Aaaaaalrighty then. 82 games down for 30 different teams and that’s that for the regular season. Which means that 16 teams are now embarking on the fabled postseason while 14 others start preparing their draft boards or maybe looking for new head coaches (Thibs in Minny!). It also means that it’s time to jump in on that time-honoured task of patting folks on the back and handing out mantelpiece decoratives to the individuals whose individuality rules in a team game.

Most of these awards are pretty obvious. There are at least two that ought to be unanimous. But then there are a couple others that might stir a little debate. Once again it seems that I wasn’t invited to cast my votes officially so Mr Silver I’m still waiting on that for next time, buddy. In the meantime, here goes this thing.

Have a read of last year’s ballot as well if you so desire.

FIRST TEAM ALL-NBA

G – Steph Curry

G – Russell Westbrook

F – Kawhi Leonard

F – LeBron James

C – Draymond Green

Steph goes without saying for many reasons to be divulged in other categories. If that wasn’t enough three pointers for you then maybe wait ‘til next season and if that wasn’t enough wins for you then perhaps you need to quit watching basketball. LeBron James may have been a bit of a dick to David Blatt and Kyrie Irving and Kevin Love but that means little to me – this is about on court dominance and LBJ was back to the guy he was in his last season in Miami this season. Not peak Bron, he’ll likely never be that player again, yet in many ways he’s more savvy these days. He can still take a game in his hands and turn it like nobody else in the game, just dominating in ways you never thought imaginable before you saw LeBron play. Clear and obvious first teamer, once again.

From there things get a little more debatable. For one thing there’s bloody nothing to go for with centres. Who is there? Andre Drummond? DeAndre Jordan? Hassan Whiteside? Maybe Boogie? All solid enough candidates but we’re talking first team all-NBA here, no scrubs. So what I’ve done is taken a healthy compromise that sees one of the game’s finest players selected alongside four of the game’s other finest players and taken Draymond Green at centre. Hey, he plays there in fourth quarters anyway. Can’t say that a bloke who shot 49% from the field (and 38.8% from three) while averaging close to a triple-double with 14.0 points, 9.5 rebounds and 7.4 assists (not to mention 1.5 steals and 1.4 blocks) every game isn’t deserving. Even before you add in his near-impossible defence. He would’ve been second team as a forward otherwise and given that in many ways he’s the heart of the NBA’s winningest ever team, that didn’t seem right.

Speaking of triple-doubles, that Westbrook dude sure bagged a few of them. 18 in fact, more than any player since Wilt Chamberlain – he tied Magic Johnson’s 1981-82 mark. Sure, he’s a stat-stuffer who regularly rips rebounds from his own players but the Thunder were 18-0 in games when he TD’d so make note of that one, mate. He was a force of nature, no player takes over a game quite like Russ does. Occasionally he checks out on defence or makes infuriating gambles for steals but he’s still better than his old buddy James Harden in that regard and while Chris Paul ran him close with his flawless playmaking and slick pull-ups, Russ actually averaged more assists. Westbrook takes it.

And the other one is Kawhi Leonard. Defensive Player of the Year for the second season running, he also took big strides forward in his offensive game this term. He’s now regularly a go-to scorer, the number one dude on the team and his shooting is pretty spectacular these days – at 44.3% from 3pt he’s only a drop below Steph at fourth in the league. Best defence out there and 21.2 points per game. That’s a powerful case. And you can’t have a 67 win team without representation in the firsts, that was the difference between he and another almost equally deserving candidate, whose case will be covered next.

SECOND TEAM ALL-NBA

G – Chris Paul

G – James Harden

F – Kevin Durant

F – LaMarcus Aldridge

C – Al Horford

Yes, KD. I had Durant in the first team for so long, trying to work out if I was happy with that or not. A squizz at the numbers and they speak for themselves, right? 28.2 pts / 8.2 reb / 5.0 ast, shooting at 50.5%. So damn good even if he snuck in under the radar slightly. Don’t forget the unbeaten 64 game 20+ point streak. Except that to get him in there I had to drop Kawhi. Initially I had dropped KL – I’d tried and failed to fit them both with Kawhi as a guard (he’s the kind of dude that can play SG/SF interchangeably) before noting the absolute gluttony of guards this season. Seriously, I’ll come back to this in the third team with some of the names I had to leave out. While it’s a little surprising to see they each played 72 games, Leonard’s Spurs won 65 and Durant’s OKC 55. That matters and that was the tipping point. But stacked next to each other, the numbers are pretty fine, you can make the argument for either:

Kevin Durant:

38.1 MINS / 28.2 PTS (50.5% FG, 38.7% 3PT) / 8.2 REB / 5.0 AST / 3.5 TOV / 1.0 STL / 1.2 BLK

Kawhi Leonard:

33.1 MINS / 21.2 PTS (50.6% FG, 44.3% 3PT) / 6.8 REB / 2.6 AST / 1.5 TOV / 1.8 STL / 1.0 BLK

Elsewhere Chris Paul and James Harden may have gotten snubbed here for Westbrook but there was no way they were slipping lower than this. Each one of them had to carry their team on their backs for large portions of this season – Chris Paul taking over with Blake Griffin out and James Harden taking over… well, once he got back in shape after a Kardashian/Adidas filled offseason. That counts against him, he had a slow first month, but damn did he finish well. Paul also plays great defence and Harden the opposite, both taken into account.

LaMarcus Aldridge is always in and around this thing. Joining the Spurs meant taking a lesser approach and with that his scoring and rebounding dropped but man he still looks pretty stunning at 18.0 points and 8.5 boards a game. An immaculate player to watch.

Times that Andre Drummond had less than 10 rebounds: 10. Times that Drummond had 20+ rebounds: 9. I’d feel more comfortable picking him if he were more of a complete player with a few extra offensive tools but what really cost him was the asterisk that comes with a player that shot THIRTY FIVE PERCENT from free throws. Cannot reward that, no way. DeAndre Jordan had a fine season but has limitations of his own so instead I’ve gone with Al Horford. Gotta have a Hawk in there somewhere and few fives are as skilled as Al, a genuinely floor-stretching big. 15 points, 7 rebounds and a whole lot more each and every game.

THIRD TEAM ALL-NBA

G – Damian Lillard

G – Klay Thompson

F – Paul George

F – Anthony Davis

C – DeMarcus Cousins

This is where it gets tricky in a couple places. Like the guards. Klay Thompson was often second fiddle to Steph Curry but no worries there when you still score 22 points with 3.5 threes each game. Look, there’s nothing really to justify about another Warriors – the question should be more of ‘where are Harrison Barnes and Andre Iguodala?’ They’re nowhere, but Iggy gets a mention later on and Harry… he’s gonna be something when he leaves in free agency, watch out for that.

Damian Lillard gets the other guard spot. If you saw his 51 point game against the Warriors then you know exactly why – this dude is big time. The only remaining starter in Portland from last season but all that’s done is let him take over as a leader as well, which he’s done to great effect. Defence ain’t great but it’s improving, while his shooting percentages suffer a little from taking too many pops but that’s all part of the fun. Problem is that by picking him I’ve had to leave out players as talented as DeMar DeRozan and his mate Kyle Lowry. Kemba Walker is nowhere to be seen despite the best season of his career. Isaiah Thomas in Boston, Jimmy Butler in Chicago, the NBA’s best passer in John Wall. All shafted. Sorry lads.

Paul George came back from a broken leg and has gotten even better. 23.1 points was a career high, his 7 boards, 4.1 assists and 1.9 steals all more than handy as well. What a monster. He’s a first team all-defence forward as well. Anthony Davis joins him here despite an injury riddled season – not only for him but more importantly for all those teammates of his, dooming the Pelicans from the start. But that overlooks that Davis was only marginally worse than his MVP-challenging season of the previous year, his points dropped from 24.4 to 24.3, his boards actually rose from 10.2 to 10.3 (more work for him to do) and his field goal percentage went from 53.5% to 49.3%. Assists, turnovers and blocks all got worse but those are the categories most reliant on teammates and he didn’t have any healthy ones of those. Point being, as soon as his team became irrelevant people forgot about The Brow. He had a 59 point game this season, only Kobe Bryant can top that.

Which means an extremely unhappy guts bro to my boy Dirk Nowitzki. A few too many shooting slumps in there despite far outplaying the expectations for a player his age. When you can shoot like that, you are always valuable and that he came close to this team was crazy. Kevin Love and Gordon Hayward get nominational mentions. Paul Millsap was even closer.

And as for that centre spot, I went for the guy that does everything. Boogie Cousins could be Shaq 2.0 if he only had the right coach and the right approach. It’s getting stupid seeing him mope and moan his way up and down the court, perhaps next season that shambles of a team will finally click. The fact remains that when he played only Steph Curry, James Harden and Kevin Durant scored more. 26.9 points and 11.5 rebounds – those are supreme numbers. Although he’d better start changing the narrative because from next season I expect Karl-Anthony Towns to be a permanent fixture on this ballot.

DEFENSIVE PLAYER OF THE YEAR

Kawhi Leonard
Draymond Green
Paul Millsap

We’ve entered a world where possibly for the next five years this award will continually be an arm wrestle between two players: Draymond and Kawhi. If you don’t have one of them first on your ballot then you’d better have them second because there’s nobody else. Draymond is more in your face about it, he smack talks and he’s demonstrative compared to Kawhi who is stoic but silent, holding his ground rather than charging around. Draymond has more positional versatility but nobody has the hands that Kawhi has. 1 vs 1 you take Kawhi but Draymond’s ability to switch without losing a step allows the greater team structure to thrive.

There is no wrong answer. Leonard gets more steals, Draymond gets more rebounds. Kawhi has minimal edges on blocks and personal fouls. Draymond beats him with defensive plus/minus and Kawhi triumphs when it comes to defensive win shares. Kawhi also has the better defensive rating per 100 possessions but those are skewed by teammates as well. One guy who shows up nicely in all these stats is Paul Millsap – who is definitely at least fourth on my ballot and I’m tempted to push him up one but then I’d have to start re-writing. Ah, screw it. Sorry Rudy.

Look, I just really like Gobert as a defender. I know he missed 21 games and that’s cost him this spot but I don’t think he’s any worse than Hassan Whiteside or DeAndre Jordan off the ball. Plus in Utah he plays in a scheme that really suits how well he protects the rim, as opposed to, say, Whiteside who is relied upon to go hunting blocks ‘n’ boards. Honestly, I had Gobert there until about 20 minutes before this was published. Perks of self-editing.

Congrats to Kawhi, he deserves it. He plays real defense and his team is the best defense in the league.
— Rudy Gobert (@rudygobert27) April 18, 2016

MOST IMPROVED PLAYER

C.J. McCollum
Kemba Walker
Steph Curry

Hey, I get the argument that McCollum hasn’t so much improved as he has been given far more minutes – and he teased this potential late last season anyway. But taking that opportunity is definitely an improvement, plenty of players get added roles and can’t keep up that same production. Quite clearly an efficient 15 min/game player is nowhere near as worthy as an equally efficient 35 m/g player. And to go from a 6.8 point scorer to almost 21 per game is more than just extra minutes – he shot 42.1% from three! Let’s not overlook that his Per 36 numbers are well up in most categories too. Portland absolutely needed him to step up and become a key cog in that team behind Damian Lillard with all the players they lost and he did just that. Huge improvement, he and Dame are ahead of Wall/Beal now in the young guard duo stakes. Curry/Klay obviously leads that by a distance. You can make a reasonable argument that this is the wrong way to look at the Most Improved award but I prefer to look at it like a breakout season nomination and from that reading there’s just no alternative to C.J. McCollum here.

With Kemba, in his fifth season in the NBA he finally started reaching for that big potential the Hornets are betting on and no coincidence they’re off to the playoffs at the same time. He’s been a solid enough passer (albeit without too many options) for a while now and we’ve known since college that Walker is a lad who thrives on the big shots. Yet last season he hit 30.4% from deep – so far from acceptable for a dude in his position. This time he rocked that up to 37.4% on his way to his first 20+/g scoring season. He’s stayed healthy too, his team winning a full 14 extra games, as well as taking yet another step forward in that old intangible ‘leadership’ category. No numbers for that one but it’s as crucial as they come.

You know in some ways there’s even an argument for Kawhi Leonard. After establishing himself last season as the Best Defender in the Game, he this time fully arrived as an offensive player too. He’s got killer handles and can score well off the dribble – but this season also saw him shoot 44.3% from 3pt. He was always a good deep shooter but that’s almost 10% better than last season (which was a down year for him in that regard – he was a career 37% before 2015-16). I’m not gonna give him more than a mention here but I am going to suggest Steph Curry. As wonderful as he was in winning MVP last time, that pales in comparison to what he did these last seven months. James Harden can be fairly aggrieved at not winning that MVP award – this time there was never any competition. Curry launched himself into place as the people’s choice Number One Player in Basketball, probably the first time LeBron James has been usurped to that title. Now that is some improvement.

COACH OF THE YEAR

Terry Stotts
Rick Carlisle
Gregg Popovich

That I haven’t even nominated Steve Kerr after he took the Warriors to the winningest season in NBA history is a damn travesty but, I dunno, I couldn’t do it. He wasn’t there for a third of the year or whatever it was… well, he was there often but he wasn’t calling plays. And the framework of this team was set last season when Mike Budenholzer won Coach of the Year. It’s not a fair trophy at all and to keep it simple I decided he wasn’t gonna get it.

Instead I’m all in on Terry Stotts at Portland. To think that this team, this team that lost four starters in the offseason, somehow won the fifth seed in the West is ridiculous. Stotts has done an incredible job, from the wondrous guard play of Lillard and McCollum to the way he balanced Ed Davis on the bench and nursed career best years out of Al-Farouq Aminu and Jonas Valanciunas (although big Jonas missed a quarter of the season). The Blazers have such a great culture and such a great spirit, all of which reflects back to their coach (and a bit of Dame Lillard too).

Behind him is Stotts’ former mentor Rick Carlisle. The Mavericks were picked by many to finish bottom in the West but those idiots underestimated the continued worth of Carlisle and Dirk. 37 years old, it doesn’t matter. Nowitzki still gets it done but it was in taking this team to the playoffs despite it all that Carlisle really shone. He got them off to a hot start while balancing a shockingly re-fit Wes Matthews and a hobbled Chandler Parsons. He made Zaza Pachulia an outside All Star possibility. When Zaza faded he was able to coax valuable minutes out of David Lee and Salah Mejri and after Parsons was ruled out for the season he promoted J.J. Barea and was rewarded with a player of the week guard. Their entire strategy of playing changed with their season on the line, playing slow and calculated all of a sudden and the team responded with a six game winning streak to push them into the playoffs. He took a pumpkin and turned it into a golden carriage. That’s wizardry.

As for Gregg Popovich, he’s got a spot reserved on every ballot.

SIXTH MAN OF THE YEAR

Enes Kanter
Jamal Crawford
Andre Iguodala

I came so close to going with Jamal Crawford because he seems the obvious choice. Crawford’s kept up his same game with the Clippers again, coming in off the bench and drilling threes. He’s a fantastic shooter and a reliable scorer but then here’s the thing: so is Enes Kanter. Kanter has been playing 20-25 minutes most games and putting up, like, 15 & 10. Those are some highly efficient numbers and when given the chance to start late in the season (with KD & Russ rested) he replied with a career night of 33p & 20r. He rebounds and he scores in high volume. Crawford averaged 14.something with a couple assists a game shooting 34% from 3pt. That’s solid enough. But Kanter average 12.8 with 8.0 boards in six fewer minutes on the court.

Two things take away from Kanter’s case and neither are fair. There’s a stigma against his defence and a cliché that OKC is a two-man team (again, Russ & KD). The second-highest scoring team of the season did not get there on the back to two fellas just as Golden State is far more than just the Splash Brothers and Draymond. Kanter doesn’t often get the crunch time minutes but he keeps the team more than chugging along during the middle slog of games, constantly doing his job amidst an ever-changing cast of lower rotation players. And, yes, his defence is crap, but at least now he tries. Also the other factor there is that his D is only focussed on because he’s a big and difficult to hide. Crawford is no better himself, compare the two and their Offensive & Defensive Ratings. Those numbers are skewed by teammates but let’s not forget that Crawford plays regularly besides Chris Paul and DeAndre Jordan (two of the best defenders in the NBA – Paul is one of the best ever in his position) and even still Kanter’s DRtg of 105 is significantly better than Crawford’s 109. And on the other side of the ball, the Thunder score an enormous 123 points per 100 possessions with Enes the Turk on the floor compared to Crawford’s ORtg of 104. No contest there.

If we were to give this award to the best bench defender than Andre Iguodala has it sewn up. But he missed a chunk of time and the Warriors didn’t miss too much in his absence – though all that means is that Shaun Livingston also deserves some credit. And Iggy still played 65 games, that’s more than Anthony Davis and the same as Boogie Cousins. Iguodala goes against the usual bench scoring sixth man, instead he offers a monkey wrench. He handles the ball a bit, he can pass as well as he shoots and he can guard any wing you throw at him. You can make a case for a Warriors option with every award and I won’t fight you. But I voted for Enes Kanter (and am a little pissed that Crawford won).

ROOKIE OF THE YEAR

Karl-Anthony Towns
Kristaps Porzingis
D’Angelo Russell

There is nobody out there that can challenge KAT. He will be unanimous, he just had one of the best rookie seasons in history. 20 years old and the bloke is already up there with some of the best rebounders in the NBA – only Drummond, Jordan and Whiteside had more boards than he did. Not only that but he is already - *already* - one of the best defenders at his position. Look at how clueless Jahlil Okafor can be and you’ll see how tough that is. Towns’ ability to score and influence a game grew as the campaign progressed and probably peaked with his post-up winner against the Blazers in the final week of things. This draft class turned out to be better than we’d worried it might be but for now there’s only one true star.

A guy like Porzingis has a chance down the line though. He was booed when the Knicks drafted him – those fans sure changed their tune quickly. As he faded in the back half of the season he fell completely out of contention to challenge Towns but he had a fine season in his own right. This kid shoots like Dirk Nowitzki. That’s a very good start.

Shout out on the side to Devin Booker of the Phoenix Suns, who was the youngest player drafted in this class and already looks a natural playing around picks and putting up jumpers. His stuff is inflated by playing on a terrible team but he also looks like a player that’ll adapt really well to a stronger cast around him and a more natural role – things you maybe cannot say about Jahlil Okafor. But he doesn’t get the last spot and neither does Emmanuel Mudiay, who needs to learn how to make his baskets before he can get wider recognition. Justise Winslow and Josh Richardson of the Heat are both enticing prospects who are playing well in their first playoffs series – each a clinical defender especially. But it ain’t one of them that gets my third spot and it ain’t Stanley Johnson who I really like either. It’s D’Angelo Russell. Yes, that guy, the one with the phone and the video and the dramas. He was handled poorly by his coach (and by the rest of his franchise) but in spurts and flashes, Russell really had something going. Especially in that hot spot post-All Stars and pre-Swaggy P.

MOST VALUABLE PLAYER

Steph Curry
LeBron James
Kawhi Leonard
Russell Westbrook
Chris Paul

I mean, the first two are no brainers. Steph Curry is the unanimous MVP – some joker will probably try be a contrarian and vote LeBron or something but Curry is the Most Valuable Player. He took his trophy last season and this season he was even better. Here are some things that he did in 2015-16:

Was the best player on a 73-win team.
Shattered his own NBA record with 402 made threes.
Averaged 30.7 ppg, as well as a cheeky 5.4 reb & 6.7 ast.
Led the league in steals (2.1 p/g).
Had 3 of the NBA’s 11 50-point games.
10 games with at least 40 points.
Regularly drained circus shots to the point where it became expected.
Has an unbeaten streak of 153 regular season games with a made three.
First in total made field goals (805), way ahead of LeBron’s 737.
Still came in eighth in assists (527) despite all the shooting.
45.4% from 3pt, which only J.J. Reddick can beat (47.5%).
Led the league in free throw percentage at 90.7%.
31.46 player efficiency rating the eighth best in history over a season.

The rest of them… I mean I’m already over 4000 words here. They’ve all been mentioned before and each one of them is debatable. Of course they are. LeBron’s outside shooting was awful. How much does Kawhi’s defence enhance his case? Russell Westbrook has a tendency towards the box score and he can be a lazy defender. Ah, but his athleticism is practically unmatched. Chris Paul had to cope without his best sidekick while Kawhi and LeBron were loaded with them. After all this I’m too tired to argue anymore.