My Struggle With NBA Awards

By MH
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Updated: April 22, 2016

This morning the NBA continued to announce their NBA awards. Today they named Portland Trail Blazers guard C.J. McCollum the NBA’s Most Improved Player. Jamal Crawford has already been named NBA’s 6th Man, and Kawhi Leonard was named NBA’s Defensive Player.

I have no issue with any of those guys winning the award but I do wonder how the voters get to these decisions. How do we decide who the best defender in the league is? Is it the guy who guards the best player every night? Is it the guy who can guard multiple positions? What about the best rim protector? Do rebounds count for defense? How much of analytics play a part in the decision?

Those are some of the questions that I have. Leonard is the best on-ball defender in the league. Point. Blank. Period. There’s no one I’d rather have to guard Kevin Durant or LeBron James in crunch time. But what Andre Drummond or DeMarcus Cousins? Would I rather have Leonard or Draymond Green on defense covering the point guard through the center positions. Do we give extra credit for Green’s defensive versatility or do we ignore that part? What about help defense? The best teams have not only good individual defenders but excellent helpside defenders, having teammates backs when they make mistakes. Listen I love Leonard but weren’t Clipper fans upset when DeAndre Jordan wasn’t really considered for the award last year? Should Warrior fans feel the same way about Green this year?

The MIP award usually goes to the player whose stats shot up from the year before. Usually the statistically increase is due to minutes and opportunity. Something we’ll never know is how much better is McCollum this year versus last year. Last year Wesley Matthews was eating up the minutes at the shooting guard spot, and when he went down with a torn ACL everyone wrote the Blazers off. McCollum showed this type of scoring ability and college, granted at a small school but if he would have entered the league and started right away would he have demonstrated this time of scoring ability? Nobody knows but I do know that Leonard took a major step forward this season along the likes of Stephen Curry and Evan Fournier made a jump in their games as well.

I think McCollum and Leonard are both worthy candidates of the award but I always wonder how we come to this conclusions since there is no set guidelines on how to pick candidates.

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