Simply Ballin’s 2022 NBA Award Picks

It’s that time of the year — NBA award predictions. This time is both fun, exciting, and stressful to make these decisions. Of course, my opinion and ultimately my decision doesn’t matter in any case, but I still want to put out an objective, informative analysis of my picks.

I’ll be going through the main awards + an additional one. In each category, I’ll be going through the main guys and honorable mentions.

Side note: some of the stats may vary at the end of the week — I’m writing this before the end of the regular-season Also, I’ve decided to do the MVP in a separate piece.

Rookie of the Year

• Scottie Barnes
• Evan Mobley
• Cade Cunningham

I got to be completely honest; I don’t pay much attention to this award, so excuse me if I make a completely wrong pick here. I’ve still researched enough for me to decide but I wouldn’t say I’ve gone in-depth.

This award comes down to these three players and I don’t think there should be any backlash for having any of them win it.

Cunningham has been one of the best offensive rookies, doing it all for the Detroit Pistons. Ben Taylor described him as having a * diverse scoring package at 3 levels* and is an adaptive, crafty finisher. Mark Schindler commented on his awareness of the court and being an elite manipulator.

Stats per 75 possessions as of April 7th: 19.5 points | 6.2 rebounds | 6.2 assists on 50.6% true shooting.

There has been a significant increase in efficiency post-all-star break, though — 48.9% → 54.0%.

He hasn’t had the team success that the other two had, but can you blame him? He was on the Pistons.

Before you start reading Barnes’ case, you must read this piece, as Samson Folk went through so much. He has been great defensively, put up great stats, and is one of the reasons why the Raptors have been this good.

Stats per 75 possessions as of April 7th: 16.3 points | 8.0 rebounds | 3.6 assists on 55.1% true shooting.

Similarly to Cunningham, he has seen a good increase in all his stats post-all-star.

And now we get to my winner — Mobley.

Having a defensive impact on defense is difficult, especially as a big man. Here are some impact metrics for him:

• +2.2 DEF EPM per Dunks and 3s
• +2.4 D-LEBRON — 3rd best rookie in their database since 2014 per BBall-Index

He has been one of the best defensive bigs in general, let alone amongst rookies. And offensively, he’s not some scrub either.

Coach of the Year

• Erik Spoelstra
• Taylor Jenkins
• Monty Williams
• HM: Ime Udoka

This was one of the hardest awards to pick. There are four legitimate candidates that should be in strong consideration — all have their unique arguments

Early in the season, there were Boston Celtics fans that wanted Udoka gone. I’m sure you can find many, many tweets that blamed the early season struggles on him. However, the team adjusted, made changes to their defense, and ended up being the best defense in the league and went on one of the best runs in the second half of the season.

It’s a nice story, but I don’t think that is better than the other coaches’ cases.

Monty Williams probably should have won it last year and he probably should win this year. Last year, they had the second-best record with 51 wins and made the finals — an amazing season.

They followed that with the best record by a good margin, the best net rating, the 2nd best offense, and the 2nd best defense. And what’s also surprising is the games missed by some of the players:

• Devin Booker missed 12 games
• Chris Paul 15 games
• DeAndre Ayton 22 games
• Jae Crowder 13 games

The Memphis Grizzlies are one of the youngest teams — Steven Adams and Kyle Anderson are the oldest on the team at 28 years old… the next oldest is Dillon Brooks at 26. Their main starters are: 28, 23, 22, 22, 20.

They exceeded all expectations and have made a massive jump from last year. And what is key here is the team is also 20–3 without Ja Morant.

Jenkins must be at least top 2 in the voting.

At the end of the day, there is still arguably the best coach left to talk about. Before the playoffs, the national media and the die-hard Heat fans didn’t think they would be this good in the regular season.

The whole argument against them was depth and potential injuries, which was 100% valid. And yet they find themselves potentially with the best record in the East.

Despite not having its best players available consistently, the Heat’s record without their top players:

• 15–9 without Jimmy Butler
• 12–6 without Kyle Lowry
• 17–8 without Bam Adebayo
• 9–6 without Tyler Herro
• 7–2 without PJ Tucker

And it’s not just the record itself that is important — it’s how he did it.

Spoelstra, time after time has adjusted an entire scheme depending on personnel and won. It didn’t matter whether it was Gabe Vincent, Omer Yurtseven, Dewayne Dedmon, Kyle Guy, or Chris Silva playing.

And now more recently, he has again made significant changes only a week or two before the regular-season has ended. I don’t think there has been a better coach when it comes to cooking something up with what you got, maximising all of the players, making on-the-fly adjustments, and still exceeding expectations.

Most Improved Player

• Ja Morant
• Darius Garland
• Dejounte Murray

Before going into each case, just wanted to point out that there have to be some changes to this award because there are many ways you can go about this award. Some people believe that you can’t exactly win this if you’re a second or third year player because you’re expected to make some leap. Some see it as someone unexpectedly making a drastic improvement or it could be just a big point per game increase.

Each of these guards has made significant improvements which were also shown in better team record, and all have made their first all-star appearance.

Murray saw a significant jump in both his scoring, efficiency, and playmaking:

Stats per 75 as of April 7th: 17.9 → 21.9 points | 6.1 → 9.5 assists | 50.9% → 53.3% TS

And also saw an increase from 9.6 potential assists per game to 17.3, which would be third in the league.

The San Antonio Spurs have also made the play-in, and Murray’s improvement is a big reason why.

Garland saw similar improvements too. Improved numbers across the board, higher usage but still increasing efficiency. Ben Taylor had a video about him that stated there’s a little Steve Nash there. No one expected the Cleveland Cavaliers to be in the play-in let alone be top-6 for majority of the year.

And then there is Morant.

Stats per 75 as of April 7th: 28.0 → 29.7 points | 53.7% → 57.5% true shooting | 30.3% → 34.0% 3pt

Did you know he’s fourth in the league in field goal made in the restricted area — trailing only Giannis, LeBron James, and Anthony Davis.

He’s also third in FGM in the paint (Non-RA).

He has been one of the best paint scorers and he’s a guard! This season he also improved his outside shooting too whether that’s catch and shoot or pull ups.

Last year, he wasn’t even in the all-star game and this year, he’s a lock for All-NBA and to some, top-5 in MVP voting.

It is much more impressive to make this level of jump in just one year.

Defensive Player of the Year

• Marcus Smart
• Bam Adebayo
• Giannis Antetokounmpo
• HM: Rudy Gobert, Draymond Green, Mikal Bridges

If it wasn’t for injuries, Green would most likely have won this pretty convincingly. There are so many things he does that simply doesn’t show up on the stat sheet or any metrics.

After going through some tweets from Joe Viray on this, it’s clear that his impact, due to him being arguably the smartest defender in the league, was significant.

Unfortunately, he has missed way too many games.

Despite all the negatives surrounding Gobert, there is still a solid case for him to be in the conversation; however, I don’t think his impact has been as good and others have a stronger case.

Despite having no Brook Lopez for almost the entire season, the Bucks with Giannis on the court still have a 110.0 defensive rating, per CTG — not as good as the other candidates, but that would still rank 7th in the league.

And whenever I’ve watched the Bucks games, I’m so impressed with the quick rotations, weakside protection he offers:

Currently, the favourite to win the award is Marcus Smart. He has been arguably the best defender on the best defensive team, but at the same time how much can you attribute that to him alone?

Although, the team has great defensive numbers even when he’s without the two defensive bigs — Robert Williams and Al Horford.

Finally, there is Adebayo. He has been in DPOY conversation for the past two seasons and is arguably the best defender in the league.

Here are some Heat defensive numbers with and without Adebayo:

• With him on the court — 105.6 Def Rtg
• With him on the court; without Jimmy Butler — 106.4
• With him on the court; without Butler & PJ Tucker — 105.1

The Heat’s defense with him is elite! You takeaway the other two frontcourt defenders and, guess what, they’re still elite.

Not only that, he has been huge in this switch heavy scheme — in fact, his versatility is the reason why they are able to go that scheme in the first place.

6th Man of the Year

• Tyler Herro

This award is already locked up and it has been for a long while. There is no 6th man that has been better and more valuable than Herro — and I think any fan will agree with this.

There are people on Twitter that believe he has been the best player for the Miami Heat. Can you imagine that? You’re on a team with Kyle Lowry, Jimmy Butler, and Adebayo, but people still think you’re the best player.

Stats per 75 possessions as of 5th April: 24.0 points | 5.7 rebounds | 4.5 assists |52.4% eFG | 56.1% TS (0.4% below league average)

And these numbers are significantly better post All-Star, especially when it comes to efficiency — 60.8% TS.

There should be no debate here. The award has been the highest scorer that comes off the bench and he leads the league in bench scoring by a decent margin.

What’s also important is the improvement he’s made in his playmaking ability. We all know he’s a bucket, but he’s developed a much better feel on some of the reads he’s been able to make.

Even ignoring the simple box-score stats, he has been highly important to the Heat’s success. The offense is 3.5 points better with him on the court than off, per Cleaning the Glass.

And there is this:

Surprising Team of the Year

• Cleveland Cavaliers
• Memphis Grizzlies
• HM: Boston Celtics, Toronto Raptors

Everything that goes into deciding this award, he has — the stats, the narrative, team stats. Even Vegas has him running away with the award.

• Cleveland Cavaliers
• Memphis Grizzlies
• HM: Boston Celtics, Toronto Raptors

It’s always fun seeing a team come out of nowhere, exceed all expectations, or make a sudden turnaround — all of which describe a different team that is in consideration.

Before the season, 538 made these predictions:

• Cavaliers: 25–57, minus 6.3, 13th
• Raptors: 41–41, minus 0.1, 9th
• Grizzlies: 43–39, plus 1.0, 8th

ESPN had the Cavaliers in the bottom five, with no chance of even making the play-in. They predicted that the Grizzlies would decline in terms of wins. And the Raptors were five games out of the play-in.

But that was the pre-season expectation for these teams. Even the sites covering the teams had similar expectations and predictions. And every single prediction was wrong.

The Cavaliers surprised everyone and came out of nowhere. They were third in the season up until February 25th. However, some injury issues — Ricky Rubio being out for the remainder of the season and then getting traded, Lauri Markkanen missing 21 games, and Jarrett Allen missing 23 games so far.

I wouldn’t have the Raptors as the surprising team for one reason — this wasn’t a surprise to me. I didn’t have them this high, but I also predicted them to be better than what some sites did.

The Celtics are an interesting one because they didn’t exceed pre-season expectations as much as the other teams. In fact, they were playing below their expectations for the first couple of months and could have very well ended up in the award below.

However, their season turnaround has been the best. Before the year 2022, they were 17–19 and were plus 1.6 per CTG. But since that calendar flipped, they are 33–11 and have the best point differential in the league with plus 12.0. And their defense this year has been eight points better than league average.

Ultimately, though, there is one team that exceeded all expectations and has peaked significantly higher. Sure, the Cavaliers went from bottom five to the play-in, but the Grizzlies went from a potential play-in to arguably a contender.

In 2022, they are just behind the Celtics when it comes to point differential. And for the whole season, they have the second-best record and are one of two teams that rank top-5 in both offense and defense.

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Originally published at https://www.simplyballin.com.