2022-23 NBA End-of-Season Awar...

The conclusion of the 2022-23 NBA regular season and the start of the play-in tournament can only mean one thing: I can no longer avoid thinking about year-end honors.

The powers that be at the NBA, in their immense and inarguable wisdom, have once again handed me an official ballot. This is how I filled it out:

Most Valuable Player

1. Joel Embiid, Philadelphia 76ers

2. Nikola Jokić, Denver Nuggets

3. Giannis Antetokounmpo, Milwaukee Bucks

4. Jayson Tatum, Boston Celtics

5. Donovan Mitchell, Cleveland Cavaliers

Not going to lie: Sliding Antetokounmpo — the greatest player on the best team in the NBA, and my selection last season — down to third makes me feel a little nauseous.

Embiid and Joki appeared in more games and logged between 250 and 300 minutes more. Embiid, who won his second straight scoring title, has the advantage in points; Joki, who fell a few points shy of being the third player in history to average a triple-double, has a massive lead in playmaking. Both have huge advantages in shooting efficiency, with Giannis' janky shot contributing to a 27.5% 3-point percentage and a 64.5% free throw success rate.

To me, the final table is the same this year as it has been the previous two. This time, I believe Embiid deserves to be at the helm. So let us recognize him.

Tatum can average nearly 30-9-5 on.607 true shooting for a 57-win team with the NBA's best net rating, all while playing excellent defense across multiple perimeter positions, logging more minutes than all but a handful of players in the league, and becoming one of the league's most complete players... I don't see him finishing in the top three in MVP voting. Alas!

Defensive Player of the Year

1. Jaren Jackson Jr., Memphis Grizzlies

2. Brook Lopez, Milwaukee Bucks

3. Evan Mobley, Cleveland Cavaliers

The prosecution's case against Jackson begins with complete workload. Jackson played 63 games and 1,787 minutes, significantly fewer than Lopez, Mobley, Bam Adebayo, and the majority of other potential candidates for this honor, owing mostly to offseason foot surgery that cost him the first month of the season. But, despite playing fewer minutes than his opponent, I voted for Adebayo last year because I believed Bam's outstanding performance on the floor deserved to be recognized. I'm in the same boat as you.

While Jackson did not completely change Memphis' defense, as I noted at the time, he absolutely burst upon his arrival, swatting nearly everything in sight and playing the most important role in what had been the NBA's 17th-best defense becoming its best over the last 68 games.

He kept up his high level of disruption whether he was playing power forward with Steven Adams, Brandon Clarke, and Xavier Tillman or sliding over to center solo. Memphis allowed 108.5 points per 100 non-garbage-time possessions during Jackson's minutes at the 4, which would be the strongest defense in the NBA. In his minutes at the 5, the Grizzlies allowed... 108.9 points per 100 possessions, which would also be the league's top defense. Even in the midst of a whirlwind in Memphis over the last two and a half months — injuries to Adams and Clarke, the Ja Morant saga, three separate suspensions for Dillon Brooks — the Grizzlies remained a top-eight defense... that clamped down at a league-best rate whenever JJJ was on the floor.

Rookie of the Year

1. Paolo Banchero, Orlando Magic

2. Jalen Williams, Oklahoma City Thunder

3. Walker Kessler, Utah Jazz

Williams and Kessler both drew attention with their play down the stretch, with the former taking on a larger offensive role for an Oklahoma City team mounting a serious play-in push, and the latter cementing himself as a defensive cornerstone on a Jazz team that lingered in the postseason conversation far longer than most expected. (I've recently written about both.) As impressive as they've been in supporting roles alongside All-Stars Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and Lauri Markkanen, I found it even more impressive that Banchero entered the NBA as the No. 1 pick in the 2022 NBA draft and immediately established himself as a legitimate No. 1 option in his own right.

Coach of the Year

1. Mike Brown, Sacramento Kings

2. Mark Daigneault, Oklahoma City Thunder

3. J.B. Bickerstaff, Cleveland Cavaliers

Brown took over a Kings club that hadn't made the playoffs, or even won 40 games, since 2006, and immediately oversaw a worst-to-first turnaround that ended the NBA's longest postseason drought. Long praised for his defensive abilities, Brown combined elements of the offensive principles he learned while coaching with Gregg Popovich and Steve Kerr to create the league's best offense — a whirling dervish of dribble handoffs, backdoor cuts, skip passes, dribble drives, ball movement, body movement, and let-'er-rip 3-pointers.

Sixth Man of the Year

1. Immanuel Quickley, New York Knicks

2. Malcolm Brogdon, Boston Celtics

3. Bobby Portis, Milwaukee Bucks

Brogdon had an outstanding first season in Boston. He was a reliable provider of scoring off the bench, averaging just under 15 points and four assists per game on 48/44/87 shooting splits, and a dependable pair of hands with a 2.5-to-1 assist-to-turnover ratio. He averaged more drives to the basket per game than any other Celtic aside from Jaylen Brown, providing much-needed north-south oomph to a Boston team that was at the bottom of the NBA in terms of producing shot attempts at the rim. He was also effective off the ball, making 44.2% of his catch-and-shoot 3-point attempts. 

Most Improved Player

1. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Oklahoma City Thunder

2. Lauri Markkanen, Utah Jazz

3. Jalen Brunson, New York Knicks

Gilgeous-Alexander made it evident early this season that he'd made the superstar leap, and he just kept going, not only guiding Oklahoma City back to the playoffs, but also finishing fourth in scoring. Since the season's first tip, he's played less like someone eager to prove he'd arrived and more like someone completely unconcerned about whether or not you'd realized what he knew for certain: that, as far as he was concerned, he'd already been there, going heads up with the best of the best without blinking or flinching.  The postseason is made for preternaturally confident young men whose hearts pump slow and steady in the guts of the game; I’m very much looking forward to seeing what our young Canadian friend can cook up in his return to games of consequence.

Clutch Player of the Year

1. De’Aaron Fox, Sacramento Kings

2. Joel Embiid, Philadelphia 76ers

3. DeMar DeRozan, Chicago Bulls

Fox led the NBA in points scored in the final five minutes when the score was within five points. Only Bradley Beal shot a greater percentage on those shots among the 21 players who scored at least 100 crunch-time points than Fox, who took more than twice as many attempts as Beal.

When additional elements like drawing fouls, grabbing rebounds, dishing assists, committing (or avoiding) mistakes are taken into account, Fox remains at the top of Mike Beuoy's critical win probability increased tracker at Unpredictable. The Kings have the strongest clutch offense in the NBA by 10.2 points per 100 possessions, and Fox is responsible for the majority of those possessions. I'm not sure if this award will be competitive in the future, but the first winner seems like a no-brainer to me.