Ty Predicts the 2018 NBA Award Winners

As I promised yesterday, today I will be giving out my 2017-18 NBA regular season awards.

Now, for starters I am not going to do All NBA, All Rookie and All Defensive teams. That would be too much, and to be quite frank, I don't care about those teams. I know the players do, because of contract stuff, but I honestly could care less about it.

Also, I need to give a quick congratulations to Russell Westbrook for doing the unthinkable again. The fact that he went out and averaged a triple double for a second straight season is truly amazing. I know people call him a stat chaser and what not, but come on, 2 seasons averaging a triple double is something that will never, ever happen again. He is an otherworldly athlete and basketball player, and instead of always shitting on this guy, people need to start respecting what he is doing. He is an amazing talent that we are taking for granted right now. He will be so much more appreciated when he retires, but right now, respect what this man has done because it is wonderful. I only say this because he won't be winning any of my awards, but I had to shout him out because he is awesome. All kinds of props to Russell Westbrook. He is great.

Okay, now to the awards for the regular season. I'll start with the "lower" level awards and work my way up to MVP. So, the first award that I will be giving away is Sixth Man of the Year. There are not too many candidates for this award this year. Guys I thought about at first were Eric Gordon and Cavalier Rodney Hood. But, Gordon isn't doing what he did last year this year, and Hood has started more games than coming off the bench. I also tried to find a way to get Manu Ginobli in the conversation, but he just doesn't put up the numbers like he used to. When I actually thought about it though, the Sixth Man of the Year is Lou Williams. This dude is instant offense off the bench and every team he has been on, he does good things on offense when he comes in. Lou Williams is a shooter and nothing more, but the dude can fill it up. He is easily the winner of this award for the year. Hopefully next year he is on a team that he can help in the playoffs.

Lets move to Defensive Player of the Year next. When the season was at the midway point, I might have picked Kevin Durant. He was playing out of his mind on that end, but he got hurt and he was out of the race. Draymond Green was another possibility, what with him still being able to guard all 5 positions, and guard them well, but he also missed a myriad of games, thus pulling him out of the race for me. Anthony Davis was another possibility, but he has had to take some plays off on defense because he has done so much on offense since Boogie went out. No, when I actually got down to it, Rudy Gobert is the Defensive Player of the Year. You may say, he missed games too, but not as much as KD and Draymond. Also, when Gobert is out there, he is, by far, the best rim protector in the game. He is the key to what the Jazz want to do, and he is awesome. Gobert wins this award by a mile. We have three awards left to give out.

Next, Coach of the Year. This category is stacked. There are so many candidates. Guys like Gregg Poppovich come to mind. He has the Spurs back in the playoffs, and Kawhi Leonard only played 9 games all year. Nate McMillan has done a wonderful job of turning the Pacers into a legit threat. Brad Stevens is quickly climbing up the ladder as one of the best minds in basketball, and boy have the Celtics suffered crucial injuries too. Dwayne Casey finally got his team into the modern game, and the Raptors are the number one seed in the East. Hell, even Erik Spoelstra, with a garbage roster, has his team in the playoffs. But, when I really pored over it, how does Quinn Snyder not win this award? He lost his best player, he lost George Hill, Gobert missed time and he turned the keys to the offense over to a rookie. And, the Jazz won 45 plus games and are the 5 seed in the West. Snyder has bypassed any expectations I had when he became an NBA coach, and he has done a wonderful job. He is my Coach of the Year.

Rookie of the Year was a contest until recently. It was really down to 2 guys, Donovan Mitchell and Ben Simmons. I know that Dennis Smith Jr had some highlight dunks, Jayson Tatum is a key cog for the Celtics, Frank Ntilikina has been amazing on defense and Lonzo Ball has really come into his own. But, Mitchell and Simmons are clearly better than all these guys by a mile. I was pulling hard for Mitchell because of all the things he has done all year with the Jazz, but Ben Simmons, in this 16 game win streak for the 76ers, has grabbed this award and he is not letting it go. He has been, not just the best rookie, but one of the ten best players in the league right now. And for all the people who say he isn't a rookie, stop. This is his first year playing pro basketball. Sure, he was drafted last year, but he played zero minutes. This is, for all intents and purposes, his rookie year, and he will walk away, easily I might add, with the Rookie of the Year award.

Finally, we have MVP. Much like Rookie of the Year, this is a 2 man race. There were times during the year that guys like LaMarcus Aldridge, DeMar DeRozan, Damian Lillard and even Russ got some love. But, all that petered out due to various reasons. And for the people that want to float out Joel Embiid, or any Warrior player, nope. Embiid will be one of the best players soon, but he is not an MVP yet, and the Warriors guys have all missed too much time throughout the year. The MVP is between LeBron James and James Harden. And, James Harden will finally take home his first MVP award. He has been absolutely amazing this year. The things he is doing on offense are so wonderful. He has worked so well with Chris Paul. The pick and roll with him and Clint Capela is nearly unstoppable. Harden has had a great year and he will get his much deserved MVP. James has put in a hell of a season though. He has put up amazing numbers too. He played all 82 games, something he has never done. He has carried a bad team with a bad coach all year long. He has taken over games against better competition recently. But, what separates him and Harden is the fact that the Cavs are the 4 seed in the East and the Rockets are the 1 in the West, and number one overall seed in all of the NBA. That is due, mainly, to

Harden. There you have it, my 2017-18 NBA regular season award winners.

Ty

Ty is the Pop Culture editor for SeedSing, the other host of the X Millennial Man Podcast, and the greatest basketball writer on all the internet.

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Ty tells you how each NBA team could win the title: Pistons, Mavericks, & Jazz

I love the NBA, and I really love playoff caliber basketball.

Continuing my NBA countdown, I'll be giving you teams 18, 17 and 16. Today we get our first playoff team. This team will actually replace a team from last seasons playoffs. The three teams I'll be talking about today are right on the verge, or missed their window. They have decent enough rosters, but are just on the outside of the playoffs, with one exception. My first playoff team may surprise you, but that's the fun of making preseason predictions. On with the countdown.

Coming in at number 18 is the Detroit Pistons. There are things I really like about this team, but there's just as much that I dislike. They might surprise, but probably not. First, the dislikes. For one, they completely over paid to keep Reggie Jackson. Being an Oklahoma City fan, I watched Jackson grow into a quality NBA starter, but I also saw how he reacted when he didn't get his way. One year, he'd have a huge impact during OKC's playoff runs, but last season, with Durant and Westbrook out for extended periods of time, he did not respond to the challenge. Instead of being the leader they needed, he became a ball hog, so far as to veterans icing him out and not passing him the ball. He then complained that he wasn't getting the touches or minutes he thought he deserved when Westbrook returned, and basically demanded a trade. His wish was granted much to my delight. Now, GM Stan Van Gundy gave him a max contract and that's insane. He's not a max player, and if he doesn't get his way, he'll openly complain. Another reason the contract baffles me is, the Pistons have a much better point guard in Brandon Jennings. I know he's coming off a torn ACL, but he's ten times the player Reggie Jackson is. He's also a lefty, and lefties are very tough to guard. Jennings can shoot okay enough, and he's really good at finding the open man. Unfortunately, for him and the Pistons, I think he's trade bait since they gave Jackson so much money. Some team will greatly benefit if Jennings is traded, and the Pistons will suffer. I'd take Jennings over Jackson 10 times out of 10.Now, a player I like. Andre Drummond is a good big man to have, but his front court mate, Greg Monroe, left and signed with Milwaukee. That will be tough on Drummond. Drummond is a great rebounder and defender though, and he may strive being the focal point of the Pistons half court offense. They drafted Stanley Johnson, who I like a lot, but he's only 19 or 20 years old. He's another one and done, and it takes time for these guys to develop before they become a true threat. Besides Marcus Morris, who I think is a really good, really underrated player, they "beefed" up their bench with guys like Steve Blake, way too old, Danny Granger, way too old and oft injured, Aaron Baynes, won't succeed outside of the Spurs organization and Ersan Ilyasova, just not that good of an NBA player. Kentavious Caldwell-Pope is a good shooter, but he hasn't figured out the NBA game just yet. The overpaying of Reggie Jackson and signing or trading for veterans that are ten years past their prime make the Pistons a 35 to 37 win team. That may get you in the playoffs in the East, but probably not.

How the Pistons will win it all.

The Pistons will win the title if Reggie Jackson and Brandon Jennings find a way to mesh together and play high level basketball, that won't happen, they both think they're alphas, but only one of them is(Jennings), Drummond becomes a 20 point a game scorer, Stanley Johnson becomes a key contributor right away and the old vets find the fountain of youth and play like they did in their primes. Sorry Detroit, that's not happening.

Number 17 on my list is the Dallas Mavericks. What a crummy, terrible, horrible, asinine way to lose your top free agent this summer. I wrote about how cowardly this all made DeAndre Jordan look, and it was a huge blow to the Mavericks hopes of making the playoffs. Now, as I wrote in my piece, Jordan wouldn't have made them an NBA championship contender, but he would've kept them in the playoffs at least. I feel bad for Dirk Nowitzki as well. How many other legitimate superstars have left as much money on the table to help the team get better. Nowitzki will go down as one of the best big men shooters of all time, but the end of his career is going to be tough because the Mavericks aren't going to be as good as they've been lately. Not only did they miss out on DeAndre Jordan, but they let Tyson Chandler walk without trying to sign him, Monta Ellis left in free agency and their "big" offseason additions were Wes Matthews, coming off a torn ACL, Deron Williams, who hasn't been an impact player in about 6 years and JaVale McGee, who is the most out of control player in all of basketball. Go google some JaVale McGee "highlights" and watch with amazement at how absurd some of the stuff he does is. They still have Chandler Parsons, but is he truly a quality starter in the NBA? I haven't seen it since his third year in Houston, and he gets injured all the time. He may have been a one season wonder. Devin Harris is still around, but all he's any good for anymore is shooting the three. JJ Barea is still there, but he's just getting older and older. Samuel Dalembert may end up being a good defensive center, but he will not help this team on offense. I want to touch on the Wes Matthews signing again for a minute. They ended up giving him a max contract after the whole DeAndre Jordan thing, and while that was a poor decision, Wes Matthews is a really good NBA player. He led the league in three point percentage last year. That's right, Wes Matthews and not Steph Curry hit threes at the highest rate. He also plays excellent defense. He is a very, very good basketball player. The Mavericks are going to step back this season. The question is, how far of a slide back will they take? Will they be a mid 30 win team, or will they tank? I'd guess they will end up in the mid 30 win column. Dirk has too much pride to give up at this point in his career and Wes Matthews will want to show people he's worth the big contract. Unfortunately, the rest of the roster is average.

How the Mavericks will win it all.

The Mavericks will win the title if they can get the Steve Nash from ten years ago to come back and play for them, Dirk finds the fountain of youth, Matthews becomes an MVP candidate, Parsons proves he's not a one season wonder and the bench highly exceeds expectations. This will be a rough year for the Mavericks, Mark Cuban and, most importantly, Dirk. They will struggle in the West and Dirk may call it quits after this season. We will have to wait and see.

Finally, my first playoff team. Coming in at number 16 is the Utah Jazz. I thought that I'd never say this, but Quinn Snyder may be a competent coach (ed note: That sentence makes me angry). He has a young team that's buying into playing team basketball and being stout on defense. Gordon Hayward is becoming a really good NBA player. He's playing like a max contract guy and I didn't expect that. He looks likes he's going to be good for a long time. Trey Burke has had a rough start to his young career, but the Jazz have tempered that problem by drafting Dante Exum last season. He got hurt, but he's a 6'6 point guard, and he looks to be really good. Burke is more of a bench player anyway, but it pains me to say that because he was a star when he played for Michigan, and you all know I'm a huge Michigan fan, both football and basketball. Derrick Favors is a pretty good NBA player and forward. He's a good post player and very good rebounder. Alec Burks is quietly becoming a pretty good scorer in the NBA. He's instant offense for the Jazz. Rodney Hood is a lefty sharp shooter, and he's playing good basketball right now in his young career. Rudy Gobert is an upgrade from Enes Kanter, especially on defense. He's not the scorer that Kanter was, but his imposing presence in the post made it an easy decision for the Jazz to trade Kanter to OKC last season. The issue with the Jazz is the rest of their bench. They took a shot, it may end up working out for them, by drafting Trey Lyles in the lottery this past draft. He barely saw the floor in his one season at Kentucky, and no one knows how good he really is. He has a ton of potential, but he's extremely raw. He is the definition of a prospect. And, other than Hood and Trevor Booker, the rest of the bench is question marks. Is Jeff Withey really worthy of an NBA roster spot? Trevor Booker is okay, but will he take the next step? The rest of the bench, literally, who are these guys? I don't know much about them. Like I said, the Jazz will make the playoffs, taking the Mavericks spot from last season, in the hyper competitive West, but they will get swept out of the first round. They will win either 44 or 45 games this season.

How the Jazz will win it all.

The Jazz will win the title, now they're the first team in my countdown that has a "shot" simply because they will be in the playoffs, if they catch fire at the exact right time and run off a series of monumental upsets. They will be the eight seed in the West and they will have to go through a murderers row of opponents. That won't happen this year. they'll be a nice story and Jazz basketball is on it's way back, but they're not elite. Not yet.

So, there are my 18, 17 and 16 teams in the NBA. Come back next week and we will get into the upper echelon of teams in the NBA. All the teams next week will be playoff teams and you will get my Finals prediction and my pick to win the Finals next Friday.

It will feel good to write about teams that are actually good.

Ty

Ty is the Pop Culture editor for SeedSing and the other host of the X Millennial Man podcast. We all watch sports here at SeedSing, but Ty is the only one that really knows what he is talking about. Follow him on twitter @tykulik.