NBA Award Watch – 11/17

With the association’s teams now having each played between eight and 12 games, it is now fair to say that we have a decent “sample size.” Entering play on November 17, the Miami HEAT (6-3) and the New York Knicks (5-6) are amongst the teams surprising out East, while the Houston Rockets (4-7) and New Orleans Pelicans (1-9) surprise us, as well… but in a bad way.

This week, in our Awards Watch, there are a fair number of surprises, as well:

Defensive Player of the Year

1. Hassan Whiteside, Miami HEAT – We’ll just keep this really, really simple. Hassan Whiteside has blocked at least four shots in seven games this season. He blocked eight shots against the Minnesota Timberwolves in his first 24 minutes of action. The kid is a prodigy.
2. Kawhi Leonard, San Antonio Spurs – We have to demote Kawhi Leonard to number two this week, but only because Hassan Whiteside has absolutely forced our hand. Leonard may be the reigning Defensive Player of the Year (and deservedly so), but Whiteside is a beast. Leonard’s rare combination of huge hands, long wingspan, good agility and great effort make him an offensive player’s nightmare.
3. Jae Crowder, Boston Celtics – We could have kept John Wall here or anointed Draymond Green, but this week we are going with Jae Crowder. Crowder routinely draws the toughest defensive assignment for the Boston Celtics and rarely gets any props for it. The team entered play on November 17 having won three games in a row and the defensive prowess of Crowder is a major reason why. Oh, and by the way, he’s suddenly leading the league in steals, averaging three per game.
4. DeAndre Jordan, Los Angeles Clippers – For our money, DeAndre Jordan still seems to be the most abominable defensive force in the league. If you watch a Los Angeles Clippers games, you would absolutely realize that he is often robbed of the opportunity to accrue statistics because he is avoided at all costs. He’s still managing 12.9 rebounds and three blocks per game, though.

Dropped out: John Wall

Rookie of the Year

1. Jahlil Okafor, Philadelphia 76ers – Okafor turned in a woeful 3-18 shooting effort en route to his Philadelphia 76ers enduring a 102-85 beating at the hands of the Oklahoma City Thunder. However, since then, Okafor has turned in back-to-back double-doubles against the Spurs (21 points, 12 rebounds) and Mavericks (19 points, 11 rebounds) on Saturday and Monday, respectively. The only question with regard to Okafor is the extent to which you feel you should penalize him for the fact that these Sixers are the first team in NBA history to begin two consecutive seasons by losing their first 10 games.
2. Karl-Anthony Towns, Minnesota Timberwolves – Although trailing Okafor a tad in the statistics category, Karl-Anthony Towns is making good use of his 29 minutes per game. With 15.5 points and 10.2 rebounds per game, his Minnesota Timberwolves are an early-season over-achiever, even if, entering play on November 17, they had lost four consecutive games. We are still giving Towns props for the 17-point, 12-rebound double-double he contributed in his team’s surprising 117-107 road win against the Atlanta Hawks. And yes, that is true despite the fact that the win was more than one week ago.
3. Kristaps Porzingis, New York Knicks – We’ll admit it: we had a hard time allowing Porzingis to remain in our top four, mainly because his offense has been a disappointment. Although not necessarily fair to him (he was deemed by many to be a “project”), we have come to expect good things from him because of his flashes. Although the shot was released about one-tenth of a second too late last Wednesday, Porzingis nearly beat the Charlotte Hornets and has actually played a big role in the New York Knicks entering play on November 17 with an opportunity to pull to .500, despite playing one of the tougher schedules in the league to this point. We need more for the Latvian to retain his standing in our top four, but for now, we’re not ready to demote him for the likes of either T.J. McConnell or Justise Winslow.
4. Emmanuel Mudiay, Denver Nuggets – It’s beginning to look like Emmanuel Mudiay and Kristaps Porzingis are competing against one another to see who can shoot the lower percentage from the floor. In the early going, Mudiay has giveth, and he certainly has taketh. The good was last week’s back-to-back 11-assist performances in which he helped the Denver Nuggets to surprise wins over the Milwaukee Bucks on Wednesday and the Houston Rockets on Friday. The bad was the nine turnovers that occurred in the latter. Some games, he takes care of the ball exceptionally well, and on others, he struggles to say the least. He is averaging a whopping 4.7 turnovers per game, though he has reduced that to “only” 3.8 over the past five games. Even with the early season difficulties, though, he still makes the cut.

Most Valuable Player 

1. Stephen Curry, Golden State Warriors – The 46-point effort that Curry turned in against the Minnesota Timberwolves on Thursday night won’t soon be forgotten. These types of performances are becoming commonplace to the point that Curry is routinely being compared to the likes of Allen Iverson. He struggled a bit in Saturday night’s 107-99 win over the Brooklyn Nets, but “struggling” for him means shooting 13-31 and dropping 34 points. For many others, that’d be considered a “good” night. That’s how you know Curry is the man—we are beginning to get to the point where we apply a completely different standard to him.
2. Russell Westbrook, Oklahoma City Thunder – The back-to-back triple-doubles Westbrook posted against the Washington Wizards and the Philadelphia 76ers (we know, it was the Sixers, but still!) made us warm and fuzzy. 22 points, 11 rebounds and 11 assists was a nice line, but not better than the 21-point, 17-rebound, 11-assist effort that followed. On Monday night, though coming in a loss (and with eight turnovers), Westbrook’s 40-point, 14-assist, four-rebound, three-steal effort was a sight to behold. On the season, he’s giving us 26.7 points, 7.7 rebounds and 10.6 assists per game. He also has a player efficiency rating of 30.84, which is third in the league behind only Blake Griffin (31) and Stephen Curry (35.4).
3. LeBron James, Cleveland Cavaliers – We happened to be on hand when LeBron James and his Cleveland Cavaliers escaped Madison Square Garden with a victory over Carmelo Anthony’s New York Knicks. Let’s not get it twisted, Anthony isn’t in LeBron’s class as a player, but the win actually helped LeBron pull ahead of Anthony in their career head-to-head matchups, 13-12. What was most impressive, though, was how LeBron put the clamps on Anthony. After scoring 22 points in the first half, LeBron locked him up and held him to just four in the second. On the other end of the court, LeBron was magical, scoring 12 points in the fourth quarter and finishing with a total of 31. We call him “King” for a reason, and he gave New York City a reminder of that.
4. Blake Griffin, Los Angeles Clippers – Don’t get it twisted, Andre Drummond’s 15.6 rebounds per game over his last five are quite impressive, but they are also human. Blake Griffin is, too, but we only kept him out of our top four after the first week of the season because what Drummond was doing was meta-human. With that, despite the Clippers sporting a somewhat mediocre 6-4 record, we put an asterisk next to it considering Chris Paul’s early absences and Blake’s ejection from their recent loss at Phoenix. He followed it up with a vintage Kevin Garnett-like performance in leading his troops to a 101-96 win over… you guessed it, Drummond’s Pistons. Griffin posted an impressive 34-point, eight-rebound, nine-assist effort on 14-25 shooting. So we rightfully think he deserves Drummond’s spot.

Dropped out: Andre Drummond

*****

The season is a lot closer to the beginning than it is to the end. Fortunately, that means that the fun is just beginning.