My officially unofficial NBA awards ballot: All-NBA, All-Defense, All-Rookie
How I would have voted, if the league had afforded me a vote
Here we are again, breaking each of the awards down by category. I started yesterday with the individual awards and finish up today with the All-NBA, All-Defense, and All-Rookie teams.
As always, it is important to remember that if I didn’t vote for your favorite player or elected to place him lower on the ballot than you would have; it’s not because I hate and/or didn’t watch your favorite team — it’s obviously because I hate you, personally.
Without further ado, here we go…
Preseason Predictions: Jokic, Curry, Antetokounmpo, Tatum, Devin Booker (1st); Doncic, Damian Lillard, Joel Embiid, Gilgeous-Alexander, James; (2nd) Brunson, Bam Adebayo, Edwards, Haliburton, Davis (3rd)
For a long time, I thought I would like the positionless All-NBA format. Turns out I really, really do not. I actually like the structure the positional format afforded, better. It doesn’t bother me to go positionless, per se; it just made it more difficult for me to parse things between my Second and Third teams. But maybe I’ll feel differently as the years go by.
In any event, the First Team reflects my officially unofficial MVP ballot. No need for further discussion on that front. And as mentioned yesterday, Tatum and then Edwards were the final two cuts from said MVP ballot, so they were obvious inclusions for the Second Team. That left me with eight total spots for Leonard, Durant, James, Curry, Sabonis, Brown, and George; plus (alphabetically by last name) Bam Adebayo, Devin Booker, DeMar DeRozan, De’Aaron Fox, Rudy Gobert, Tyrese Haliburton, Tyrese Maxey, Victor Wembanyama, Derrick White, Jalen Williams, and Zion Williamson.
I don’t weigh things like “well, the Celtics won 64 games so they need to have a guy on First Team All-NBA” all that heavily, if at all. Some people factor that in. Some even make it determinative. That’s fine; I just don’t operate that way. To me, the reward for Boston’s 64 wins is the No. 1 seed and home-court advantage throughout the playoffs.
So, to use an example that is sure to go over extremely well based on the responses to yesterday’s post, Jayson Tatum does not get extra credit and bumped up to First Team because the rest of the Celtics were so amazing1, and Anthony Davis similarly doesn’t get dinged for the rest of the non-LeBron Lakers not being very good at all. I’m also not dinging Tatum for having good teammates nor giving Davis credit for having worse ones. I’m just trying to narrow down on their individual performance level. When someone like Tatum (or Brown, Derrick White, Kristaps Porzingis, Jrue Holiday, or Al Horford) scales back on individual production in pursuit of team success, that is naturally going to result in less individual recognition; notable, that was the entire point of them doing so.
In certain cases I may lean on team success — and specifically success with a player on the floor — as a tiebreaker; but if one player had a better season than another, I’m not going to elevate the latter player because his team happened to have a better record. We are looking for the 15 best individual seasons this year within the bounds of the eligibility rules.
All of that said, Davis’ defense, rebounding, and interior finishing were in many ways the foundation of L.A.’s success this season. LeBron obviously had more offensive responsibility and in the best shooting season of his career certainly merited inclusion on these teams, but the difference between L.A.’s defense and offense for most of the season until the stretch run led me to have AD on Second Team and LeBron on Third.
Kawhi ended up playing fewer games and minutes than it looked like he was going to for much of the year thanks to the injury that sidelined him down the stretch, but his outrageous two-way performance over the course of the season following the immediate post-Harden-trade losing streak was enough for me. It remains to be seen whether he can get back — or back to being that guy — for the playoffs, but 24-6-4 on 54-42-90 shooting with elite defense across a 58-game stretch of the year to first save L.A.'s season and then nudge the Clippers into the top half of the bracket felt good enough to me to get him onto the Second Team.
While the Suns were disappointing overall, KD himself was note. Devin Booker and Bradley Beal both missed stretches of the season, but KD was there throughout, easy-money sniping and being by far the most impactful defender on a team for which defense mostly seemed to be optional. His rim protection alongside Jusuf Nurkic often kept the Suns afloat on that end, and of course, he shot 52-41-86 while carrying a 29% usage rate in 37 (!!) minutes per game.
There is not much to say about Steph that hasn't been said a million times. Only a down season shooting from two-point range (51.5%) kept him from being higher on these teams. I tend to think De’Aaron Fox is the Kings’ best player, but they really leaned into Sabonis is the centerpiece of everything they did offensively this season and his playing all 82 games while being a metronomic 20-14-8 every single freaking night was just so impressive. His defensive shortcomings matter, but more so in the playoffs than the regular season, and these are regular-season awards.
My final two spots came down to Brown, George, and Tyrese Haliburton. Haliburton’s injury and subsequent shooting slump and especially his defensive slide ultimately led to my leaving off a player who looked for the first 40 or so games like he was going to make the First Team. Brown and George played both ends on a more consistent basis than Haliburton, and also ended up shooting either just as well (Brown) or significantly better (George) than Hali did this season.
Honorable Mentions (alphabetical order): Bam Adebayo, Devin Booker, De’Aaron Fox, Rudy Gobert, Tyrese Haliburton, Tyrese Maxey, Victor Wembanyama, Derrick White, Jalen Williams, Zion Williamson
Preseason Predictions: Jrue Holiday, Marcus Smart, Evan Mobley, Giannis Antetokounmpo, Wembanyama (1st); Caruso, Jones, Mikal Bridges, Draymond Green, Adebayo (2nd)
Gobert, Adebayo, and Wembanyama were locks as the top three players on my DPOY ballot. After that, it came time to parse positional value and how to weigh perimeter players against interior defenders given that interior defense is more valuable and has a greater effect on overall defensive performance.
Davis was the next-man-up on said DPOY ballot. I almost viewed him, Bam, and Wemby as interchangeable in the 2-3-4 spots, but you can only fill three slots. AD’s combination of rim protection and ability to defend in space is incredible. Herb Jones is the NBA’s best perimeter defender, bar none. He absolutely envelops opposing wings, and he can do the same to point guards and big men when called upon to do so. He is a modern marvel.
I ended up with a guard-heavy second team because I really felt like the White-Suggs-Caruso trio had outsized impacts on their teams’ defenses. Were it not for Jones, they all would have been in the mix for that final First Team spot. White just shows up every single night and, due to the way the Celtics decided to use Holiday this year, takes on the toughest perimeter matchup, and he just fucking wrecks opponents’ possessions on a consistent basis. Nobody in the league has a higher activity level on defense than Caruso. He is FLYING, and he is EVERYWHERE, all the time. I have sung Suggs’ praises throughout the season (see: the All-Dubin Teams), and have particularly enjoyed his work cutting off driving lanes and sharking into passing lanes.
McDaniels gets overshadowed by Gobert and, to a certain extent, the step forward Edwards took as a defender this season; but he shouldn’t. His size-length-agility combination is a rare one, and his ability to make things difficult for even the best scorers in the league is a significant part of the NBA’s best defense. The final spot came down to Holmgren and Giannis Antetokounmpo because two of my favorites were ineligible (see below). Chet’s centrality to his team’s defense and the superior nature and greater consistency of that defense tipped the scales in his direction.
Honorable Mentions (alphabetical): Giannis Antetokounmpo, Kentavious Caldwell-Pope, Lu Dort, Kevin Durant, Paul George, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Jrue Holiday, Kawhi Leonard, Brook Lopez; and Isaiah Hartenstein and Kristaps Porzingis (ineligible)
Preseason Predictions: Wembanyama, Holmgren, Thompson, Scoot Henderson, Taylor Hendricks (1st); Miller, Ausar Thompson, Jarace Walker, Lively, Julian Strawther (2nd)
Wemby, Chet, and Miller were obviously inclusions as the three players on my Rookie of the Year ballot. After that, I had a pretty tough time narrowing things down between players who had a lot of responsibility and did well with it for stretches of the season and not so well in others (George, Podziemski); extremely competent role players on good (or pretty good) teams (Jaquez, Lively); players who flashed such high-level production at times that it seemed wild to have to leave them off (Thompson, Jackson); and then a whole mess of guys including Camara and the ones listed below.
I tried as best I could to balance the various factors. I think George’s work as an actual legit point guard and shot creator for a significant stretch of the season merited his bump up to First Team. If Lively had played more games/minutes, I probably would have nudged him up in front of Jaquez, but Jaquez playing almost 900 more minutes was too significant a gap to make up. The versatility and consistency of Camara’s production across the entire season was ultimately enough to get him the nod ahead of players who had flashes of brilliance but ultimately only contributed for shorter stretches of the season.
Honorable Mentions (alphabetical): Bilal Coulibaly, Trayce Jackson-Davis, Jordan Hawkins, Vasa Micic, Craig Porter Jr., Duop Reath, Marcus Sasser, Cason Wallace
If you look at the totality of my ballots, I essentially end up saying that Boston had three top-25 overall players, three top-20 defenders, a top-seven sixth man, a top-six coach, and a top-two lead executive. How that equates to my apparently not giving the Celtics enough credit is a mystery to me, but apparently anything other than 1st place votes are an insult.