NBA Regular Season Awards

The regular season of the 2012-2013 NBA season is over and the playoffs are starting today. Darryl and I sat down on Thursday to look at our midseason projections and make our picks for the first round of the playoffs. We also decided it was a good idea to come up with this year's regular season awards. 

Regular Season Awards:

We decided to go with the main five awards of the year and didn't feel the need to the the All-NBA teams yet as we will likely leave that for the next go around. I have renamed each of the awards after some of the best NBA greats of all time.

The Michael Jordan Award (Most Valuable Player)
Me: Kevin Durant (Oklahoma City Thunder)
Darryl: Carmelo Anthony (New York Knicks)

Yes I know that LeBron James was the best player in the NBA season this year, but in my opinion being he isn't the Most VALUABLE Player to his team in the NBA and Darryl agreed with me. I had to go back and forth between Kevin Durant and Carmelo Anthony for this award as I don't think any other player should be in the consideration for the award.

In the end I chose Durant because of what he had to do for his team this year and the way that he did it. In my opinion this was Durant's best season in his career to date and he was able to help the Thunder finished first in the West without James Harden. As good a player that Kevin Martin is he's no Harden. If James was to lose Wade for a much minor player like Klay Thompson would the Heat still have finished with the best record in the East. By losing Harden the Thunder were a worse team all year so Durant had to do more for his team. As much as I wanted to choose Carmelo I just couldn't do it in the end. Melo missed 15 games for the Knicks while Durant only sat out one contest all season long. Melo might have had to do more for the Knicks while he played, but Durant did it over more games and led his team to the first spot in their conference.

The naming of the award was pretty easy as MJ is in my opinion the greatest to ever set foot on the hardwood. The only other candidate for the award was Bill Murray since he had one of the greatest clutch performances in the history of basketball for the Tune Squad in Space Jam while finishing his career perfect.

The Magic Johnson Award (Rookie of the Year)
Both: Damian Lillard (Portland Trail Blazers)

The only hard thing about picking this award was which player would I name the award after. I went with Magic because of his great performance in his rookie season when he helped lead the Lakers to the NBA Championship.

As for the choice itself, Lillard was the best rookie all season long and I hadn't actually heard of him until the season started. 19 points and 6.5 assists is a really great season from a point guard, but to get that from a kid that has just come into league is really impressive. Anthony Davis was the guy to watch coming into the season, but Lillard showed all season why he was this year's best rookie.

The Manu Ginobili Award (Sixth Man of the Year)
Both: J.R. Smith (New York Knicks)

As a Knicks fan I have never had such a love-hate relationship player ever. When he makes the shot I love him, but when he missed I hate him. If it wasn't for his run he put on at the end of the season during the Knicks winning streak I wouldn't have selected him here and would have likely went with Jamal Crawford.

When I look at J.R. Smith there is one player that I see every time I see him touch the ball and it's former Knicks great, John Starks. Smith like Starks is one of the keys to the Knicks going anywhere this season. The Knicks had to rely on Starks during the 90's and now they rely on Smith for key buckets. You always know what to expect from Carmelo like Ewing in the 90's, but what you get out of the other guy is usually what decides the outcome.

Has any other player in the history of the NBA played as well coming off of the bench as Manu Ginobili. Can't think of any player as great as Ginobili to be okay with coming off of the bench for the majority of his career because it was what his team needed him to do.

The Bill Russell Award (Defensive Player of the Year)
Me: Roy Hibbert (Indiana Pacers) 
Darryl: Larry Sanders (Milwaukee Bucks)

Honestly I didn't really know where to go with for this award this season. I ended with Hibbert because of how important he was for his team's defense as Tyson Chandler was the year before for the Knicks. Sanders was a guy I also considered, but Hibbert was the main reason that his Pacers were one of the best defensive teams in the NBA. The only other guy I would've considered was Marc Gasol. Gasol had a great year for the Grizz, but I think Hibbert's was slightly better.

The naming for this award was extremely easy. When people look at the record books they will likely ask why is Russell the greatest defensive player in the history of the NBA when he's not anywhere in the whole book. Let's just say that had the NBA kept track of blocks during the 1960's Russell would likely have about double the amount of blocks that the current "leader" Hakeem Olajuwon has today.

The Gregg Popovich Award (Coach of the Year)
Me: Mike Woodson (New York Knicks)
Darryl: Gregg Popovich (San Antonio Spurs)

Sometimes it's just not fair to give an award to the same person year after year and that's why I couldn't justify giving this award to Popovich again. Instead I decided that I thought it was time to actually just name the award after him. He might not have the most rings of all time, but I think he's the greatest coach in the history of the NBA. As great as Auerbach or Jackson were they also had the greatest players in the NBA at the time on their teams. Auerbach had Russell, Cousy and Havlicek while Jackson had Jordan and Pippen along with Kobe and Shaq. Those guys had it pretty damn easy.

So if you eliminate Popovich from the running like I have this year, I think the obvious selection for coach of the year is the Knicks' Mike Woodson. Woodson had to deal with injury problems all season and still managed to coach his Knicks to second in the East. There were nights where I'd turn on a Knicks game and laugh at the lineup they were playing with that night and somehow Woodson would be able to get them to play so well together and come out victorious. He has helped turn around a Knicks team that struggled for over a decade and Gotham's team is finally competing for the title again.