2017-2018 NBA Awards Predictions

With the Celtics and Cavaliers tipping off the NBA regular season tonight, after an unprecedentedly chaotic offseason that featured 15 All-Stars changing teams, it is time to break down predictions for the NBA’s end-of-season awards.

AP Photo/Darren Hauck

Most Improved Player: Aaron Gordon

In his fourth year in the league, the 22-year-old Gordon is a prime breakout candidate. After playing three positions including center during the preseason, Gordon appears poised to lead the Magic in both points and rebounds this season. His preseason averages of 18.4 points and 7.4 rebounds in 23.9 minutes were considerably better than his 12.7 points and 5.1 rebounds over 28.7 minutes per game last season.

Gordon is demonstrating newfound confidence, improved physicality, and consistent aggression in the paint. He also appears to have improved his three-point shot, which he converted at a .429 rate this preseason compared to .288 last season. 

Gordon accredits much of his development to mental training and meditation and he is exhibiting the potential and athleticism necessary to develop into a dynamic high-volume scorer. The Magic traded away Victor Oladipo to rebuild in the offseason and Gordon has a great opportunity to seize a big-time scoring role in Orlando.

MIP Runner-ups: Myles Turner, Marcus Smart

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Sixth Man of the Year: Marcus Smart

Plenty of talented scorers have sixth man roles around the NBA, but very few of them can shut down the league's best players on defense.

Smart wears down opponents and inspires his teammates with relentless physical intensity, diving for loose balls and always doing the little things right. 

Embracing his role as the sixth man, Smart takes pride in leading the second unit. He also lost 20 pounds in the offseason and has demonstrated tremendous improvement in his jump shot during the preseason.

With a vital role and heavy minutes off the bench in relief of youngsters Jaylen Brown and Jayson Tatum, Smart will play up to four different positions for the Celtics while facilitating energy as their "sixth starter."

6MOY Runner-ups: Andre Iguodala, Eric Gordon

San Antonio Express-News

Defensive Player of the Year: Kawhi Leonard

Watching the lengthy 6’7’’ Leonard lock down opponents can be mesmerizing. As the best all-around player on the second-best team in the West, Leonard has become a perennial contender for both DPOY and MVP by causing nightmares for opposing scorers and coaches with elite toughness and defensive awareness. 

Despite being expected to miss the Spurs’ regular-season opener because of a quad injury, Leonard should quickly return to wreaking havoc on defense.

DPOY Runner-ups: Draymond Green, Rudy Gobert

Rookie of the Year: Ben Simmons

Brian Fluharty-USA TODAY Sports

The #1 overall pick in the 2016 draft would have played his way into ROY consideration last year, but he suffered a season-ending foot injury prior to the start of the season. 

Now healthy, the 6’10’’ Australian forward is expected to play a variety of positions for the 76ers, including the unique point forward role seen for stars like LeBron James, Draymond Green, Kevin Garnett, and Larry Bird. Simmons has astounding court vision and dribbling skills. If he stays healthy, he will develop into an elite magician in the interior amidst a league dominated by three-point shooting.

ROY Runner-ups: Milos Teodosic, Dennis Smith Jr

AP Photo/Kathy Willens

Most Valuable Player: Anthony Davis

Coming off a career year in which the 6’10’’ forward averaged 28.0 points and 11.8 rebounds, the 24-year-old Davis has looked unstoppable in the preseason. Playing alongside DeMarcus Cousins in the bruising New Orleans frontcourt, Davis racked up 37 points and 15 rebounds during their third preseason game.

As a young superstar establishing individual dominance during the age of super-teams, Davis needs to stay healthy and continue building on the monumental production he exhibited last season when he produced the fourth-highest Player Efficiency Rating in the NBA (27.59) and the second-most points per game of those four players. 

Russell Westbrook now shares the ball with Paul George and Carmelo Anthony and will no longer attempt 24 shots per game, while James and Kevin Durant sacrifice MVP votes to the teams and talent they choose to play with. As one of the most dynamic big men in the sport, Davis could shock the basketball world by leading the Pelicans to a playoff berth while putting up career-highs across the board.

MVP Runner-ups: James Harden, Kawhi Leonard

Stuart Cahill-Boston Herald

Coach of the Year: Brad Stevens

Last year, the Celtics finished atop the East for the first time in nine years and now Brad Stevens has two new All-Stars to help lead his team. Gordon Hayward helped Stevens lead Butler to a NCAA Championship game in 2010, while Kyrie Irving propelled LeBron and the Cavaliers to three consecutive NBA Finals appearances. 

Stevens will not have any difficulty in getting this motivated group of guys to buy in, as the Celtics will rally around their new talent. Look for them to win around 58 games while finishing atop the conference.


COY Runner-ups: Gregg Popovich, Quin Snyder

Jim Beckel-The Oklahoman

Executive of the Year: Sam Presti

After losing Durant, the Thunder were supposed to finish near the bottom of the tough Western Conference. Instead, Westbrook led them to the playoffs and captured his first MVP award. 

Presti rewarded his devoted point guard with a $205 million contract and a new pair of All-Star teammates. George and Anthony, like Westbrook, are high-volume scorers who won Olympic gold medals representing the USA. 

If OKC’s offense meshes, George and Anthony will punish defenses by peppering them with drives and jump shots whenever defenders scramble to converge on the lightning-quick Westbrook. 

On paper the Thunder feature one of best new starting lineups, but coach Billy Donovan is tasked with managing an array of eccentric individual personalities. He will need them all to work together to foster a healthy team culture, but at their best the Thunder could become viciously unforgiving on offense.

EOY Runner-ups: Scott Layden, Danny Ainge

Boston’s Backcourt Bandits

The Celtics backcourt defense is fierce.  They routed the Houston Rockets 111-95 on the road yesterday, just 24 hours after stifling the Thunder in OKC.  With these wins the Celtics improve to 6-4 and have their first three game winning streak of the young season.  Based on the way their backcourt defense is playing, this winning streak may be the first of many.

Prior to these high-octane matchups against elite scorers like James Harden and Russell Westbrook, the Celtics kicked off their streak with a commanding 106-93 victory over the Atlanta Hawks.  In all three wins, the Celtics limited typically-high scoring opponents under 100 points.  

The Celtics are now 6-1 when holding their opponents under 100, with the only loss coming against the San Antonio Spurs and their #1 ranked defense.  But while San Antonio may have the best overall defense, nobody has a better defensive backcourt than the Celtics.  

The trio of Marcus Smart, Avery Bradley and Jae Crowder constantly apply aggressive ball pressure that leads the Celtics to a whopping NBA-leading 11.8 steals per game.  These “Backcourt Bandits” lead by example.  Their relentless effort on defense inspires other Celtics role players to step up and play tough defense of their own.  As a result, the Celtics have won five of their last six games.

Crowder also leads the NBA with three steals per game – but the steals statistic does not encapsulate all the plays in which tenacious defense leads to turnovers.  Right now, the Celtics force an average of 19 total turnovers per game – the best mark of any team in this category since the 1997-98 Boston Celtics.

Furthermore this year’s Celtics already rank fourth in defensive efficiency, but their 94.2 defensive rating continues to drop as they win games.  They are still ranked behind the Spurs, Heat and Warriors, but with their ability to shut down top scorers, they could easily surpass the Heat and the Warriors on the defensive efficiency leaderboard by the end of November.

Smart is the team’s defensive MVP.  The Celtics’ winning streak began when Smart was reinserted into the starting lineup alongside Isaiah Thomas.  In the OKC game, Smart thoroughly outplayed Westbrook.  Not only did he contribute 26 points and eight rebounds, but he limited the Thunder’s superstar guard to just 5-20 shooting from the field.

On the very next night, Smart was tasked with guarding Harden and his blanket coverage left Harden scoreless on 2-point field goal attempts.  Smart did not allow Houston’s elite scorer anywhere near the rim, causing Harden to finish with just 16 points on 4-10 shooting and all four of his buckets coming from 3-point range.  

Harden is an artist at drawing contact and he perennially leads the league in free throw attempts. But against Smart and the Celtics backcourt defense, Harden attempted just four free throws.

The Celtics actually trailed the Rockets by 15 points in the second quarter before Brad Stevens called a timeout to rally his team.  The defense quickly tightened up, especially on Harden, and the Celtics stormed back to tie the game by halftime.  By early in the fourth, the Celtics found themselves up by nearly 30 points.

The backcourt’s ability to frazzle opposing ball handlers may feasibly enable the Celtics to maintain forced turnover numbers that have not been generated in nearly two decades.  The 19 forced turnovers per game is legitimate; the statistic is not being boosted by any outliers.  In comparison, the defensive-oriented 2007-08 championship Celtics forced just 16 turnovers per game.

Creating turnovers leads to fastbreak points for the young athletic Celtics, but more importantly, it leads to an increase of wild plays, frustration and technical fouls from exasperated opponents.  

Opposing ball handlers visibly lose confidence in either themselves or their teammates after several turnovers have been forced.  Once that happens, the turnovers begin mounting in a snowball effect of frustration and excessive dribbling against unrelenting pressure.  

Some coaches are great at getting their team to regroup and settle down; but a lot of coaches aren’t. As a result, the Celtics will frequently force 20+ turnovers in certain favorable Eastern Conference matchups.  

Look for the Celtics to continue this trend of stellar play and elite defense as they steadily carve out a top-5 spot in the Eastern Conference.  This young Celtics team is undeniably exciting and their fierce backcourt defense is just one of many reasons why they are arguably one big trade away from becoming immediate contenders this year.