NBA Fantasy Trends: NBA Awards and DFS Podcast

It was another wild NBA season and surprisingly we still don’t know a single matchup for the postseason. On the other hand, we should have a pretty good idea on the individual awards. Here are my picks for who should win the awards this season:

He should be unanimous. What else is there to say?

This should be another unanimous one. Hopefully, none of the Knicks beat guys vote for Kristaps Porzingis. Towns led all rookies in these totals: points, rebounds, free throws made and total blocks. He was top-10 in total steals and he was fifth in efficiency among qualified rookies. Not to mention how good he’s turned out to be on defense. Towns has been one of versatile big men in the NBA lately and you can start with how great he was against Stephen Curry on switches last week. He’s 20.

Draymond Green is definitely up there, but Kawhi Leonard is such a game-changer. The Spurs were first in the NBA in defensive rating and it even put them ahead of the Warriors in net rating. Kawhi is hands down the best defender on the team and it has nothing to do with the system. To be clear, Draymond Green is just a shade behind Kawhi.

Another fairly easy one. He increased his scoring 14.1 points per game from last year and it wasn’t just because of volume. He increased his true shooting percentage thanks to improving his overall field goal percentage, 3-point percentage and free throw percentage. McCollum also increased his dimes from 1.0 per game to 4.3 per game. He is one of the big reasons why the Blazers did so well this year.

Volume definitely comes into play here. Only four players came off the bench in 81 games or more: Will Barton, Enes Kanter, Ed Davis and Shabazz Muhammad. Yes, there is no Games Played Award, but it has to be a factor. Obviously Kanter comes to mind, but he’s ninth on his team for net rating and is considerably lower than the starters, too. Hey, even Dion Waiters has a better net rating. You could make the same argument for Jamal Crawford, whose net rating is 9.4 less than J.J. Redick’s net rating. Barton is sixth on his team and he’s a lot closer to the starters, too.

My runner up would actually be Andre Iguodala. The Iguodala, Curry, Thompson, Green and Harrison Barnes lineup has a ridiculous 47.4 net rating this season. He would have won the award, but missing 17 games is enough to give Barton the nod.

Nobody had the Blazers finishing in the top five or six in the stacked Western Conference. Stotts may be wild with his lineups and he is the only coach in the NBA who can’t circle a lineup sheet correctly 100 percent of the time, but the Blazers halfcourt sets are beautiful.

Executive of the Year: Neil Olshey

All-NBA First Team

The guards are easy here. After that, it gets awfully tricky. One thing that helped was ESPN’s Zach Lowe saying on Monday that Green will be eligible at center. With that, it has to be him at the five.

With Dray in at center, it’s basically a three-horse race for the two forward spots. Leonard finished first in the group just because he was by far the best of the bunch on defense. LeBron got the nod for me just because of how awful the Cavs are without him. Check out the net ratings with Cavs off the court this year:

Yeah, LeBron is important. A minus-5.3 net rating would rank 26th in the NBA among the teams, so the Cavs without LeBron were basically the Brooklyn Nets.

KD is actually behind Westbrook for off-court net. He’s easily the second-best offensive player this year as one of the best high-volume scorers with efficiency ever. I love KD’s game so much, so it pained me to leave him off here.

All-NBA Second Team

Forwards were easy this time. KD had to be in there and Paul Millsap is amazing. There are not many rim protectors shorter than 6’10”, but that’s Millsap’s role. Everyone talks about the Spurs defense, but the Hawks topped them in defensive rating after the break. ATL posted a 96.7 defensive rating after the break while the Spurs were at 99.2.

The way the Clippers stepped up without Blake Griffin is why Paul has to get the nod here. He had 9.9 assists per game with 2.6 turnovers per game as the engine of the offense. CP3 was really efficient at 57.4 true shooting percentage, as well. Klay Thompson has to be in this group because the Warriors are likely going 73-9 tomorrow. Thompson is sitting on 272 3-pointers this season, which is a non-Curry record.

Al Horford’s argument is similar to Millsap’s. Plus, 82 games at the center spot is huge — that’s assuming he doesn’t rest tomorrow.

All-NBA Third Team

Paul George was really the only easy one here. LaMarcus Aldridge gets the nod for me over guys like Anthony Davis and Gordon Hayward. The Spurs were just so good and Aldridge was outstanding after the break, averaging 20.4 points, 9.0 boards, 1.7 steals, 1.2 blocks and 0.9 steals on 53.2 percent from the field and 90.5 percent from the line. Davis missed way too many games and the Jazz just weren’t good enough for Hayward to get it. Plus, Rodney Hood kind of took away from Hayward.

You guys know I’m all for usage rate and Boogie Cousins ranked first in the NBA. The problem is he didn’t really use that usage wisely. If you factor in his turnovers at 3.8 per game, you’re looking at a fairly inefficient player with just 3.3 assists per game. He did score 26.9 points per game, but Cousins ended about 29 possessions per game. Plus, the Kings were a joke on defense and some of that is on Cousins. Plus, Towns played in 82 games this year while Boogie played 65. That’s big.

James Harden almost won MVP last year, so it’s hard to believe he’s not on here. Still, Lowry and Lillard were terrific all season to get their teams ahead of expectations.

All-Defensive First Team

The forwards and centers were easy and the guards weren’t too hard either. Paul is still one of the smartest defenders in the NBA and DFS owners know they tend not to mess with CP3 as an opponent. Avery Bradley was terrific this year and may have become the best perimeter defender in the NBA. Damian Lillard and Steve Kerr both said Bradley is among the best in the league.

All-Defensive Second Team

Obviously Danny Green gets a boost because of how good the Spurs were on team defense, but he’s certainly no slouch himself. Tony Allen did miss at least 18 games this year, but he’s just such a stud at locking people down. That’s remarkable at age 34. LeBron James can still defend pretty well and can guard a number of positions. Whiteside hasn’t been just a blocking machine like he was last year with Miami’s defense really improving this season.

All-Rookie First Team

G: D’Angelo Russell

Booker, Towns and Porzingis were no-brainers. While we fantasy guys get caught up in the stats, it’s easy to forget how good Winslow was on defense. He guards a lot of positions for the Heat and was a key role player for them, especially after the Chris Bosh blood clot issue.

All-Rookie Second Team

It’s too bad he’s a center because Jokic was the second-best rookie this year. Yes, Three 6 Latvia mania was all the rage until January, but Jokic was very good wire-to-wire. While Emmanuel Mudiay is terrible on the efficiency side, his defense was pretty good. He had a couple game-saving plays this year on the defensive end, including blocking Wesley Matthews at the buzzer. Josh Richardson was just incredible after the break. Yes, he was a ghost for the first two months of the year, but he was arguably the third-best rookie after the break. That counts for a lot. Trey Lyles has really stepped up for the Jazz when they needed him. Looking ahead, his upside looks great. Myles Turner was a somewhat easy call here.

Thanks for reading this year! We’ll be doing a lot of series previews in the postseason, so there’s more to come.

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