking his turn now. A point guard listed at 6'9", Banton came over from the Cetlics for a second-rounder that almost definitely won't convey and cash considerations. He has arguably been the Blazers' best player for over a month, racking up 28 points, 11 rebounds and five assists against Houston on March 25 and following it up with 31 points, nine assists and five rebounds against the Hawks on March 27. Quick, long and shooting well above his career average of 30.9 percent from deep since coming to Portland, Banton's $2.2 million team option for next year will be an easy call for the Blazers. He's done enough to warrant rotation minutes going forward. MVP: De'Aaron Fox The Sacramento Kings fell apart when Domantas Sabonis played without De'Aaron Fox, getting outscored by 5.9 points per 100 possessions . Reverse that to filter possessions when Fox played without Sabonis, and the Kings' net rating spikes to plus-2.8 . The big man's double-double streak captured loads of attention, but the fact remains Fox is the Kings' most important player and the biggest key to their success. Another All-NBA nod is probably a long shot with Fox's scoring efficiency dipping from 59.9 percent true shooting to 56.3 percent, but he's averaging a career-high 26.3 points and 2.0 steals while leading the Kings in EPM . Sixth Man of the Year: Malik Monk An MCL sprain ended Monk's season early, but he had Sixth Man of the Year in the bag a long time ago. No reserve comes close to Monk's 98 clutch points , a total that ranked among the league's top 10 (between Giannis Antetokounmpo and Paolo Banchero) when he went down with that ill-timed knee injury. Though he scores like a conventional bench gunner, Monk's assist rate ranks in the 99th percentile among wings. Nobody in the NBA has a higher assist rate on as many drives as Monk averages per game. This Guy's Going to Matter Award: Keon Ellis Monk's shelving coincides with a season-ending shoulder injury for starter Kevin Huerter. With Davion Mitchell still struggling to scare defenses with his perimeter shot, an already thin Kings guard rotation slimmed down considerably ahead of the playoffs. Thankfully, Ellis emerged this year as a stout defender and energetic force whose 39.4 percent shooting from deep means he'll be much harder to play off the floor in the postseason. After appearing in just 16 games last year, the undrafted free agent is now a critical piece of Sacramento's starting and closing units. MVP: Victor Wembanyama Wemby would almost sweep every major award for the San Antonio Spurs if we allowed for multiple wins. He's obviously the Rookie of the Year; no one has ever matched the debut-season pace he's on in averaging at least 20.0 points, 10.0 rebounds, 3.0 assists and 3.0 blocks. Likely to finish among the top three or four in leaguewide DPOY voting, he'd handily win that among Spurs, too. Throw in Most Improved if you simply compare where Wemby was in October to where he is now, and don't forget his team lead in clutch points, field goals, free throws, rebounds and blocks. The only honor he'd fail to win would be Sixth Man of the Year, though you could argue his length kind of makes it seem like the Spurs have an extra guy on the floor. With numbers no rookie has ever produced, one of the most profound defensive impacts in the league and inimitable highlights , Wembanyama was the best part of San Antonio's season on several fronts. Most Improved: Jeremy Sochan The Spurs didn't exactly set up Sochan to succeed, trying him out at point guard for an opening stretch of the season and insisting on keeping him in a starting role when someone who could provide better spacing would have made more sense alongside Wemby. Nonetheless, Sochan made meaningful gains as a passer and shooter, topping last year's assist rate and three-point accuracy marks. His one-handed free-throw technique yielded a 77.1 percent conversion rate from the stripe, far better than last year's 69.8 percent clip. Overshadowed Award: Devin Vassell For the fourth straight year, Vassell increased his points, assists and free-throw makes per game, quietly setting new career highs in those categories along with personal bests in two-point accuracy and minutes played. A foot injury knocked Vassell out for the season at the end of March, but 2023-24 represented another step forward for one of the best young wings in the league. Wembanyama's presence moved everyone else into the background, but Vassell should be acknowledged for continuing to progress toward a "prime Khris Middleton" level of understated stardom. MVP: Scottie Barnes Sixty games is a low total, but Barnes is still going to wind up leading the
Toronto Raptors in total points, assists, rebounds, blocks and steals. Unless Tom Thibodeau takes over for their final few games and gives Gary Trent Jr. the Josh Hart playing-time treatment, Barnes is probably also going to play more minutes than any of his teammates. His five-category excellence and relative durability underscore what was a true breakout season. If he'd qualified, Most Improved Player would likely have been Barnes' to lose. Most Improved: RJ Barrett Better spacing probably had something to do with it, and maybe not being one of three or four lefties in a lineup unclogged some driving lanes, but Barrett was a much better version of himself after the Knicks traded him to the Raptors with Immanuel Quickley for OG Anunoby. The sample is small, but Barrett went from shooting 33.1 percent from deep as a Knick to 42.5 percent as a Raptor. His two-point hit rate improved by an even larger margin, climbing from 46.9 percent to 59.9 percent. More assists, more rebounds, more shots at point-blank range —Barrett's entire profile changed for the better on his new team. Better Late Than Never Award: Masai Ujiri If the Raptors had a nickel for every time critics begged them to choose a direction, they could have put a new retractable roof on the Scotiabank Arena. Outdoor January hoops in Toronto? Who's in? Much to the relief of everyone clamoring for the Raps to either commit to their vets or trade them for future value, Ujiri and Toronto's front office finally went with the latter. Anunoby went to the Knicks ahead of his 2024 free agency, and Pascal Siakam landed on the Pacers. The Raptors didn't repeat the same mistake of holding onto players who could walk away for nothing like Fred VanVleet did a year ago. Quickley, Barrett and three future first-round picks were the main incoming pieces from those two deals. Together with Barnes, those assets position Toronto to build its next great team. MVP: Lauri Markkanen Likely capped at 55 games after aggravating a shoulder impingement in late March, Markkanen won't earn the same recognition he did during his breakout 2022-23 campaign when he made his first All-Star appearance and won Most Improved Player. Would it surprise you to learn that by many measures, Markkanen was even better this season? The 26-year-old shot more threes per game and hit them at a higher clip, upped his free-throw percentage to 89.9 percent, cut his turnovers and basically maintained last year's per-minute scoring and rebounding rates. Much of the Utah Jazz's second half went ignored as they pivoted into a tank, but Markkanen quietly produced a plus-3.6 BPM right in line with last year's plus-3.8. Rookie of the Year: Keyonte George George's three-point shooting fell off a cliff after the All-Star break, but that dive coincided with taking over as a full-time starter and top facilitator. The expanded role matters more than the accuracy dip, as George strongly cemented himself as the starting point guard of the future in Utah. On track to play more total minutes than any Jazz rookie since Donovan Mitchell, George showed plenty of encouraging flashes as an aggressive paint-attacker and big-shot taker. If his efficiency nudges up toward the league average, he'll be a quality first-unit option for a long time. Get This Guy Away From Me Award: Kris Dunn Rest assured, this made-up award title is a compliment meant to highlight the level of disruptive harassment Dunn visits on any offensive player unlucky enough to be near him on the floor. Dunn blankets his assignment on the ball, mirroring his opponent's moves and cutting off angles with his quick feet. His hands are even better, as Dunn ranks fifth in the league in deflections per 36 minutes among players who've logged at least 1,000 minutes. MVP: Deni Avdija Kyle Kuzma and Jordan Poole averaged more points and handed out more assists, but both spent the season playing what could charitably be described as unserious basketball. In contrast, Avdija competed hard on defense (as usual) and made real strides toward becoming a more complete offensive force. In addition to setting new career highs in points, rebounds and assists per game, Avdija handily led all Wizards in EPM and Estimated Wins while tying Tyus Jones in estimated RAPTOR Wins Above Replacement. He also made over half of his shots from the field and blew past his previous career best of 31.7 percent from deep. If he's really a 38.0 percent marksman, Avdija has an outside shot of making an All-Star team or two in the next few seasons. Rookie of the Year: Bilal Coulibaly A fractured wrist removed the most exciting element of the Wizards' season in mid-March, but Coulibaly showed enough athleticism, surprisingly competent three-point shooting (34.6 percent) and all-around potential to run away with this award. Just 19, the No. 7 pick wasn't nearly as raw as his pre-draft billing, and his upside means he's already the most important player on the roster going forward. Caretaker Award: Tyus Jones Jones is nothing if not historically careful, yet again ranking first in assist-to-turnover ratio among players who appeared in at least 50 games. He's either won or shared that crown for six straight seasons. Add to that a team-best 41.4 three-point percentage, best among Wizards players who took at least one triple per game, and Jones was a steadying force for an otherwise chaotic team. The Wizards typically wouldn't have a use for a solid-but-unspectacular veteran as they continue their rebuild, but Jones' steadying presence makes him someone worth bringing back in free agency. Stats courtesy of NBA.com , Basketball Reference and Cleaning the Glass . Accurate entering games on April 5. Salary info via Spotrac . Grant Hughes covers the NBA for Bleacher Report. Follow him on
Twitter ( @gt_hughes ), and subscribe to the Hardwood Knocks podcast, where he appears with Bleacher Report's Dan Favale .