My Very Early Award Predictions For The 2021-22 Season
The NBA season starts in a little over a month. So predicting the NBA Awards is a pretty dumb idea right now, but here we go. I’m going to predict every single major award in the NBA – MVP, ROTY, DPOY, etc. I will probably do a revised version once the season officially starts, so think of this as my first attempt to predict the awards this year.
Coach of the Year
Coach of the Year is a weird award. It either goes to a team with a lot of wins or a team that made a lot of improvement. Last year it went to Tom Thibodeau, who led the Knicks to the playoffs for the first time in forever. This award is incredibly hard to predict, but I’ll give it my best bet.
Usual Suspects
-Erik Spoelstra (Miami Heat)
-Nick Nurse (Toronto Raptors)
-Monty Williams (Phoenix Suns)
These three guys are great coaches and I think they’re the best the NBA has to offer. All 3 of these guys coach playoff-caliber teams, with Erik Spoelstra and Monty Williams coaching contending teams. Nick Nurse is one of the best scheming coaches in the NBA.
These guys are just some of the guys in the running, but I think I’ll have to go with somebody else for coach of the year;
Frank Vogel
I’m assuming that the Lakers are going to be good in the regular season despite their flaws and be a top-3 seed in the West. I think that’s a pretty fair assessment, even if I didn’t like the Russell Westbrook trade at all. The Lakers should be a really good team and Vogel has been a really good defensive coach in his two years with the team.
As of right now, Frank Vogel is my coach of the year. Again, this award is weird and it’s really hard to predict. Pretty easy to know the usual candidates, but there are always surprising candidates like Tom Thibodeau last season.
Rookie of the Year
Rookie of the Year is a lot more straightforward. If you score a lot, you’re in a good position to win. Usually, the rookie who scores the most wins the award. The only exception is if a rookie has really balanced numbers, like Ben Simmons back during the 2017-18 season when he averaged 16 points, 8 rebounds, and 8 assists per game as a “rookie.”‘
There are always later round picks who surprise us, but it’s pretty easy to say who the frontrunners for the award are before the season has even started;
Pre-Season Frontrunners
-Cade Cunningham (#1 overall pick / Detroit Pistons)
-Jalen Green (#2 overall pick / Houston Rockets)
-Evan Mobley (#3 overall pick / Cleveland Cavaliers)
-Jalen Suggs (#5 overall pick / Orlando Magic)
I do think the Rookie of the Year is going to come from one of these 4 players. I find it hard to believe somebody like Scottie Barnes, Josh Giddey, or Jonathan Kuminga will win this award. It’s a toss-up between those 4 players for me right now, but I am going with Cade Cunningham.
Cade Cunningham
Cunningham was the consensus #1 overall pick for months and the Pistons have a generational player on their hands. Cunningham can do it all offensively. He can score well from all 3 levels and he is a great isolation player. He’s a good playmaker and rebounder as well.
I’m expecting a good all-around offensive year from Cunningham and if he puts up something like 17 points, 5 rebounds, and 6 assists per game? The award is as good as his.
Jalen Green and Jalen Suggs are really good scorers who could also win the award. Evan Mobley might have a hard time scoring in Cleveland, but he’s an elite defender who could rack up double-doubles. But as of right now, and probably for the whole season, Cade Cunningham is my easy pick for Rookie of the Year.
Most Improved Player
This award is another weird one because improvement is incredibly subjective. This award usually goes to a player who isn’t a sophomore player who just scores a lot more than the previous season. I know that isn’t the only metric to show how a player has improved, but that’s usually how it ends up working.
I do have a few candidates, but I don’t think it’s possible for me to name just one. So I’ll name a few guys who could certainly win this award this season;
RJ Barrett (New York Knicks)
Last year, Barrett has a really underrated season. He averaged 18 points and 6 rebounds per game on 54% TS. He became a 40% 3-PT shooter as his shooting overall become a lot better. But I think he still has a lot of room for growth.
I know asking for 40% 3-PT shooting again is a big ask, but if he can score better off the dribble and in the mid-range while shooting like 37% from 3, I think he can easily be a 20 ppg scorer with the Knicks. He’s going to be an All-Star-caliber player down the line and I think he could be really good in 2022 if he continues to grow.
De’Andre Hunter (Atlanta Hawks)
When healthy, De’Andre Hunter was excellent last season. But he struggled with his health due to a knee injury that cost him a lot of time in the regular season and playoffs. Hunter is a really talented two-way wing, but he has to be on the floor to continue to grow.
Hunter played just 23 games in the regular season in total. He missed February, most of March, and all of April. He returned late in the season and helped the Hawks win against the Knicks in the first round. Then he missed all of the 2nd and 3rd rounds due to another knee issue.
But in his first 18 games of the season, he showed you the potential. He averaged 17 points and 5 rebounds per game on 51% shooting from the field and 37% from 3 on 4.6 attempts per game. He was shooting and scoring well and providing solid defense. If he can stay healthy all season long, a big if, I think he can have a really good 2022.
Darius Garland (Cleveland Cavaliers)
Darius Garland was awful as a rookie. But his follow-up 2021 season? That was excellent and kind of showed us why the Cavs took the Vanderbilt guard 5th overall in 2019. Garland has turned into a really good shooter and playmaker. I think he has the highest upside out of the Cavs young backcourt and I think he’s going to be great in 2022.
The next step for Garland is the mid-range area of the floor. In 2021, his mid-range shooting splits weren’t pretty;
3-10 Feet: 44% (27% of FGA)
10-16 Feet: 39% (11% of FGA)
16 Feet-3PT: 35% (5% of FGA)
I think that if Garland just shoots some more mid-range shots and hits more of them, he could be a solid 20-point per game scorer as well as a solid playmaker. I’m really excited to see how good Garland can be in 2022, as he’s the Cavs future in the backcourt.
Dejounte Murray (San Antonio Spurs)
With the Spurs going into a rebuild of sorts, Dejounte Murray is their best player. His stats are likely going to go up and even though the Spurs aren’t likely to be good, he could win the award.
Last year he averaged 16 points, 7 rebounds, and 5 assists on 45% shooting. His USG%, or how often he was used, was 23.4%. Expect that to get closer to 30% with the lack of talent on the Spurs roster. This might mean a dip in efficiency, but the production should skyrocket, in theory.
While the Spurs aren’t a playoff-caliber team on paper, expect big things from Dejounte Murray this season. Maybe even enough to warrant a MIP nod.
Defensive Player of the Year
This award has shifted away from guards and goes towards big guys. Mostly centers like Rudy Gobert get the award. If you’re not him, recently you just have to be incredibly versatile (Draymond Green), or just really damn good at defending the perimeter (Kawhi Leonard).
But I do think that Rudy Gobert is going to win this award. Draymond Green might contend with him for a close second, but I don’t really see anybody else coming close. Ben Simmons could be a candidate, but we don’t know the outcome of his whole saga yet.
Myles Turner is a pretty good interior defender, but not as good as Gobert. For me, it’s either Gobert or Draymond and I’m going with Gobert, for what seems like the 1,000,000th time.
6th Man of the Year
Either Jordan Clarkson or Lou Williams. And Jamal Crawford if he comes out of retirement.
Most Valuable Player
This award is also pretty easy to predict. To win MVP, you need a narrative. Numbers are (unfortunately) not all that matter to the media in the MVP race. Most media members seem to have forgotten that Nikola Jokic was MVP last year. To be MVP, you need to be a top-3 seed and then just dominate. It’s that simple.
In 2022, I have a lot of candidates. Giannis, Luka, Jokic, Embiid, these guys are all going to be in the running. But I do think there is an obvious choice;
Giannis Antetokounmpo
Now, normally I would be on the Luka Doncic bandwagon. But the Mavericks aren’t going to be a top-3 or even a top-4 team in the West because the roster around Luka isn’t ready to contend yet. But Giannis is an MVP winner before (2x actually), and he is the exact formula for how to win an MVP.
He’s a great defender, rebounder, scorer, and playmaker. He scores efficiently and nobody can stop him. Giannis always dominates the regular season, seemingly without trying, and the Bucks are going to be a lock for a top-3 seed in the East once again.
Friendly Reminder: It’s the Regular Season MVP Award. So if Giannis comes up short in the playoffs as he did in 2019 and 2020, that’s not part of the award. I know people love to factor that in, but if we’re strictly talking about the regular season, there are not too many players better than Giannis.
I think that Embiid isn’t durable enough to win MVP, as we saw last year. The media won’t vote for anybody on the Nets because they would never accept an MVP coming from that superteam, no matter how good one of the three members is in 2022.
Nobody in the media likes Jokic anyway, so I think that Giannis is a pretty good bet for MVP and I wouldn’t be surprised to see him collect his 3rd trophy in 4 years.
What Are Your Predictions For The Awards This Year? Leave A Comment Down Below!
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