It is now reasonable to believe that Giannis Antetokounmpo of Milwaukee placed third in the NBA MVP voting this season. The NBA announced the three finalists for its major awards on Sunday night. Antetokounmpo was named MVP, along with Oklahoma City’s Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and Denver’s Nikola Jokic, who are clearly the front-runners. Jokic, who won MVP the season before, is up for his fourth MVP award in the last five years. Gilgeous-Alexander is up for his first MVP award as the leader of a Thunder team that won 68 games and set a scoring margin record for the league. He won the NBA scoring title this season. Because they were considered such strong favorites, BetMGM Sportsbook did not even offer realistic odds on anyone else winning after the regular season. Gilgeous-Alexander was the favorite, Jokic was the second choice, and nobody else had odds lower than 500-1. Because All-NBA voting now essentially mirrors MVP voting, being an MVP finalist practically guarantees a spot on the first team. Gilgeous-Alexander will make her third appearance on that team, Antetokounmpo will make his ninth, Jokic will make his seventh, and Antetokounmpo will make his ninth. In the previous year, Jokic, Gilgeous-Alexander, and Luka Doncic—then with the Dallas Mavericks and now with the Los Angeles Lakers—were the three MVP contenders. The awards were decided last week by a panel of NBA-coverage writers and broadcasters. The NBA will announce the All-NBA and All-Rookie teams and the winners of the various awards in the coming weeks. Award for best coach to Cleveland, Kenny Atkinson, and J.B. Houston’s Ime Udoka and Detroit’s Bickerstaff. This is how good the race was: Mark Daigneault, who won last year but didn’t finish in the top three, led Oklahoma City’s 68-win season. Under Atkinson’s leadership, the Cavaliers’ 64-win campaign was the best in the Eastern Conference. On Saturday, the National Basketball Coaches Association awarded him the title of coach of the year. The NBA award is not the same trophy as this one. In Bickerstaff’s first season with the Pistons, Udoka and Bickerstaff led their teams to the playoffs, earning the Rockets the No. 2 seed in the West. Daigneault defeated Orlando’s Jamahl Mosley and Minnesota’s Chris Finch to win the competition the year before. Stephon Castle from San Antonio, Zacharie Risacher from Atlanta, and Jaylen Wells from Memphis are the finalists for Best Newcomer of the Year. Castle, San Antonio’s fourth-round pick in the draft last year, could be the NBA Rookie of the Year for the second year in a row, following Victor Wembanyama, who won unanimously last season. Risacher and Wells came in third and fourth, respectively, among rookie scorers this season, following Castle. It stands out that Washington’s Alex Sarr, who averaged 13 points per game this season, is not playing. Wembanyama won the competition the previous year, defeating Oklahoma City’s Chet Holmgren and Charlotte’s Brandon Miller as the other finalists. The finalists for the sixth man of the year are Boston’s Payton Pritchard, Cleveland’s Ty Jerome, and Detroit’s Malik Beasley. Pritchard is the clear favorite, even though voters paid attention to Beasley’s play off the bench for the Pistons, where he made more than 300 3-pointers, and Jerome’s consistency for the Cavaliers throughout the season. Malik Monk of Sacramento and Bobby Portis of Milwaukee were the other finalists the previous year. Ivica Zubac, Los Angeles Clippers; Cade Cunningham, Detroit Cade Cunningham ought to be named to the All-NBA team and led Detroit’s wild turnaround from a 28-game losing streak last season to the No. 6 seed this season. Minnesota’s Naz Reid won overall as the best player. Both Daniels and Zubac had outstanding seasons, particularly on the defensive side. The previous year, Philadelphia’s Tyrese Maxey won the title; Houston’s Alperen Sengun and Chicago’s Coby White were also finalists. The three finalists for defense player of the year are Evan Mobley of Cleveland, Dyson Daniels of Atlanta, Draymond Green of Golden State, and Dyson Daniels of Atlanta. Daniels was a steal machine, Mobley can defend the rim with physicality without fouling, Green is vying for his second award after winning it in 2016-17, and Daniels is a steal machine. Rudy Gobert of Minnesota has won the most DPOY awards, surpassing Ben Wallace and Dikembe Mutombo, both of whom have been inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame. Wembanyama probably would have won this award in a runaway if he hadn’t been sidelined since the All-Star break with deep vein thrombosis in one of his shoulders. This season, Wembanyama won the block-shots championship. The previous year, Gobert prevailed over Miami’s Bam Adebayo and Wembanyama to win the competition. Nikola Jokic, Denver; Jalen Brunson, New York; and Anthony Edwards, Minnesota, were named player of the year in the clutch. Edwards had 157 clutch points this season, Brunson had 150, and Jokic had 140. Gilgeous-Alexander and DeMar DeRozan, then of Chicago and now of Sacramento, were the other finalists. Stephen Curry of Golden State won the championship. Congratulations on being one of our most popular worldwide readers—you’ve read 463 articles in the past year. The number of articles on We are conscious of everything… Seeing these messages irritates me. We are conscious of that. (Think about the experience of writing them…) But it’s also incredibly significant. The Guardian’s reader-funded model is one of its greatest strengths. 1. Thanks to reader funding, we can cover anything. We are not required to adhere to a billionaire owner’s political preferences. We cannot be instructed on what to report or say. 2. Because of reader funding, we no longer have to chase clicks and traffic. We don’t pursue stories just because we want your attention, but because our editorial team thinks they are important and worth your time. 3. Reader funding means we can keep our website open, allowing as many people as possible to read quality journalism from around the world – especially people who live in places where the free press is in peril.
The Guardian currently receives funding from 2.4% of its regular readers. We are aware that not everyone can afford to pay for news, but if it would encourage you to support our efforts, we would love to offer readers in Pakistan a 30% discount on an annual All-Access digital subscription at checkout.
