OPINION: Picking the 2023-2024 NBA Awards winners

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The 2023-2024 NBA season haswrapped up and the race for the league’s annual awards hasofficially ended. Here’s a look at my picks of the NBA's awardwinners.

Most Improved Player: Tyrese Maxey, Philadelphia76ers

(Runner-ups: Coby White, JalenJohnson)

Notes: In the end, Tyrese Maxeytakes the award with the amount of burden and responsibility in aPhiladelphia team reeling from the loss of James Harden to become atrue No. 2 option behind reigning MVP Joel Embiid. White improved alot this year, increasing his averages both numbers and hisshooting percentages. Johnson, like White, has also increased hisusage and averages by a lot, featuring as the third option behindDeJounte Murray and Trae Young, or even as the second optionwithout one of those two. A jumbo playmaking forward, Johnsonshowed improvements in his playmaking as well as his ability toscore and had increased numbers in shooting as well. Ultimately,Maxey wins this award out because he was a guy who increased hisusage and his role while playing most of the season withoutEmbiid.

Sixth Man of the Year: Naz Reid, MinnesotaTimberwolves

(Runner-ups: Malik Monk, BobbyPortis)

Notes: Naz Reid has been thebest player off the bench this season with the way he has been anoffensive spark plug for the Timberwolves this season. He’s had aphenomenal season, and he had to start and fill in for Karl-AnthonyTowns when he went down while still being an efficient scorer as heis. If you factor in all the stuff for these awards, you couldactually make a case for Monk, for Portis, maybe even guys likeNorman Powell for the Clippers and Bogdan Bogdanovic for the Hawks.But with Minnesota going 56-26 and having the second most wins infranchise history – ultimately ending up atop the three best teamsin the West, this gives a little bit of boost to Naz Reid due tohis importance to the team.

Defensive Player of the Year: Rudy Gobert, MinnesotaTimberwolves

(Runner-ups: Victor Wembanyama,Anthony Davis; Honorable mention: Bam Adebayo)

Notes: One of the hardest awardsto figure out. Minnesota had the best defense in the league for areason, and based on that Rudy Gobert would be a deserving winnerof the award. When he’s off the floor, the team does not performdefensively the way it does when Gobert is on the floor. This washard because Wembanyama had a legitimate case, being thegenerational defender that he was. Davis also had a strong casewith how he carried single-handedly the Lakers’ defense, whileAdebayo had the immense burden of playing all the defensive schemesin Miami. Ultimately, it ended up with Gobert with the way helifted a good defensive team to the best in the league, manningthat paint and being that anchor that holds all of the piecestogether.

All-Defensive Team:

1st Team - RudyGobert, Victor Wembanyama, Anthony Davis, Bam Adebayo, HerbJones

2nd Team -Derrick White, Jalen Suggs, Jaden McDaniels, Alex Caruso,Jonathan Isaac

Notes: Starting this year, theNBA’s All-NBA teams and defensive teams were positionless so I hadto cheat a little bit here, putting 4 bigs in the 1st team. Gobert,Wembanyama, Davis, and Adebayo are no-brainers considering theirdefensive impact for each of their teams, while Jones takes thelast spot in the 1st team for his ability to disrupt offenses aswell as guarding each team’s best player night in and night out forthe Pelicans.

The second team features White(most blocks for a guard), Suggs and Isaac (best defensive playersfor the 4th best defense in the league, helping to lead the Magicback to the playoffs), McDaniels (best wing defender for the bestdefense in the league), and the perennial all-defense player Carusowho brings it in defensively every game.

Rookie of the Year: Victor Wembanyama, San AntonioSpurs

(Runner-up: ChetHolmgren)

Notes: Despite Holmgren havingfar and away the better team success, there’s no denyingWembanyama’s greatness in his rookie year. The French phenom hastranscended the game both figuratively and on the eye test – he issimply a generational talent who is going to take over the leaguesoon. Holmgren got off to a hot start in the first two months ofthe season but since January, Wembanyama has locked up the awardfor himself with out-of-the-world numbers for a rookie. He wasdubbed as the best prospect since LeBron James and now he is wellon his way to being one of the greatest of all time if he remainshealthy after a historic rookie season.

All-Rookie Team:

1st Team - VictorWembanyama, Chet Holmgren, Brandon Miller, Jaime Jaquez Jr., GGJackson

2nd Team - AusarThompson, Amen Thompson, Keyonte George, Brandin Podziemski, TrayceJackson-Davis

Notes: There were several namesto choose from here, and it felt hard to cut some of them here.Jordan Hawkins of the Pelicans has had a good start to the yearwhen the team had all those injuries paving the way for him to playearly into the season but has seen the bench since as NOLA gothealthier and players came back; Cason Wallace had such a goodshooting year off the bench for the No.1 seeded Thunder despiteshooting being labeled by scouts as his biggest weakness cominginto the NBA; Dereck Lively II being center that Luka Doncic neededand fit well with by catching all those lobs and helping the Mavs’defense this season big time; No.2 overall pick Scoot Henderson hada good close to his rookie year.

All in all, these 10 rookieshave felt like the best rookies in terms of production,opportunity, and narratives surrounding them. Of course, Wembanyamaand Holmgren are automatic locks; Miller has been the best playerin Charlotte without LaMelo Ball and Mark Williams; Jaquez is avital piece off the bench for Erik Spoelstra’s playoff-bound Heatteam; and GG Jackson becoming a legit NBA scorer despite being theyoungest player in the league to round out the firstteam.

The Thompson twins have justbeen defensive monsters ever since stepping foot in the league;George playing point guard at Utah has turned some heads and he hasstepped up with the opportunity given to him; while Podziemski andJackson-Davis have arguably been rotational pieces to the Warriorsdespite being rookies and has contributed a lot to them finding away to fit in a complex team.

Coach of the Year: Mark Daigneault, Oklahoma CityThunder

(Runner-ups: Chris Finch, JamahlMosley)

Notes: There have been so manygood coaches this season that have elevated their teams to goodrecords, say Ime Udoka of the Houston Rockets and Tom Thibodeaufrom the New York Knicks. But my Coach of the Year pick goes toMark Daigneault of the OKC Thunder because this award tends tofavor the expectations set for a team before the start of theseason. The Thunder weren’t supposed to be this good this season,but Daigneault catapulted them into one of the best teams not justin the West but the entire NBA. The evidence is written on thewall: No.1 in the West despite being the second youngest team inthe league; having a top 5 ranking on both offense and defense andno.2 overall net rating. Finch and Mosley take the runner-up spotswith the work they had to lift both the Timberwolves and the Magicto being top 4 seeds in their conferences as well as havingtop-rated defenses in the league.

Clutch Player of the Year: Stephen Curry, Golden StateWarriors

(Runner-ups: DeMar DeRozan, ShaiGilgeous-Alexander)

Notes: Another tough and closerace, but ultimately it goes to Curry. Despite the Warriors’ so-sorecord, Curry had the most clutch time points, shot 50% from thefield, and 46% from three in clutch time. Curry had the most threesthan anyone in crunch time – being just the incredible clutch-timeperformer that he is – and always been.

All-NBA Team:

1st Team - NikolaJokic, Luka Doncic, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Giannis Antetokounmpo,Jayson Tatum

2nd Team - JalenBrunson, Kevin Durant, Anthony Davis, Anthony Edwards, LeBronJames

3rd Team -Stephen Curry, Domantas Sabonis, Kawhi Leonard, DevinBooker, Tyrese Haliburton

Notes: With Jalen Brunsoncarrying the Knicks to a second seed in the East playing withoutJulius Randle since January, it was incredibly hard to leave himoff the 1st team. However, by the slightest of margins, I gave thenod to Tatum for being the best player on the best team in theleague by a wide margin.

All the other picks were prettyexplanatory, with the top 4 in the MVP race in Jokic, Doncic, SGA,and Giannis all expected to be first-teamers. The second team kindof got tougher besides Brunson, with legends Durant and Jamesmaking the list because of the seasons they had leading their teamas well as playing their most regular season game in years.Rounding out the second team were Edwards and Davis, two stars withthe biggest impacts on their teams in the tough WesternConference.

The third team is actually atoss-up with a lot of good cases from the league all around, butultimately I went with Curry, Sabonis, Leonard, Booker, andHaliburton.

Most Valuable Player: ShaiGilgeous-Alexander

(Runners-up: Nikola Jokic, LukaDoncic; Honorable mention: Giannis Antetokounmpo)

Perhaps the closest race out ofall the awards, all three players here are each deserving withtheir narratives and the numbers that support each of their cases.You can never go wrong picking one over the other, so it came downto personal opinion on who I thought had the strongest case thisseason. His case?

-Leading the second youngestteam in the league to No.1 in the West

-3-1 series vs Denver

-3-1 series vs Dallas

-First player since Steph and MJto average 30/5/5 in a season with 2+ steals

-Second in defensive net ratingfor guards

One could make the argument forNikola Jokic being the best player in the world having betternumbers than his two MVP seasons while Luka Doncic had one of thebest seasons statistically in all facets of the game, but there’sno denying SGA’s strong case as well given the expectations forthis young Thunder team.

Shai Gilgeous-Alexander is myMVP.