NBA 2022 Year-end awards

Saints Rest

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Hollinger has an article in the Athletic today with his mythical ballot (he honest actually have a real vote anywhere) for all the big awards.

Some highlights as it concerns Celtics:
  • Jayson Tatum, 5th place MVP. (His MVP: Jokic)
  • Jayson Tatum, 1st team All-NBA (with Luka, Giannis, Jokic, + Embiid)
  • Marcus Smart, 1st Team All-Defensive (with Gobert, Jrue, Bridges, and Jalen Jackson, the latter is his DPOY)
  • Rob Williams, 2nd place Most Improved (his MIP: Dejounte Murray, Spurs)
No love for Ime.
No discussion of Executive of the Year.
 

cheech13

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Not having Timelord on his DPOY list is ridiculous tbh
I haven’t quite finished Zach Lowe’s recent podcast on the All-Defensive teams but I don’t recall hearing him or Herring seriously discuss him as a candidate for DPOY.
 

scottyno

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If I understand the rules correctly his vote for Tatum would basically be a throwaway because he's voting for him as a guard, where he technically qualifies, but there's no chance more voters vote for him as a guard than a forward.
 

Euclis20

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I have a hard time giving players who've missed a substantial amount of time regular season awards, and even though TL nearly doubled his career high in minutes, he's missed 25% of the regular season and is 118th in total minutes played (and that number may drop over the next few days, I haven't looked closely). That plus the fact that he's playing alongside another DPOY candidate in Smart rightly disqualifies him from having a real chance.
 

bellowthecat

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If I understand the rules correctly his vote for Tatum would basically be a throwaway because he's voting for him as a guard, where he technically qualifies, but there's no chance more voters vote for him as a guard than a forward.
I believe all the votes count. If Tatum gets more votes at forward he will be treated as a forward and all the votes he got at guard will be added to his total. Likewise if he gets more votes at guard (obviously unlikely) then he all his forward votes will be added to his raw count at guard.
 

scottyno

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I believe all the votes count. If Tatum gets more votes at forward he will be treated as a forward and all the votes he got at guard will be added to his total. Likewise if he gets more votes at guard (obviously unlikely) then he all his forward votes will be added to his raw count at guard.
That makes no sense at all because it opens up the possibility where someone ends up making a team with a really small percentage of the votes because all those votes ended up being redistributed to other positions.

Of course being able to vote for guys at multiple positions instead of either locking them in to one position or saying just vote for any 5 players doesn't make any sense either.
 

HomeRunBaker

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It really isn't at all. He addresses him in the body of it, and honestly.... I wouldn't have TL top 3 either (and I'd have a different top 3)
I hadn’t put a lot of thought into the All-Defensive Team but it seems like there is a group fighting for the 4 and 5 spots behind Gobert, JJJ and Smart (flip for your order imo) and those who don’t make it will feel snubbed.
 

Sam Ray Not

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BR likes JP for MIP.

View: https://mobile.twitter.com/thenbacentral/status/1512790731425034243?s=21&t=7MREBAJoEyiPeqgS0vyjMg


It’s not like Poole wasn’t really good last season; he just got a ton more minutes and usage. Who knew young players with great per 36 numbers tend to extrapolate or improve on their rate numbers given greater usage and playing time?

I’d actually vote Garland, who massively improved his scoring efficiency, assist rate, and on-off numbers, and was a top 15-20 NBA player this season by a lot of measures.

2019 redraft:

1. Ja
2. Garland
3. Poole
4. Herro
5. Zion

Throwing it out there…
 
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Jimbodandy

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BR likes JP for MIP.

View: https://mobile.twitter.com/thenbacentral/status/1512790731425034243?s=21&t=7MREBAJoEyiPeqgS0vyjMg


It’s not like Poole wasn’t really good last season; he just got a ton more minutes and usage. Who knew young players with great per 36 numbers tend to extrapolate or improve on their rate numbers given greater usage and playing time?

I’d actually vote Garland, who massively improved his scoring efficiency, assist rate, and on-off numbers, and was a top 15-20 NBA player this season by a lot of measures.

2019 redraft:

1. Ja
2. Garland
3. Poole
4. Herro
5. Zion

Throwing it out there…
Herro and Zion would probably still go higher, but that's because people are stupid.

The amount to which Herro is overrated in the basketball twitterverse is absurd.
 

lovegtm

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I haven’t quite finished Zach Lowe’s recent podcast on the All-Defensive teams but I don’t recall hearing him or Herring seriously discuss him as a candidate for DPOY.
I think this is a case of the narrative taking time to catch up more than anything (and the games played thing, although most other candidates have this issue too. I'd vote for Draymond as DPOY in a heartbeat if he'd played enough).

I love Smart and think he's been amazing this year, but I'd take TL as DPOY over him any day (disregarding minutes played).

What TL does on defense is really, really special. He cleans up everything in the back, covering more ground than someone like Gobert. He also isn't really exploitable on the perimeter--it's night and day watching him get out on guys there vs Theis. This takes away the typical way to attack a center, which is to force him to defend in space. Teams rarely bother with that against TL.

It's weird that there's such a consensus that Bam is a more important defender because "he can switch everything", when the Celtics base defense switches a ton too, is much better than Miami's overall, and TL is so much better at rim protection than Bam.

tldr; TL got stuck with labels of "fragile", "raw" etc that are no longer valid at all, and so he's being ranked behind lesser defenders.
 

Eddie Jurak

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I think Smart should be DPOY and Rob should be MIP.

Lowe had a podcast conversation about this with someone (I forget who) who commented that Rob's rate stats haven't changed much from the previous year. Per 36, he's taking fewer shots, getting fewer rebounds, fewer assists, fewer steals, fewer blocks. In terms of rates, his defensive and total rebound, assist, steal, block, and usage rates are down - and are all below his career averages. But I think - and Loew made this point in response - that misses the forest for the trees. He also nearly doubled his minutes, partly a function of his health and partly a function of not fouling. That, too, is improvement. He has also cleaned up a lot of the defensive issues that limited his value and become a key component in the Celtics new scheme.
 

Cellar-Door

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I get the thought process that TL cleans up a lot, and he does, but that's also because he's allowed to do that because the Celtics switch everything with the other 4 guys, Horford guards all the bigs, the Celtics rarely allow penetration and TL spends most of his time on an offensive non-factor.

It's like a safety in football who gets a lot of INTs by roaming the middle and picking off errant passes when the QB throws it up under pressure because nobody is open. Yes the safety made a really good play, but mostly because the D-line got pressure and the CBs took away the first read. TL plays a lot of roamer, it takes a special skillset to do that, but also it takes lots and lots of hard work from your teammates.

Smart to me is more important and better as a defender, because he...
1. Plays man on the opponent's best permiter player much of the time.
2. Is the rare guard who can switch onto 4s and 5s without getting killed
3. Calls all the switches and re-switches when he's on the floor.
 

PedroKsBambino

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BR likes JP for MIP.

View: https://mobile.twitter.com/thenbacentral/status/1512790731425034243?s=21&t=7MREBAJoEyiPeqgS0vyjMg


It’s not like Poole wasn’t really good last season; he just got a ton more minutes and usage. Who knew young players with great per 36 numbers tend to extrapolate or improve on their rate numbers given greater usage and playing time?

I’d actually vote Garland, who massively improved his scoring efficiency, assist rate, and on-off numbers, and was a top 15-20 NBA player this season by a lot of measures.

2019 redraft:

1. Ja
2. Garland
3. Poole
4. Herro
5. Zion

Throwing it out there…
I've been the low man on Zion around here pretty much all along, but even I would say there's zero teams who would take Poole over Zion. Including Golden State.

But it's fair to say Poole is the biggest 'riser' in that draft class for sure.
 

chilidawg

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I get the thought process that TL cleans up a lot, and he does, but that's also because he's allowed to do that because the Celtics switch everything with the other 4 guys, Horford guards all the bigs, the Celtics rarely allow penetration and TL spends most of his time on an offensive non-factor.

It's like a safety in football who gets a lot of INTs by roaming the middle and picking off errant passes when the QB throws it up under pressure because nobody is open. Yes the safety made a really good play, but mostly because the D-line got pressure and the CBs took away the first read. TL plays a lot of roamer, it takes a special skillset to do that, but also it takes lots and lots of hard work from your teammates.

Smart to me is more important and better as a defender, because he...
1. Plays man on the opponent's best permiter player much of the time.
2. Is the rare guard who can switch onto 4s and 5s without getting killed
3. Calls all the switches and re-switches when he's on the floor.
Spot on. This works also because Horford can man up on bigs and still be decent at switching. He's a big key to the defense also. Granite and Theis have been good in that role too.
 

Sam Ray Not

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I've been the low man on Zion around here pretty much all along, but even I would say there's zero teams who would take Poole over Zion. Including Golden State.

But it's fair to say Poole is the biggest 'riser' in that draft class for sure.
I would exclude Golden State, who put a high premium on character, player development, and team harmony, and would not (I suspect) trade Poole for anyone other than a top tier superstar. He’s already super-beloved by the vets; and with Steph aging out and Kuminga locking down Zion’s position for the foreseeable future, it’s just not a swap I could see the team agreeing to, were it offered this off-season.

For the other 29 teams … yeah, it wouldn’t surprise me if Zion’s injury/durability question marks would be, er, outweighed by his tantalizing upside. A 270 lb monster with Zion’s skills is just a much rarer commodity than a 6-4 combo guard who can fill it up. I’d note that Poole is actually a pretty special player, though — for example, he just won the 2020-21 FT% title (.925, two points better than some dude named Curry), which to me suggests that his 36.4% three ball at age 22 may just be waystation to a ~40% three ball at his peak; and at that point he starts to get in the conversation with guys like Devin Booker.

Anyway I can’t say what Myers or other GMs would do, but I’m definitely taking JP over Zion on the Warriors as constructed.
 

RorschachsMask

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There’s a spreadsheet that tracks all the public votes for the awards, I’ll keep all the screenshots in thumbnails. Early returns look good for Jokic winning MVP, Smart DPOY, and Tatum 1st team all nba. Looks like Jokic and Embiid will be split up between 1st and 2nd team. And I’ll post the link below for people who want to look themselves.

https://tinyurl.com/4v4bzhh8


79CC842D-BC2F-48B0-9740-CE869BA5C106.png2A2844CB-6C6E-4F40-A0E7-DA84D28256CE.pngC050F4EF-FF11-4B89-A062-964A1FB6BAB7.png
 

Cellar-Door

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There’s a spreadsheet that tracks all the public votes for the awards, I’ll keep all the screenshots in thumbnails. Early returns look good for Jokic winning MVP, Smart DPOY, and Tatum 1st team all nba. Looks like Jokic and Embiid will be split up between 1st and 2nd team. And I’ll post the link below for people who want to look themselves.

https://tinyurl.com/4v4bzhh8


View attachment 50797View attachment 50798View attachment 50799
My number 1 takeaway from that is thankfully voters seem to be rejecting the NBA's "ooh he played nothing but center, but you can call him a forward if you want" strategy on Embiid/Jokic.
 

djbayko

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My number 1 takeaway from that is thankfully voters seem to be rejecting the NBA's "ooh he played nothing but center, but you can call him a forward if you want" strategy on Embiid/Jokic.
It was always doomed for failure anyways. In order for it to have succeeded, the voters would have needed to communicate and collude somehow so they could all agree on which of Embiid / Jokic they were going to call a F and which a C. Otherwise, it just ends up as we see it now - some voters call Embiid a F and some call Jokic a F, but neither gets > 50% of their votes at that position and therefore both default to C.
 

DourDoerr

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It's only CBSSports, but looks like Smart's campaign reached some ears there. Smart was smart - amplifying that it's been a while since a guard was a DPOY was pretty crafty and I'd guess has had some influence.
:50812

50813
 

Kliq

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Yeah Smart might actually do it, which justified or not, would be incredibly impressive given only a handful of guards have ever won the award, and none since GP.
 

deanx0

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Who are the two people that don't have Tatum on any of the three all NBA teams? That's insane.
 

djbayko

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Who are the two people that don't have Tatum on any of the three all NBA teams? That's insane.
Add up the total number of 1st team votes and compare it to the total number of 3rd team votes. My guess is that we simply don’t have complete ballots from everyone. With the way this data is collected, that’s pretty common.
 

HomeRunBaker

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Who are the two people that don't have Tatum on any of the three all NBA teams? That's insane.
The same ones who don’t have Jokic on the 1st Team I’d guess. These aren’t actual votes leaked are they? That can’t be right. I hope so I have some Giannis at +750 even though I expect Jokic to win it.

Smart has been the betting favorite for DPOY for about a month now. This would be quite the honor.
 

RorschachsMask

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The same ones who don’t have Jokic on the 1st Team I’d guess. These aren’t actual votes leaked are they? That can’t be right. I hope so I have some Giannis at +750 even though I expect Jokic to win it.

Smart has been the betting favorite for DPOY for about a month now. This would be quite the honor.
It’s votes from writers who made their picks public.
 

HomeRunBaker

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It’s votes from writers who made their picks public.
Wow that’s insane! Good for me I guess but wtf lol.

Edit: Wait! We are supposed to believe that of what looks like 17 ballots only 4 had Jokic on any of the first 3 Teams? Ok I call bs on this. Do we know who these 13 writers are?
 

RorschachsMask

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Wow that’s insane! Good for me I guess but wtf lol.
That’s just for 1st team nba, unfortunately for you lol. Jokic running away with MVP, has 33 of the 46 public first place votes. Embiid has 9, and Giannis 4.

Edit: In response to your edit, that’s just the numbers for forward, Jokic running away with it at center.
 

HomeRunBaker

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That’s just for 1st team nba, unfortunately for you lol. Jokic running away with MVP, has 33 of the 46 public first place votes. Embiid has 9, and Giannis 4.

Edit: In response to your edit, that’s just the numbers for forward, Jokic running away with it at center.
Ah ok this all makes sense now. Ty
 

djbayko

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Add up the total number of 1st team votes and compare it to the total number of 3rd team votes. My guess is that we simply don’t have complete ballots from everyone. With the way this data is collected, that’s pretty common.
Just to follow up, now that I'm back on laptop and can more easily view the sheet...

Yeah, the only ballots which are missing Tatum are incomplete ballots. Again, this is very common. Think about the writer who only publishes their 1st team selections via tweet. Or a podcast / radio show where they might be jumping all over the place in discussion and not necessarily going down the list of selections on their ballots in order.
 

Cellar-Door

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I will note, that Zach Harper who has a ballot noted last night that spreadsheet is not accurate since it had his votes on there, but he had not filled out a ballot, they appear to pull from anything you've said about how you might vote including stuff that is several weeks old.

On to public votes:
The Athletic published a snapshot of 6 of their writers with ballots:
https://theathletic.com/3247767/2022/04/14/nba-mvp-awards-athletic-staff/

All 6 had Jokic MVP
For DPOY (they only had 1st place): Smart 3 , Bam 1, Gobert 1, JJJ 1.
ROTY: Mobley 4 , Barnes 2.
Sixth Man: all six had Herro
MIP: Morant 5, Garland 1
COTY: All 6 had Monty Williams.

Won't go through the full All-NBA but all 6 had Jokic as their 1st team C, 4 of 6 had Tatum 1st team (other two multi-positioned Embiid)
 

nighthob

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I've been the low man on Zion around here pretty much all along, but even I would say there's zero teams who would take Poole over Zion. Including Golden State.

But it's fair to say Poole is the biggest 'riser' in that draft class for sure.
I definitely wish Boston had taken him rather than Langford.
 

djbayko

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I will note, that Zach Harper who has a ballot noted last night that spreadsheet is not accurate since it had his votes on there, but he had not filled out a ballot, they appear to pull from anything you've said about how you might vote including stuff that is several weeks old.
Zach is just confused about how the sheet works. He was reacting to being in the “Predicted Voters” section. All that means is that it’s been confirmed he has a vote this year. He wasn’t in the “Confirmed Ballots” section precisely because they only had old selections from him and not confirmed ballot selections. Selections for “Predicted Voters” aren’t counted in the tally, so no old data is used.
 
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Cellar-Door

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Zach is just confused about how the sheet works. He was reacting to being in the “Predicted Voters” section. All that means is that it’s been confirmed he has a vote this year. He wasn’t in the “Confirmed Ballots” section precisely because they only had old selections from him and not confirmed ballot selections. Selections for “Predicted Voters” aren’t counted in the tally, so no old data is used.
Ah, probably because someone was sending him a screenshot so he wasn't looking at the sheet.
 

djbayko

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They could have him at guard I believe
Reason already stated upthread. They are incomplete ballots. We only know part of how they voted. You can see individual ballots in the sheet.

I’m not sure that Tatum is even available for voters to pick at G.
 

HowBoutDemSox

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NBA announced the finalists for the awards:
NBA Coach of the Year
Taylor Jenkins, Memphis Grizzlies

Erik Spoelstra, Miami Heat

Monty Williams, Phoenix Suns

Kia NBA Defensive Player of the Year
Mikal Bridges, Phoenix Suns

Rudy Gobert, Utah Jazz

Marcus Smart, Boston Celtics


Kia NBA Most Improved Player
Darius Garland, Cleveland Cavaliers

Ja Morant, Memphis Grizzlies

Dejounte Murray, San Antonio Spurs


Kia NBA Most Valuable Player
Giannis Antetokounmpo, Milwaukee Bucks

Joel Embiid, Philadelphia 76ers

Nikola Jokić, Denver Nuggets


Kia NBA Rookie of the Year
Scottie Barnes, Toronto Raptors

Cade Cunningham, Detroit Pistons

Evan Mobley, Cleveland Cavaliers


Kia NBA Sixth Man of the Year
Tyler Herro, Miami Heat

Cam Johnson, Phoenix Suns

KevinLove, Cleveland Cavaliers
https://www.nba.com/news/finalists-announced-for-2021-22-nba-awards
 

DeJesus Built My Hotrod

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This story is only bound to get bigger given the dollars and names involved. Draymond, Arenas and Hollins have a valid point.

As a side, the Simmons comment about Jalen Green was just Sprtsguy33 being flip but it feels similar to the sort of things his predecessors in print might have published back in their day. The very same people whose sloppy work and biases prompted Simmons to start his blog.

View: https://twitter.com/theBrowsexual/status/1518596804241248259?s=20&t=0JxNyrzakoFbE-WUE2sVxQ


A day after former NBA players Gilbert Arenas and Ryan Hollins blasted Bill Simmons for his “F--k Jalen Green” comments, Draymond Green has chimed in, questioning why The Ringer founder is allowed to vote on the NBA’s postseason awards
 

lovegtm

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This story is only bound to get bigger given the dollars and names involved. Draymond, Arenas and Hollins have a valid point.

As a side, the Simmons comment about Jalen Green was just Sprtsguy33 being flip but it feels similar to the sort of things his predecessors in print might have published back in their day. The very same people whose sloppy work and biases prompted Simmons to start his blog.

View: https://twitter.com/theBrowsexual/status/1518596804241248259?s=20&t=0JxNyrzakoFbE-WUE2sVxQ
The other part that Dray doesn't bring up, but would probably agree with, is that the awards have this weird thing where they're about the regular season, but all anyone cares about in the NBA regular season is how it positions you for the postseason (on-court chemistry, seeding, etc).

Other sports don't have this: regular and postseason NFL and MLB are pretty much the same sport, so the award logic is more coherent.

NBA playoff basketball is a different sport, and it's the one people care about, but (to Dray's point), guys make their money and get awards based on the regular season version of the awards.
 

coremiller

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Tying contracts to awards voted on by the media is not something that was imposed on the players against their wishes; it's in the CBA that the players union negotiated. If the players really don't like it, they can negotiate to get rid of it.
 

The Social Chair

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I also can't think of a more unqualified group to vote than the players based off of their All Star voting. DeAndre Jordan would probably be 3rd team center.
 

DeJesus Built My Hotrod

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Tying contracts to awards voted on by the media is not something that was imposed on the players against their wishes; it's in the CBA that the players union negotiated. If the players really don't like it, they can negotiate to get rid of it.
Exactly and it feels like that's what they will do.

As for voting being relegated to the players, maybe the pool includes coaches and executives too to try to mitigate the bias which almost certainly exists. That said, there is no getting around the popularity aspect of some of these awards.
 

BaseballJones

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Ok Draymond, fair point. But....what's the alternative? What's the better way? What way doesn't have massive flaws?
 

coremiller

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I think it's worth noting this is a very limited problem. It only affects super-max eligibility, and the number of players who are borderline for a super-max in any given year such that an all-nba team will qualify them is extremely small, no more than a couple at most.