Blogger Post-Season Awards

The NBA regular season has come to a close and the playoffs are underway. The league asked many fine individuals to vote for respective awards this season. Unfortunately the network of Bloggers was apparently overlooked when the league office was sending out ballots. For that reason, Page4Hoop has taken a poll of our own collecting votes from many of the NBA Blogging community’s finest members. Here are the results of that poll.

→Sixth Man of the Year (preseason prediction: Donyell Marshall): Mike Miller
--- Bloggers and actual voters agreed on this one, Mike Miller is clearly the sixth man of the season. Although his season this year wasn’t as good as it was last year, where he was a starter for the most part and shot higher percentages from all over the field, it was a year right in line with his career averages. Miller proved to be an excellent piece off the bench for Memphis and was able to help the Grizzlies to a 49 win season.

→Rookie of the Year (preseason prediction: Andrew Bogut): Chris Paul
--- Chris Paul clearly has had one of the most impressive rookie seasons ever, but in terms of individual and team statistics, and will run away with the award. His doubters said he was too small; too turnover prone and he couldn’t shoot the ball. Well, he is awful small, but he makes up for it by averaging a healthy 5.2rpg. He wasn’t a particularly great handler in his rookie year, but he made up for it with impressive passing numbers, such that were good enough to keep him 6th in the league in assists-per-turnover. To those who said he couldn’t shoot, well, he sort of can’t, but he can run an offense. Paul’s play turned his team from an 18-win team, to a team in contention for the playoffs. All of this should make Chris Paul the rookie of the year.

→Most Improved (preseason prediction: Kwame Brown): Boris Diaw
---It is hard to imagine the changes that have occurred in Diaw this season. He changed positions, from “pseudo-point-guard” in Atlanta to Center in Phoenix, improved every single one of his numbers and carved a future for himself in the league. In a system like Phoenix, Diaw is a perfect fit: a mobile post player who can pass and shoot. The only knock on his future is that Diaw will need to remain in a system like this. While he is a good defensive player, his rebounding numbers, 6.9rpg, are not particularly strong when you consider he is playing center most of the time. That, combined with the fact that he is a good 3-5 inches shorter than most centers in the league, may force him to evolve yet again, but for this season, Diaw has been absolutely brilliant in the role the Suns created for him.

→Defensive Player of the Year (preseason prediction: Tim Duncan): Ben Wallace
---Even though his rebounding numbers and blocked shots are down the past two years, there is still not a force in the paint as intimidating as Ben Wallace. It isn’t really necessary to elaborate on how much of an impact player Ben is on the defensive end except to say this: he is top ten in steals, rebounds and blocks. Other interesting players that received votes were Bruce Bowen, the Spurs lock-down perimeter defender, and Kirk Hinrich, the Bulls guard who is currently making a very solid case for receiving this award with his play against Dwayne Wade.

→ Executive of the Year: Elgin Baylor.
---That’s right, Elgin Baylor. Say what you will about him, but he was able to, if only by blind luck, assemble a collection of players that took the Clippers to the playoffs for the first time in a long time. They are well on their way to visiting the second round of the playoffs and show no signs of slowing down. The real test on Baylor though will come in the off-season, when Sam Cassell is a free agent.

→ Coach of the Year: Mike D’Antoni
---Mike D took this in a landslide, as well he should have. Not only was he able to coach his team the second seed in the western conference, he was able to do it with a ridiculously atypical post game. With Amare Stoudamire, Brian Grant and Kurt Thomas missing most of the season, D’Antoni converted Boris Diaw, Tim Thomas and Shawn Marion into centers and power-forwards. He was also able to create an offensive strategy to further utilize Steve Nash’s passing talents. However, D’Antoni’s greatest accomplishment this season was creating defensive schemes that hide Steve Nash’s shortcomings. The Suns are a drastically different team than they were a year ago, and a lot of it has to do with D’Antoni completely re-envisioning his game plan for this year’s roster.

→ MVP (preseason prediction: Ron Artest): Kobe Bryant
---Although many people thought Lebron James should receive this award, Kobe was the clear favorite. After leading the league in scoring, and free throws, Bryant has totally changed his game up to confuse the Suns in the playoffs. Its certainly worked, as the Lakers have taken a 3-1 series lead. The team is looking so fluid right now that it’s not unthinkable that they could make it out of the second round as well.