The NBA has created a brand-new series of awards for postseason excellence in the Eastern and Western Conference Finals, the Larry Bird East Finals Most Valuable Player award fittingly in play for a member of the team that Hall of Fame legend played for across the entire span of seasons making up his storied career.
And though the future of the award and the fitting nature shaping up for at least one of those four new pieces of hardware on the current iteration of the Boston Celtics is sure to captivate the minds of many an NBA fan as we draw closer to the inaugural awarding of those trophies, some minds have looked to the past instead.
Who might have won the award in seasons past? FiveThirtyEight’s Mike Lynch recently penned an article trying to do exactly that.