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New York Times
13-03-2025
- Sport
- New York Times
NBA Awards Watch: Rookie of the Year race leaves a lot to be desired
We're doing our NBA Awards Watch every Thursday until the end of the regular season, and each week we'll emphasize a new award. This week, we've got Rookie of the Year. Sandwiched between the class with Victor Wembanyama and the upcoming Cooper Flagg sweepstakes, this rookie class has been one we've known isn't likely to deliver a future star or franchise-changer for a while. But there are still some good role players in the mix. That has made me wonder whether we've seen similar ROY races in the past. We'll get into that below. Advertisement For the criteria I use for each award, check out our initial Awards Watch from this season. It explains how I, and a lot of the voting history, look at the six major individual awards. We'll go heavy on Rookie of the Year here and give quick-hit thoughts for the other awards. All betting odds are courtesy of BetMGM. We haven't had a lot of duds when it comes to the Rookie of the Year winners. By duds, I mean players who eventually ended up being mediocre or afterthought players in the NBA. Let's take it back 40 years to 1985 when Michael Jordan won the award. In the last four decades, the worst Rookie of the Year winners are probably Chuck Person (1987), Mike Miller (2001), Tyreke Evans (2010), Michael Carter-Williams (2014) and Malcolm Brogdon (2017). Person, however, had a 13-year career and put up 19.0 points per game in his first six seasons with Indiana. Miller had a 17-year career, averaged double-digit scoring, was named Sixth Man of the Year and won two titles with the Miami Heat. Evans had a historic start to his career, but eventually, foot and knee issues and a suspension for violating the antidrug program cut his career short. Carter-Williams was traded the year after winning Rookie of the Year, and we all knew his rookie numbers were inflated by the Trust the Process Sixers. He was quickly relegated to a supporting role and didn't last in rotations very long after. The example most akin to what we're seeing in this 2024-25 rookie class is what happened with the Rookie of the Year campaign in 2016-17. That was the year a second-round pick ended up winning the award because a Philadelphia 76ers rookie simply didn't play enough games to garner enough votes to justify taking home the trophy. Do you see how we're already starting to connect the dots? That was Joel Embiid's third season in the NBA but first year on the court due to injuries. Embiid only played 31 games in that season, but he averaged 20.2 points, 7.8 rebounds, 2.1 assists and 2.5 blocks in just 25.4 minutes per game. It was the equivalent of averaging 28.7 points, 11.1 rebounds, 3.5 blocks and 3.0 assists if he played 36 minutes a night. That's historic! Advertisement Embiid was the best rookie in the class, and it was a legitimate conversation of whether 31 games was enough to be named Rookie of the Year. Jaylen Brown and Jamal Murray were in that class, but they didn't have significant rookie seasons. Embiid's biggest competition was Dario Šarić, Brogdon and the concept of availability. Embiid finished third in ROY voting that season, garnering 23 of the 100 first-place votes and 177 of the 900 voting points. Šarić received only 13 first-place votes but was on more ballots to give him 269 voting points. Brogdon ran away with the award with 64 first-place votes and 414 voting points. Brogdon was the 36th pick in the draft, and his numbers didn't blow anybody away. He averaged 10.2 points, 4.2 assists and 2.8 rebounds in 26.4 minutes per game. He also was very efficient with 45.7/40.4/86.5 shooting splits, and he started 28 of the 75 games he played in for the Milwaukee Bucks. No offense to Brogdon, but it felt like he won by default — because he played, not because he played the best. Fast-forward to this season, and we've got a similar thing happening. Jared McCain is not Embiid by any stretch, but he does look like he's capable of being a great role player. McCain is by far the best rookie we've seen this season, but he's played 23 games and is out for the season with a knee injury. He averaged 15.3 points in 25.3 minutes with a 58.9 true shooting percentage. No other rookie can really approach that level of production. This year, once again, we might end up seeing a second-round pick take the award. Two honorable mentions: Zaccharie Risacher, Atlanta Hawks | Kel'el Ware, Miami Heat Edey has a pretty good case across the board for being the pick, although we're not certain he's even the best rookie on his own team. His numbers have been really good for most of the season. He's averaging 9.2 points, 7.9 rebounds and 1.2 blocks in 20.9 minutes. And generally, the Grizzlies are good with him on the floor, so he's not some rookie taking away from what a good team is trying to do. What hurts his case is he missed 15 games this season and probably needs to play at least half the game to truly get into the mix. He's good, though. Edey has the fourth-best odds at +2200 behind Risacher (+2000). Advertisement Aside from McCain, I think Castle has shown the highest ceiling and peak during the rookie campaigns. He's started about half the games he's played in, and his production as a starter is really good. Castle averages 15.1 points and 4.2 assists in 29.7 minutes as a starter. Compare that with 12.1 points and 3.0 assists in 21.8 minutes coming off the bench. Castle might be peaking at the right time to take the award. Over his last 26 games, he's averaging 17.5 points, 4.3 rebounds and 3.3 assists while making 46.8 percent of his shots in 26.7 minutes. Some of that has been boosted by Wemby being out for the season, but he's also only started 10 of those games. The issue for Castle is twofold. 1. He wants to be a primary playmaker, and now he's on a team with both Chris Paul and De'Aaron Fox, so he has to adjust. 2. Castle has struggled to make shots consistently this season. In the first 36 games of the season, Castle made just 38.3 percent from the field and 25.4 percent from 3. In such a weak rookie class, Castle's recent surge the last two months appears to be enough to take the award for a lot of voters. He's the most recognizable name, and he has the best odds at -450 to win the award. He's my favorite player from the class, but that doesn't mean he should win. I'm sticking with the consistency of Wells. At least for now. I'm open to Castle's continuing his play in the final month of the campaign and ending up with the award. However, Wells deserves to get credit for remaining steady. His numbers aren't going to blow you away. He's averaging 11.0 points, 3.3 rebounds and 1.7 assists. He plays 26.1 minutes per game and has started 60 of the 65 games he's played in. Wells has been a fixture in the lineup for a really good team (something we'll get back to in a minute). Wells is holding the second-best odds at +1000 to win Rookie of the Year and was the favorite a couple of weeks ago. Wells' game is less about production and more about maintaining impact on both ends. Edey does something similar for the Grizzlies, as does anybody coach Taylor Jenkins is asked to plug and play. Wells is seeing a bad shooting month, and it's coming at the same time as Castle's rise. If your argument is that Wells hasn't been good enough to stave off a run like Castle's, I don't necessarily fault it. That kind of stuff happens in a rough rookie class without any true remarkable (healthy) candidates. But at least for now, I'm valuing the consistency of Wells, and with all things relatively equal at this point, I do believe his contributing to the better team gives him the slight edge over Castle. We'll see whether that holds. 5 honorable mentions: Steph Curry, Golden State Warriors | Jalen Brunson, New York Knicks | Anthony Edwards, Minnesota Timberwolves | Jayson Tatum, Boston Celtics | Alperen Şengün, Houston Rockets Quick-hitter: The toughest decision for me right now is trying to decide whether Giannis or Tatum belongs here. I have been leaning toward there's no way you can leave Tatum off the ballot, and it still might go that way in a month when it's time to vote. As of right now, Antetokounmpo's numbers and the necessity of his being on the court for the Bucks to be good are ahead of Tatum. But I don't feel great about it. Ultimately, Tatum's team success combined with his play will probably win out. Advertisement Quick-hitter: I do not see how Mitchell can be left off any ballots. He's averaging 24-4-4 with 58.5 percent true shooting, and he's on a historically great team. It's mostly due to his being willing to sacrifice his own personal numbers and ego for the greater good of the team that made the Cavs greater now and should hopefully set them up for playoff success they couldn't previously attain. That's value and leadership. Quick-hitter: This groin injury might end up removing James from the final ballot if he ends up missing more than the one to two weeks he's expected to be out. We know he's been great all season long on offense, but the uptick in his defensive performance is what brings him back into this MVP balloting for me. James had been a pretty bad defender the previous few seasons, and so often we'd see a wide-open dunk in the lane when the weakside help should have come from James. We've seen an uptick this season in his defense, but especially since the Luka Dončić acquisition. James has more energy to put toward that end of the floor, and it shows. Quick-hitter: Check out these bars from Marcus Thompson II: Jokić has so normalized ridiculousness as to desensitize the present community from appropriate reverence. He'll need six MVPs and 10 championships and a five-minute highlight reel of epic moments to help those who didn't experience him to process his elitism. You should absolutely read Marcus talking about Big Honey here. We'll have more about Jokić next week when we dive back fully into MVP, a month after our initial check-in. Quick-hitter: Something that is bothering me about fans who want to be dismissive of what Gilgeous-Alexander does is that they're likening him to the 'foul merchanting' James Harden became so infamous for. I'm not sure I can get there in terms of the logic and the reasoning for it. Gilgeous-Alexander goes about his foul-drawing in a much different way. For the most part, he drives to the hoop way more than Harden typically did. Gilgeous-Alexander has learned how to be physical on his drives, and it either creates a shot for him or creates contact that leads to fouls. The refs call it for him, but it's not the same as Harden's constantly flailing or bringing his arms under the hand of the defender. This race is still completely neck and neck, and I'm excited to get into it next week. Two honorable mentions: Jaren Jackson Jr., Memphis Grizzlies | Draymond Green, Golden State Warriors Quick-hitter: The Thunder have the best defense in the league, by far, and with Jackson injured, it felt right to bring Dort into the mix. He's one of the best defensive players in the league, and he should definitely be first-team All-Defense. Dort is a monster on that end. Advertisement Quick-hitter: Daniels is averaging 3.0 steals, and no player has done that since Alvin Robertson in 1990-91. He already has 184 steals on the season. No player has reached that total since Ricky Rubio in 2013-14, when he had 191 steals. Rubio played all 82 games that season. Daniels has played 61 games and still has 16 left. Quick-hitter: He's still not the big favorite, at least not what we were seeing with Victor Wembanyama versus the field. Mobley is -250 to win with Daniels (+450) as his closest competition. That's close to the same distance in the odds as SGA (-425) and Jokić (+300). I just can't imagine anybody making a big enough push to unseat Mobley, as long as he stays healthy. Two honorable mentions: Naz Reid, Minnesota Timberwolves | Ty Jerome, Cleveland Cavaliers Quick-hitter: Since joining the Cavaliers, Hunter's scoring average has gone from 19.0 a game with the Hawks to 14.3 in Cleveland. However, the efficiency is through the roof. It was already great with a 61.6 percent true shooting in Atlanta. Now he's hitting half of his shots and half of his 3-pointers, and we're seeing a 68.9 percent true shooting in Cleveland. Quick-hitter: If Beasley doesn't miss another game this season, he's going to end up having played 80 games. If he keeps this pace up with shooting 3-pointers, he'll finish with 313 made 3-pointers. Only Stephen Curry (five times) and James Harden (once) have made more in a season. Quick-hitter: He's averaging 14.2 points per game with 64.5 percent true shooting. The Celtics are better when he's on the floor, and his usage rate is below 20 percent. That means he's just hyperefficient in how he affects the game with his scoring. There were times I tried to talk myself into Beasley over him, but it's Pritchard's to win. Two honorable mentions: Taylor Jenkins, Memphis Grizzlies | JJ Redick, LA Lakers Quick-hitter: I know this team was great last season and the No. 1 seed, so we dismiss some of what's happening with the success of the Thunder. However, we shouldn't dismiss the fact they have the highest margin of victory in league history. Nobody has ever been this dominant. They lost a little recently, and they still hold this mark over the 1971-72 Lakers. I doubt Daigneault will finish in the top three in voting, but we shouldn't ignore him. Advertisement Quick-hitter: It's kind of jarring to see the Pistons house the Washington Wizards on Tuesday night and think about where these two teams were a year ago. I mean … the Wizards were in the same place and on their way to the worst season in franchise history, something they can tie if they only win two more games or set if they win fewer than two more games. The Pistons were a complete joke, too. But this year, they are fighting for home-court advantage in the first round. They aren't in the top six in the Eastern Conference by default. They've earned it. That's mostly Bickerstaff's coaching them properly. Quick-hitter: An impressive outpouring of Cavs fans did not read what I wrote last week and just reacted to the ranking. With that I say, thank you for clicking! But Atkinson is back in the lead position in a tight race because the Cavs keep winning. So do the Pistons, but not like this. The Cavs became the sixth team in league history to have two 15-game win streaks in the same season, and they might win 70 games. They're on pace to get to 69 wins, and this streak doesn't even end when Mitchell sits. Two honorable mentions: Dyson Daniels, Atlanta Hawks | Payton Pritchard, Boston Celtics Quick-hitter: Jerome went from a fringe role player, bouncing around a couple of teams in his first few seasons, to being integral on the best team in the NBA. He has become indispensable for Cleveland. That's remarkable improvement, even though he has no chance of winning this award. Quick-hitter: Cunningham is the favorite (-275), and I might end up voting for him by season's end. He has made solid improvements across the board while becoming much more serious about defense and applying all of this to winning. He has a great case. I just feel like we saw a lot of the skill improvements last season. Quick-hitter: Mobley probably has no chance of winning this, but I do think he's shown the most improvement. He's +8000 to win the award, putting him behind Cunningham, Daniels, the Denver Nuggets' Christian Braun and the Miami Heat's Tyler Herro on BetMGM. But look at Mobley last year, and look at him this year. The Cavs weren't running offense through him like this, and he wasn't defending like this. He's shown the highest level of improvement to me. (Illustration: Demetrius Robinson / The Athletic; photos: Matt Slocum / AP; Michael Reaves, Nathaniel S. Butler / NBAE via Getty Images; David Gonzales / Imagn Images)
New York Times
06-03-2025
- Sport
- New York Times
NBA Awards Watch: Should Kenny Atkinson or J.B. Bickerstaff be Coach of the Year?
We're doing NBA Awards Watch every Thursday until the end of the regular season. Each week we'll emphasize a new award. This week, we've got Coach of the Year, which often comes down to whether a candidate surprised us with how well his team did. But should it? Should it be about that rather than overall excellent coaching? And how do we judge which surprise coaching job is better than the other surprise coaching job? This award has a lot to consider, and this season is the perfect example of trying to figure out how to debate and decide it. For the criteria I use for each award, check out this Awards Watch post. It explains how I, and a lot of the voting history, look at the six individual awards. We'll go heavy on Coach of the Year here, and give quick-hitter thoughts for all other awards. All betting odds are courtesy of BetMGM. We have never had someone win Coach of the Year in back-to-back seasons. The closest we came was Don Nelson winning the award in 1983 and 1985. Gregg Popovich won it in 2012 and 2014. Other than that, nobody has come close to winning it in consecutive years. Phil Jackson won the award in 1996 when the Chicago Bulls had the greatest season ever with 72 wins and the championship. The next year, Pat Riley won his third COY award by leading the Miami Heat to a 61-21 record. He beat out Dave Cowens, who led the Charlotte Hornets to a 54-28 record. Jackson's Bulls went 69-13, tying for the second-most wins ever in a season. Jackson didn't get a single vote for the award in 1997. That's ridiculous! Advertisement Let's put up our Brian Windhorst pointer fingers and wonder, 'Now why is that?' Part of me believes the award isn't really about coaching. It's actually about us — both the public and the voting panel. So often, the winner of the award is someone who exceeded preseason expectations. Sometimes those expectations were fair and the coach led his team to greater success. Sometimes, the expectations were based on poor assumptions, but rewarded the surprise. After all, how could we have been so wrong? It must be the coach and the team that magically got better than expected! The award becomes one big 'I Can't Believe It's Not Butter' commercial. Mark Daigneault won Coach of the Year last season because what we thought was a pretty good Oklahoma City Thunder team was the best team in the vaunted West. You surprised us and surpassed our decently high expectations for you! So you win! The Thunder are even better this season and have been the most dominant team in league history. They have the highest margin of victory we've ever seen. Daigneault is fifth in betting odds at +8000. Why? Because he's not a surprise. I'm not even sure this is a bad way of looking at it. Maybe that truly is the best coaching job, when you surprise everybody and exceed expectations in such a dramatic way. But then you start trying to decipher if the biggest surprise should constitute the biggest coaching award. Let's get into this year's race. Two Honorable Mentions: Taylor Jenkins, Memphis Grizzlies | Daigneault Speaking of surprises, nobody had Redick's Lakers being this good. Nobody had them trading for Luka Dončić before the season either, so this team is full of surprises. The Lakers are second in the West right now, and their midseason turnaround has been remarkable. And considering all that's happened, I'm not sure it should have been expected in the slightest. Trading Anthony Davis for Dončić isn't a downgrade, but it makes learning things on the fly difficult. They had help by getting the All-Star break shortly after the trade, but that's not a lot of time to figure out how to make this work while still bringing the star you acquired back from a calf injury that cost him over a month. Advertisement The Lakers were 12-11 on Dec. 6 with the No. 12 offense and No. 26 defense. A different way of putting that was only the Utah Jazz, Bulls, New Orleans Pelicans and Washington Wizards were worse at defending. Since then, the Lakers have gone 27-10 (fourth-best record), their offense is 10th and their defense is second in the league. Only OKC has been better at defending during that stretch. Since the Dončić trade, the Lakers are 12-2 with the best defense in basketball. Some of that is personnel, but a lot of that is coaching. I know, I know. But hear me out for a minute. The Cavs have the best record in the NBA. The betting odds have Atkinson running away with this award. He's -1000, with Bickerstaff coming in at +700. The Cavs are on their third different winning streak of at least 12 victories. No other team in NBA history has ever done that. The 1999-2000 Lakers had three different 11-game win streaks. The 1980-81 Philadelphia 76ers and 2011-12 San Antonio Spurs both had three different 10-game win streaks. Three different streaks of at least 12 wins hadn't happened until last night. And who knows where this one goes? There are so many reasons Atkinson should win this award. He definitely surprised us. So many criticized the firing of Bickerstaff in Cleveland because he was scapegoated. The combination of Darius Garland and Donovan Mitchell felt too redundant. Same with the combination of Evan Mobley and Jarrett Allen. We spent all summer saying the Cavs needed to break up both pairings if they wanted a chance of taking down Boston, or even making it to the conference finals to lose to the Boston Celtics. The Cavs have already clinched a playoff berth. They've already surpassed their preseason over/under total. However, is it a bigger surprise than what Bickerstaff has done with the Pistons? This was one of the worst teams in NBA history a year ago. They had the longest losing streak in NBA history. Monty Williams looked like he was actively trying to get fired by playing Isaiah Livers so much that they had to trade him to get him out of the rotation, and playing Killian Hayes so much that the team had to cut him from the roster. The team added Tobias Harris, Malik Beasley, Simone Fontecchio, and Ron Holland III in the offseason. Did you see those additions leading to a 21-win improvement with 19 games left to play? If you did, please email me the Powerball numbers for next week. I think it's fair to wonder if turning a good but malfunctioning roster from the No. 4 seed to the No. 1 seed in the East is more impressive and a bigger surprise than turning one of the worst teams in NBA history into a top-six team in the East. I'd lean toward Bickerstaff right now, but I'm torn on it. 5 Honorable Mentions: Steph Curry, Golden State Warriors | Jalen Brunson, New York Knicks | Anthony Edwards, Minnesota Timberwolves | LeBron James, Los Angeles Lakers | Alperen Şengün, Houston Rockets Quick-hitter: The consistency of this season, plus the success of the Celtics, keeps Tatum in the mix here for now. But you have to be honest about the possibility of Curry, James or Brunson finding their way onto this ballot. That's not a knock on Tatum either, and I know Boston pushes this narrative that he's not respected. I don't know how that's possible for a four-time All-NBA selection. There are a lot of moving parts and deserving consideration for top players peaking toward the end of the season. Advertisement Quick-hitter: Normally, you worry about the Bucks not being able to defend if Giannis isn't on the court. This season, the Bucks can't score when he's on the bench. And while their offense is good with Giannis and Damian Lillard on the floor together, they actually score more efficiently when it's just Giannis out there. He's become so careful and intentional in how he attacks offensively that he's turned into the modern-day Shaquille O'Neal in the paint. The story of the greatest players in NBA history. In 100 riveting profiles, top basketball writers justify their selections and uncover the history of the NBA in the process. The story of the greatest players in NBA history. Quick-hitter: Maybe this ends up looking like the year Paul George finished third in MVP voting because we knew it was just a two-man race between Giannis and James Harden. However, it's time Mitchell got more praise for the season he's having. We know this is a two-horse race. So maybe third place in MVP ends up being its own scramble. Mitchell has been about as valuable and self-sacrificing as you could hope a star to be when they're trying to further the new team culture. That matters here. Quick-hitter: We've talked before about the historic seasons both of these candidates are having. And the individual aspects of each player and the games they have are truly fascinating when it comes to what we're watching and what you want to value in this award race. Ultimately, it might just come down to team success, and SGA has a big advantage there for two reasons. 1) His team is just a lot better top-to-bottom. 2) The Thunder are light-years ahead of Denver in the standings. Jokić has been unreal, but making up 11 games in the standings is asking a lot when deciphering their values for this award. The Thunder have been the most dominant team ever and might set the record for most double-digit wins in a season. They're 10 off the record (50) with 20 games to play. That dominance pretty much only happens when SGA is on the court. Two Honorable Mentions: Lu Dort, Oklahoma City Thunder | Draymond Green, Golden State Warriors Jackson recently suffered a Grade 2 ankle sprain, and it has a chance of costing him eligibility for the award. Because of the 65-game rule and the stipulation that you have to hit 20 minutes in these games, Jackson's 59 games are really like 56. According to injury expert Jeff Stotts, the average time missed with an injury like this is roughly three weeks. The Grizzlies said he's on a week-to-week basis. If he misses three weeks, he'll be in the range of needing to play in nine of the final 11 games of the season when he's back. Did you see the way the Hawks stole the game from the Grizzlies on Monday? After making a big fourth-quarter comeback to tie the game, the Hawks needed to get a final stop to hope to force overtime. For some reason, Desmond Bane decided trying to score on Daniels at the end of the game was a good idea. So he went at him, and instead of the Hawks hoping for overtime, this happened. CARIS LEVERT SCORES OFF THE DYSON DANIELS STEAL 😤😤 Hawks get the victory as time expires! #TissotBuzzerBeater #YourTimeDefinesYourGreatness — NBA (@NBA) March 4, 2025 Daniels is so good at getting steals or deflections that I'm shocked when teams go at him on last-second possessions. Just have your second-best player try to score and win the game! At least you're more likely to get a shot off. I've long thought the deflection stat is extremely overrated. It doesn't mean your team got a stop. You just momentarily disrupted the offensive possession for your opponent. It doesn't tell a complete story. I'm starting to think Daniels and his deflections are the exception. What keeps Daniels from being the frontrunner is that the Hawks' defense is terrible, though it's a lot better when he's off the floor. That's probably a statistical anomaly because of whom he's playing alongside. But it's not even a Trae Young thing. It's just a Hawks thing. Advertisement The Jackson injury made Mobley a significant betting favorite. He's currently -200, with Daniels coming in second at +400. As I've mentioned here before, I had Mobley right in lockstep with Victor Wembanyama before the Spurs phenom went down with deep vein thrombosis in his shoulder, which cost him the rest of this season and award eligibility. With Wemby out of the picture, Mobley should be the winner. The Cavs have thrived off his defensive presence. Two Honorable Mentions: Zaccharie Risacher, Atlanta Hawks | Kel'el Ware, Miami Heat Quick-hitter: I'm rewarding Edey's consistency over a recency bias for Ware. That's not to say Ware isn't worthy of getting into the mix for the balloting. He's been really good, but it took him a bit longer to start finding success on the court for Miami. Edey was good right away, and even though he battled some injuries and bruises, he's still pretty important for the Memphis rotations. Quick-hitter: Castle is the current betting favorite at -225, and he's making a big push lately with some great games. With Wemby out of the mix, there's opportunity to be more of a scorer. Rookie of the Year voters do love scoring from that position, but this season's crop doesn't exactly have much consistent scoring. At least not since Jared McCain went down. Castle will probably win this award off name recognition and a late push, but he's not my current pick. Quick-hitter: Once McCain got hurt, Wells immediately took the title of the best rookie from start of the season through the current point. I know there isn't anything sexy about what he's doing. He's just been an extremely solid player with good numbers and a positive impact. He's really had one bad shooting month, and everything else has been good across the board. If we're comparing him and Castle, the Spurs rookie couldn't make a shot consistently until January. And when things are pretty even, team success will factor in for me. Wells has started almost all season for a really good Memphis team. Two Honorable Mentions: Naz Reid, Minnesota Timberwolves | De'Andre Hunter, Cleveland Cavaliers Quick-hitter: I moved Jerome over Hunter because I'm giving Jerome the great team boost here. Now, Hunter is on this team too, but it's only been for like a month. He's been killer in that month, just like he was in Atlanta. Amazingly, the Cavs have been better with Jerome on the court this season than when he's on the bench. That's a big part of Cleveland's success. They don't lose anything when their All-Star guards leave the floor, and he can play with either of them for extended minutes. Advertisement Also, here's a weird thing: The Cleveland broadcast recently has said the award should go to Hunter without question. He's been there for a month, but they're co-opting his time on the Hawks? We even heard Mitchell briefly name him after the win Wednesday night, but you could see him quickly drop Jerome's name in there too as a possibility. This feels like a directive from high up in the organization to get Hunter the award. Quick-hitter: I've been thinking about just how impactful and integral Beasley has been to the Pistons' success. He shoots 43 percent from 3 in the clutch and is having a historic season that puts him in the same class as what Curry and Klay Thompson have done. The Pistons are a winning team with him and a slightly losing team without him. I think that all matters, and his performance might mean more to Detroit than Pritchard's does for Boston. I was prepared to write a whole argument about it this week. Then Pritchard scored 43 points and hit 10 3-pointers off the bench against Portland Wednesday night. It's Pritchard's for at least another week. OMG 😱 — Boston Celtics (@celtics) March 6, 2025 Two Honorable Mentions: Christian Braun, Denver Nuggets | Pritchard Quick-hitter: I struggle with whether Daniels should be the leader for this award. I think there should be a bigger emphasis on players going from good-to-great, but Daniels went from mostly an afterthought you hope could be healthy to a valuable role player who might win DPOY. He's improved his shot, and his defense has gone from disruptive to otherworldly most nights. Quick-hitter: The argument against Cunningham mostly centers around two things. His numbers aren't that different when you adjust for pace. His percentages and efficiency are pretty much the same as last season. And even when we see a big jump in the rebounding and assist numbers, it is accompanied by a big jump in turnovers. However, to be doing this on a team that is winning feels like improvement. Maybe players should be awarded more for going from an atrocious team to maintaining these numbers on a playoff team? Quick-hitter: I still feel like Mobley is the most improved guy, even though all the betting odds have Cunningham as the most likely to win it. There's a very good debate to be had between Cunningham and Mobley. Does it make it even more fun that they were 1-2 in the 2021 NBA Draft? Is that something just nerds like me enjoy mentioning? Please don't answer that. (Top photo of J.B. Bickerstaff: Luke Hales / Getty Images)
