The Official 2018-19 NBA Awards

Giannis or Harden for MVP? Trae or Luka for Rookie of the Year? Time to look back at the 2018-19 NBA season that was and give out some awards

THE 2018-19 NBA SEASON HAS CONCLUDED, the Toronto Raptors are NBA champions, the draft is in the books, and most everyone has turned their attention toward this summer’s huge free agency. And so naturally, the NBA has chosen this Monday of all days to host its annual awards ceremony. It’s time to give out MVP, Rookie of the Year, Defensive Player of the Year, and more for a season that feels like it was already so long ago. But awards are awards, so we ought to pick some winners.

I’ve actually written about most of these award races at length already, so many sections below are just brief recaps and links to the full piece if you’d like to read more, plus a few additional awards I’ve created and like to remember each season by. As much as anything else, this piece is just meant as a historical block of my picks for the season. Plus, I hadn’t chosen a Coach or Executive of the Year yet, and I saved my MVP picks for last.

You know the drill. Let’s get to the awards…

ROOKIE OF THE YEAR

1. Luka Doncic 2. Trae Young 3. Jaren Jackson Jr.

This felt like an argument for awhile but only because Luka had this locked up by about January and we get bored when we know the result. Trae had a wonderful final third of the season, but Doncic is the winner and should win the real deal. I ran through a full rookie ranking list and also picked All-Rookie teams, which don’t require positions so they conveniently double as an easy ranking of my top 10 rookies.

First Team All Rookie: Luka Doncic, Trae Young, Jaren Jackson Jr., Deandre Ayton, Marvin Bagley

Second Team All Rookie: Mikal Bridges, Jalen Brunson, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Mitchell Robinson, Landry Shamet

SOPHOMORE OF THE YEAR

1. Ben Simmons 2. De’Aaron Fox 3. Donovan Mitchell

First Team All Sophomore: Ben Simmons, De’Aaron Fox, Donovan Mitchell, Jayson Tatum, John Collins

Second Team All Sophomore: Derrick White, Monte Morris, Jarrett Allen, Bam Adebayo, Thomas Bryant

Why do we stop ranking the youngsters after their rookie season? Sophomores are often just as interesting after a full year of development and a summer of training. This year’s sophomores largely disappointed, but mostly because they were so good as rookies. These lists work just the same as the rookies, so the All Sophomore teams are basically a top-10 list. Full explanations here if you want it.

JUNIOR OF THE YEAR

1. Joel Embiid 2. Pascal Siakam 3. Buddy Hield

First Team All Junior: Joel Embiid, Pascal Siakam, Buddy Hield, Domantas Sabonis, Malcolm Brogdon

Second Team All Junior: Jamal Murray, Tomas Satoransky, Fred VanVleet, Malik Beasley, Ivica Zubac

You know the drill by now. The junior class is interesting because it felt so disappointing during the season, but then we saw so many guys on this list step up in a big way in May and June with everything on the line. Maybe it takes three years for guys to really step into that spotlight. This class is additionally interesting because they’re the guys up for rookie extensions this year (with the exception of Embiid and addition of Simmons), so these are the guys who could get paid in a big way this summer. Notably absent from the list: Jaylen Brown and Brandon Ingram. I explain why here.

MOST IMPROVED PLAYER OF THE YEAR

1. Pascal Siakam 2. Nikola Vucevic 3. De’Aaron Fox

Notably absent from this ballot is D’Angelo Russell, who I wouldn’t have even had top-10 on a Most Improved ballot. I still worry that Russell simply took a higher-usage role and made more floaters and mid-range shots this year and that that might not translate to the big max deal he’s going to get in a few weeks. He’ll be a very fascinating player to follow.

Pascal Siakam should be the clear winner here, and I think he will be, with a season comparable to the likes of James Worthy, Shawn Kemp, and Larry Nance at a similar age. Nik Vucevic and De’Aaron Fox made huge leaps too, and names like Jusuf Nurkic and Marcus Smart would’ve been next for me.

SIXTH MAN OF THE YEAR

1. Domantas Sabonis 2. Montrezl Harrell 3. Lou Williams

I still feel like it’s pretty silly that not one but two Los Angeles Clippers are finalists for 6MOY. At some point if these guys are so good, shouldn’t you maybe think about starting them and giving them starter minutes? I chose this trio before the NBA award nominations came out and ended up with the same three as the NBA, though I’m certain I won’t have the same winner. Lou Williams is sure to win it again, though I think his teammate was more deserving this time around.

I actually went 15 deep on bench guys and picked an All-NBA 31st Team, 32nd Team, and 33rd Team too if you’re interested.

DEFENSIVE PLAYER OF THE YEAR

1. Rudy Gobert 2. Giannis Antetokounmpo 3. Myles Turner

Defense is still really mis-evaluated in the NBA, and you can see it in the defensive awards, which continue to be split among mostly stars when the truth is that many “role players” are giving much more on defense and are often more deserving.

I’m talking about names like Kawhi Leonard and Paul George here. Kawhi’s defense wasn’t the same in the regular season, not to mention his many games missed, and PG was good but nowhere near as valuable defensively as forwards like Giannis, Draymond, or Tucker. Paul George had a very nice all-around season but shouldn’t have made the final three-man ballot here. I didn’t even have him anywhere on my 10-man All-Defense teams.

First Team All Defense: Marcus Smart, Patrick Beverley, Giannis Antetokounmpo, Draymond Green, Rudy Gobert

Second Team All Defense: Danny Green, Eric Bledsoe, Thaddeus Young, P.J. Tucker, Myles Turner

COACH OF THE YEAR

1. Mike Budenholzer, Bucks 2. Mike Malone, Nuggets 3. Doc Rivers, Clippers

This is one award I didn’t write a whole piece on, in part because it’s so impossible to parse. So many NBA coaches do an incredible job. Doc Rivers took a bunch of players from the scrap heap and got them to 48 wins and the playoffs plus six games against a full strength Warriors team, even after his team traded away his best player. Mike Malone barely kept his job and then took a mostly intact roster that missed the playoffs last year and turned them into a quality defense and the top team in the West for much of the season. Nate McMillan kept the Pacers afloat. Steve Clifford got the Magic to play defense. Dave Joerger made the Kings fun. Pop was Pop. Throw in another few names.

But as much as you can argue about numbers two through ten on this list, Mike Budenholzer should be at the top. Never before has it been so clear how much value a coach can bring to a team, or hurt them in Jason Kidd’s case. Bud built an entirely new role for Brook Lopez and built the defense around it, changed the whole way his team played offense, did everything to amplify Giannis, and took nearly the same roster that won 44 games a year ago to the best record in the NBA and 60 wins. Bud is the Coach of the Year, and as great as many others were, I honestly don’t think this is close.

EXECUTIVE OF THE YEAR

1. Masai Ujiri, Raptors 2. Lawrence Frank, Clippers 3. Donnie Nelson, Mavericks

This is a really difficult award because it’s usually too soon to judge how successful an NBA executive’s moves were in just one season. This year that is not the case. Masai Ujiri blew up the team and traded for Kawhi Leonard with a one-year window, and with Kawhi coming off injury and all sorts of red flags, that was not the slam dunk many are making it out to be now. But just as importantly were the details of the trade. Ujiri somehow got Danny Green thrown into the trade AND he managed to keep both Pascal Siakam and OG Anunoby. I doubt many NBA fans would’ve even batted an eye if Siakam had gone in the deal last summer. But if he had, we’d have a different NBA champion right now.

I don’t know whose name should go in the Clippers section — Frank, Michael Winger, Jerry West, etc — but the moves they made might have the biggest impact long-term. They moved on from a trio that defined their team so long at just the right time, then moved on from Tobias Harris for a windfall in the midst of a playoff run, all while picking up valuable cheap building blocks like Landry Shamet and Ivica Zubac.

Donnie Nelson pulled the strings to move up in the draft for Luka Doncic, and he doubled down in season by shocking the NBA world and landing Kristaps Porzingis. Now Dallas has as bright a future as anyone, and one year ago the Mavericks had basically no building block to even start thinking about the future after their umpteenth iteration of an old Dirk team going nowhere.

So that’s my list, though I suspect Milwaukee’s Jon Horst will probably win the real award. Meh. Horst brought in Brook Lopez and Nikola Mirotic, but Budenholzer is the one that unleashed Lopez in his new role, and Mirotic wasn’t a huge difference maker. We need to decide which award we’re rewarding winning with.

ALL NBA TEAMS

First Team All NBA: James Harden, Damian Lillard, Giannis Antetokounmpo, Paul George, Joel Embiid

Second Team All NBA: Stephen Curry, Kyrie Irving, Kevin Durant, Kawhi Leonard, Nikola Jokic

Third Team All NBA: Russell Westbrook, Kemba Walker, Blake Griffin, LeBron James, Rudy Gobert

ALL “OTHER” TEAMS

If you’re interested, I also chose some other All-NBA type teams:

• Why stop at 1st, 2nd, and 3rd Team All NBA? I also chose 4th, 6th, 10th, and 15th teams to evaluate what the league looks like sliced at another few interesting spots.
• And why stop there? I also “awarded” a 30th Team All-NBA to the league’s five worst regular starters, headlined by the 2019 LVP Andrew Wiggins
• The 2019 Tim Duncan All Stars, this year’s bargain bin stars that helped their teams immensely while making $5 million or less this season, featuring 2019 TD MVP Brook Lopez

MOST VALUABLE PLAYER

I never got around to writing up my 2019 MVP pick, in part because I just never really believed this was a real race. Let’s count down the MVP ladder in reverse order by tier…

10. Joel Embiid 9. LeBron James 8. Kawhi Leonard

The most valuable ability is availability, and this trio averaged 60 games. It’s perfectly fine if you want to do load management and be more valuable in the playoffs if your team can afford that. I’m just not rewarding that decision with regular season awards. You chose the playoffs, so go win there, like Kawhi did.

7. Kevin Durant 6. Paul George 5. Steph Curry

I have a clear top four in the MVP race but a real ballot has five names, and my final spot would go to Steph Curry. I honestly don’t get all the Paul George hype. I mean, I do, he had a wonderful season and took a real leap and tried hard on both ends. But he got a ton of help from Westbrook and Adams and still the Thunder barely escaped the West 8-seed, so just how valuable can that really be? At the same time, the Warriors had an all-time roster and coasted for 82 games. Durant’s numbers were just as good as PG’s. Curry is clearly more valuable to the Ws than KD. Hence, Steph at 5.

I’m fine if you want to include PG on the ballot at five, but he should not have been one of the three finalists, and not because of anything he did, but because there were two others more deserving. And while we’re here, why don’t we have five MVP finalists? If we’re voting for five on that award, give five the recognition of being a finalist. Heck, let’s do it retroactively too and let that be a worthy recognition on the all-time ranking lists.

4. Damian Lillard 3. Nikola Jokic

If we’re really only letting three guys be finalists, then one of these two really had to be the third finalist. And, frankly, it should have been Jokic. Jokic was magnificent this season, with an absolutely silly 20/11/7 line that few have matched in NBA history. He played point center for the team that led the West for most of the regular season. He ranked sixth in the NBA in win shares and WS/48 and third in VORP and Box Plus-Minus. And before you try the defense argument, Jokic ranked top 10 in the entire NBA in DBPM too.

And while we’re here, just for effect, Jokic finished the entire 2019 playoffs ranking 10th overall in points, 4th in rebounds, and 4th in assists. And he only played two rounds!!! I know that doesn’t count toward his argument, and neither does Dame’s Western Conference Finals run, but both of their teams were better than PG’s, and both of them had less help. Who is the second best player on the Nuggets? No one on Denver was even on the All-Star snubs list. Jokic carried them all season and he should be recognized accordingly.

And as for the final two? You know who they are, and if you’re being honest with yourself, you know what order they go in, too.

I know, I know, James Harden scored 36 points a game this season. It was incredibly impressive, and it ranks eighth all time in NBA history. Do you know how many of the seven guys that scored more PPG in a season than Harden won MVP? The seven are 1987 MJ, 1962 Elgin, and 1960–64 Wilt (ridiculous). And how many MVPs did that list win?

One.

The top seven scoring seasons of all time combined to win *ONE* MVP award. Because basketball is about more than scoring, and if MVP just went to the top scorer, this would be really boring. In fact, the only one of those scoring seasons to win MVP was the oldest one, Wilt’s first in 1960, his rookie season. And voters were so uninspired by their decision that they didn’t choose him as MVP again the next four seasons despite him putting up 38, 50, 45, and 37 points a game. He finished 4th, 2nd, 7th, and 2nd in the MVP race those years. MJ and Elgin finished 2nd and 4th. Let’s put it another way: players that score 36ppg or better in NBA history average a 3rd place MVP finish.

Listen, no one is taking away from what James Harden did this season, and of course he did more than just score. He put up 36/7/8 on efficient scoring and carried the Rockets for a huge stretch of the season. He was fantastic.

But Giannis was better.

When in doubt, the NBA MVP has one simple rule: the best player on the best team. For nearly a decade now, we’ve forgotten that, because the best team has been this weird three-headed monster superteam for as long as we can remember. The Heat and Warriors broke the MVP race by playing MVPs together and screwing up the way we think of this.

This isn’t complicated. The Bucks were the best team in the NBA this regular season. They were the only team to win 60 games, and NBA MVPs average 62 wins a season since 1990. Giannis was a top-5 offensive player and a top-5 defensive player. He put up 28/13/6, which is actually even rarer than Harden’s 36ppg, and he was by far the best player on the league’s best team.

Giannis’s WS/48 of 0.292 dwarfs Harden’s 0.254, showing how much more an impact he makes on each game. Harden’s season ranks top 100 of all time, but Antetokounmpo’s was the 15th best ever, and pretty much every season that ranks ahead of his either won MVP or should have. Harden ranks ahead in some metrics like VORP and of course total points, but he did that in part because he played over 500 minutes more. And he did that because he had to. Giannis was so good he didn’t even have to play that much to dominate. He played under 33 minutes a game because that was more than enough to beat opponents into submission. The Bucks won 78% of the games that Giannis played. They went 4–6 without him.

Drag the argument out if you must. Recognize Harden’s greatness — and we should, really.

But Giannis Antetokounmpo was the 2018–19 NBA MVP. No doubt about it. ■

1. Giannis Antetokounmpo 2. James Harden 3. Nikola Jokic

Follow Brandon on Medium or @wheatonbrando for more sports, television, humor, and culture. Visit the rest of Brandon’s writing archives here.