Tag: NBA Awards

No second-year NBA player (not even Victor Wembanyama!) deserves the MIP award

Every award isn’t meant for everybody

Welcome to Layup Lines, For the Win’s basketball newsletter. Subscribe here to get it delivered to your inbox every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Have feedback for the Layup Lines Crew? Leave your questions, comments and concerns through this brief reader survey. Now, here’s Mike Sykes

Happy Friday, folks! Welcome back to Layup Lines. Thanks so much for joining me today. I hope you’ve had an awesome week so far and have an even better weekend ahead of you.

In doing some preseason research to gear up for the NBA season, I came across something that, surprisingly, got me pretty upset.

In looking at the NBA award favorites this year, I discovered that Victor Wembanyama is legitimately the betting favorite to win the NBA’s Most Improved Player award this season.

His +725 odds at BetMGM are slightly better than Jalen Williams’ at +1000. Everyone on the board besides Wembanyama has odds longer than 10-1. But, at +725, betting on Wemby here could net you a solid return. It’d be a much better bet than Wemby for DPOY.

I get the logic behind it. Wembanyama feels like he’s due for a big season this year. There’s a solid chance he’ll end up as a first-time All-Star and he might even make an All-NBA team. He finished as the runner-up for DPOY last season and will probably be first or second again in the award race this year. If all that happens, you can easily understand why someone would vote for him as the NBA’s Most Improved Player.

But, if you ask me, there’s no way it should.

I don’t mean that it can’t happen — it absolutely can. I just don’t think it should. Victor Wembanyama has no business even being considered for the NBA’s Most Improved Player award.

Look. There’s no question that Wemby, if healthy, should be one of the NBA’s best players. The kid is fantastic. He’s already the league’s best defensive player, according to his peers. He’s also gone toe-to-toe with some of the best players in the league and bested a few of them. Some of the NBA’s biggest stars are in awe of him.

But he’s also only a second-year player. And here’s the thing about second-year players: They shouldn’t even be eligible for this award. Especially when they’re lottery picks.

Second-year players are expected to improve. Nobody expects a player to be as bad or worse than they were in their rookie season when they had no idea how the NBA works. If that does happen, it indicates a problem with that player’s development. If it doesn’t? Great. That’s par for the course. There shouldn’t be a reward for that unless the league starts giving out Sophomore of the Year awards.

Victor Wembanyama was the No. 1 overall pick in the 2023 NBA draft and was one of the most hyped No. 1 overall picks ever. He better improve. That’s why he was drafted where he was and why he has the hype he does.

Those are the players for which the NBA’s Most Improved award was created — the guys who went from being the 10th man on the bench to a starter in a season. Or, maybe it’s the guy who was drafted in the mid-first round and steadily improved but finally took that huge leap to an All-Star level (like Tyrese Maxey!).

This award isn’t for Wemby. Wemby will be named an All-Star so many times we won’t be able to count it. He’ll be on a ton of All-NBA teams. We should probably expect him to win a few MVPs, too. That’s how good the kid is.

But Most Improved? Nah, man. Come on. Let’s leave that award for the players it’s actually meant for.

The Clipper Curse lives on

Mandatory Credit: Benny Sieu-USA TODAY Sports

Stop me if you’ve heard this before: Kawhi Leonard is out indefinitely with a knee injury. We don’t know how long Leonard will be out with his injury or what he’ll look like when he gets back.

What we do know is this: LA’s misfortune here could lead to an absolute steal for the Oklahoma City Thunder.

The Clippers traded away their 2025 first-round pick to the Thunder in the Paul George-Shai Gilgeious-Alexander deal (Remember that!?). Because of that deal, if the Clippers’ completely collapse, there’s a chance the Thunder could walk away with Cooper Flagg, Ace Bailey, Dylan Harper or another talented prospect one of the best teams in the NBA has no business landing.

Here’s Bryan Kalbrosky with more:

“The worst case scenario for the Clippers is that the pick lands at No. 1 overall and they would have traded the rights away to Oklahoma City.

This comes after the organization already traded Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and various other tremendously valuable draft capital to the Thunder to land George, who is no longer on the roster.

If that total also now includes the next No. 1 pick, which is likely going to become Cooper Flagg in the 2025 NBA Draft, it would be unprecedentedly unfortunate for this franchise.”

If this happens? Man. Yeah, the Clippers truly are cursed.

You have to make the Paul George deal 10 times out of 10 because that’s the only way you land Kawhi Leonard. But you also lose out on a potential MVP candidate in Gilgeious-Alexander and now you might surrender a top pick to a team that’s already set to run the West for the next few years?

Tough luck.

THE MORNING WIN: Ace Bailey, Cooper Flagg and Dylan Harper are making college hoops fun again

Shootaround

— Lonzo Ball getting love from LaMelo for his return is so wholesome. Here’s Bryan again with more on that.

— Here’s more on the NBA’s second tax apron and how its breaking your favorite teams apart.

— And here’s a tracker of all the key players who changed teams this offseason.

— Speaking of Lonzo, what a debut he had, folks.

That’s a wrap, gang! Thanks so much for reading Layup Lines today. Have a fantastic weekend. We’re only a few days away from meaningful NBA basketball! Let’s get it.

Peace.

-Sykes ✌️

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Tyrese Maxey beats out Alperen Sengun for NBA’s Most Improved Player award

76ers guard Tyrese Maxey beat out Rockets center Alperen Sengun and Bulls guard Coby White in voting for the NBA’s 2023-24 Most Improved Player award.

Alperen Sengun was one of three finalists for the NBA’s 2023-24 Most Improved Player award, joining Philadelphia 76ers guard Tyrese Maxey and Chicago Bulls guard Coby White.

But as announced Tuesday, the third-year Houston Rockets center was not the award’s winner. That honor went to Maxey, whose Sixers (47-35) are participating in the 2024 playoffs.

Sengun’s season ended prematurely on March 10, when he suffered a severe ankle sprain. Between his ensuing 18-game absence and Houston (41-41) missing postseason play in the Western Conference, that made it tough for Sengun to earn an outright win — particularly versus Maxey, whose team had a higher profile.

Nonetheless, it was still an outstanding season for the 21-year-old Turkish big man, who remains one of the organizational focal points for the Rockets as they move forward. On a per-game average basis, Sengun led Houston in scoring (21.1 points) and rebounds (9.3) while shooting 53.7%, a team-high among rotation players.

Sengun will again slide in as Houston’s starting center when 2024-25 training camps open in late September or early October.

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Did the NBA solve load management by making awards require 65 games played to win?

Some laud the change to the NBA’s new collective bargaining agreement, believing it will help push teams to keep players active for more games of the season.

In future seasons, players will have to meet a minimum threshold of at least 65 games played to be eligible to win the biggest season accolades Most Valuable Player, Defensive Player of the Year and Sixth Man of the Year.

The ostensible reason is to stop clubs from sitting their best players for too many games each season. Some complain that given the player technically has no control over when they take the floor such a move is unfair. But others laud the change to the NBA’s new collective bargaining agreement, believing it will help push teams to keep players active for more games of the season.

One such adherent to this line of thinking is the host of the “Also Rusty Buckets” podcast, who recently put together a clip we have embedded below on why they think the move solves a major problem for the league.

Take a look at the clip embedded below to hear their perspective on the rules change.

Listen to the “Celtics Lab” podcast on:

Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/3zBKQY6

Spotify: https://spoti.fi/3GfUPFi

YouTube: https://bit.ly/3F9DvjQ

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Should players have to play 65 games to qualify for major NBA awards?

Will we see players checking into a game until the first foul is called? What else might change because of this new rule?

With load management becoming such a prominent part of how the NBA conducts business these days, a push to make season-long accolades require a minimum number of games played resulted in the standard getting put into the league’s new collective bargaining agreement (CBA).

The intent was to properly honor players who put in the effort to play as much of the season as they could. As with all tweaks to the CBA, however, unintended consequences — and not always for the better — can arise. Will we see players checking into a game until the first foul is called? What else might change because of this new rule? Most importantly, should it exist to begin with?

The host of the Athletic “Game Theory” podcast, Sam Vecenie, and his guest, Mike Vorkunov, talked it over on a recent episode. Take a look at the clip embedded above to hear what they had to say.

Listen to the “Celtics Lab” podcast on:

Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/3zBKQY6

Spotify: https://spoti.fi/3GfUPFi

YouTube: https://bit.ly/3F9DvjQ

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Hypothetical hardware for the 2022-23 Boston Celtics

The NBA and each of its 30 teams have no shortage of awards to honor the players that make the league go, but that has not stopped people from trying to think of even more.

The NBA and each of its 30 teams have no shortage of awards to honor the players that make the league go, but that has not stopped people from trying to think of even more ways we can fete our favorite athletes with novel hardware every season.

Such was the hypothetical range of honors devised by Bleacher Report NBA analyst Grant Hughes, who put together a range of non-existing team-specific honors the Boston Celtics and every other ball club in the Association could hand out to properly credit the players on the team who have gone above and beyond in 2022-23 in ways both good and bad.

Hughes came up with a handful for the Celtics in particular — let’s check out the awards and recipients he has in mind for Boston.

Kevin Durant proved how silly the NBA’s 65-game award threshold is with 1 tweet

The NBA definitely got this one wrong.

This is the online version of our daily newsletter, The Morning Win. Subscribe to get irreverent and incisive sports stories, delivered to your mailbox every morning. Here’s Michael Sykes. 

There are a lot of things that bother me about the reported stipulations coming from the NBA’s newly negotiated collective bargaining agreement.

There are some new luxury tax penalties that stop expensive teams from improving on the fringes while also simultaneously allowing teams to get way more expensive, which is another story for another day.

But right now, what really grinds my gears is the 65-game award threshold the league is reportedly adding for end-of-season awards.

The way it works is simple. The NBA is going to require players to play at least 65 games to be eligible for postseason awards like MVP, Defensive Player of the Year and All-NBA teams.

The purpose is to cut down on load management. The league doesn’t want its biggest names sitting out games they could potentially play, which has been a topic of discussion for over a decade at this point. The league just hasn’t had a solution to it.

Until now, I guess. Their solution is to incentivize players to play by rewarding them with the possibility of making an All-NBA team or winning an award.

And that’s so ridiculous. Kevin Durant proved exactly why to us with this tweet. He responded to a tweet encapsulating his season. He scored 29.1 points while shooting nearly 62% on 2-point shots, 40% on 3-point shots and 92% from the free throw line.

Durant’s sarcastic response was perfect. “Don’t count. Didn’t play 65 games.”

Boom. There it is. That’s why this rule is so silly. Because of his injury struggles this season, Durant is probably going to only play 49 games this season, which is 59.7% of 82 games. You mean to tell me that a player with shooting splits like that can’t be an All-NBA player? Like, he won’t even be able to be considered? Come on, now.

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This particularly feels gross when you realize that these league awards are connected to contract incentives. An All-NBA selection makes a difference of about $40 million for Jaylen Brown this offseason, for example. Obviously, the rule doesn’t apply yet. And, even if it did, Brown met the threshold.

But someday, that rule is going to keep someone from making a whole lot of money. And, when that day comes, I’ll be yelling “I told you so!” from the rooftops. Kevin Durant probably will, too.

Quick Hits: Brooks Koepka’s caddie violation that wasn’t…Lance Lynn’s painful cutter…The Ahsoka trailer…and more

Rob Schumacher-USA TODAY Network

— This near violation from Brooks Koepka’s caddie was a bunch of nothing, but what would the Masters be without a little controversy?

— Not only did Lance Lynn’s brutal cutter strike Joc Peterson out, but it also struck him. Ouch.

— Star Wars nerds, unite. It is our time. Ahsoka is here.

— Everything about this Sam Bennett story is what we love about sports.

Enjoy the weekend.

ESPN straw poll brings the NBA MVP race into focus for bettors

There’s a steep drop-off after the top two of the MVP race.

If you’re looking for an edge in NBA MVP betting, ESPN just dropped one in the form of a straw poll conducted from Sunday to Tuesday.

One hundred league insiders cast their ballots on who they would vote for, and Jayson Tatum came out as the early favorite with 47 first-place votes and 759 total points. He was followed by Giannis Antetokounmpo, who received 36 first-place votes, and Luka Doncic with 10 first-place votes.

The top three matched For The Win’s latest MVP ladder, though there are slight deviations after that. Stephen Curry, who was recently ruled out for several weeks with a shoulder injury, was fourth in the poll and Nikola Jokic was fifth.

The top three also matches MVP odds at BetMGM where Tatum leads the way at +250, followed by Antetokounmpo at +300 and Doncic at +350.

There’s a steep drop from there, though. Joel Embiid, who was is 10th in both the poll and FTW’s rankings, has the next best odds at +900. Jokic is fifth at +1400.

Six through nine of ESPN’s poll are Ja Morant, Kevin Durant, Zion Williamson and Devin Booker. Donovan Mitchell, Anthony Davis and Shai Gilgeous-Alexander also received votes.

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NBA unveils John Havlicek Sixth Man of the Year trophy alongside new suite of trophies

John Havlicek came off the bench for his first seven years as a pro, earning four All-Star nods in that time. The NBA is honoring his service as the definitive sixth man with a new trophy.

The NBA released a set of new names for the league’s end of season awards. The new names honor legends of the game. The Sixth Man of the Year trophy is now appropriately named after Boston Celtics great John Havlicek.

 “Our new collection of trophies celebrates some of the greatest and most impactful players in the history of the NBA,” NBA Commissioner Adam Silver said in a press release.  “As we recognize the league’s top performers each season, we also pay tribute to the legends who embody these prestigious awards.”

Havlicek played 16 seasons in the NBA, all with the Boston Celtics. For the first seven years of his career, Havlicek served as the club’s sixth man, earning four All-Star nods in that time. “Hondo” played in 13 All-Star games and won eight NBA titles. He was finals MVP in 1974.

The crystal trophy features a player shooting an off-balanced jump shot. This is meant to be “symbolic of the boost provided by the player to his team,” according to the NBA.

Havlicek died in April of 2019 and is survived by his wife, Beth. She and the Havlicek family spoke about the honor and pride that comes with this new trophy.

 “We are honored that the NBA recognized John’s career achievements with this award,” said Havlicek “John defined what it means to be the ultimate sixth man, with his leadership and stellar play serving as the utmost example of effectively starring in a role for the betterment of the team.”

The full list of new trophies can be found here.

Listen to the “Celtics Lab” podcast on:

Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/3zBKQY6

Spotify: https://spoti.fi/3GfUPFi

YouTube: https://bit.ly/3F9DvjQ

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Exclusive: Discussing NBA 2K’s season simulation awards with Ronnie 2K

Tatum for MVP? Giannis for DPOY? Rookie Wire chatted with Ronnie 2K about the official NBA 2K23 season simulation.

The hit video game NBA 2K23 has released its annual simulation for the 2022-23 season and may surprise some fans. Using the game’s powerful in-game engine, 2K has offered predictions for results and end-of-season awards.

Rookie Wire chatted with the digital marketing director of the game, Ronnie 2K. Something of a hybrid between a marketing guru and a social media influencer, Ronnie also loves hoops and talked Rookie Wire through some of the results from this year’s NBA 2K season sim.

NBA awards odds entering the 2022-23 season: Luka Doncic is favored to take home the MVP

Top 10 odds for every award entering the NBA season.

Bookmark this link. It’ll make for a fun exercise at the end of the NBA season to go back and see how wrong (or right?!) bookmakers were about awards in 2022-23.

This is a peek at top 10 odds for MVP, Rookie of the Year, Defensive Player of the Year, Sixth Man of the Year, Most Improved Player and Coach of the Year.

We all think we have a handle on where things are headed, but how many people are willing to put their money on it? These odds from BetMGM show just how much money your opinions are worth.

(Odds are from before the season-opening games Tuesday.)

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