The NBA announced the finalists for the six awards it will hand out based on everything up to the pause of the 2019-20 season. Each award has three finalists on the ballot, and while there is no set date for the awards to be handed out due to the lack of an NBA Awards show this year, the league said in a release that “TNT will announce the award winners during its coverage of the season restart.”
Here’s how the award finalists break down:
Most Valuable Player: Giannis Antetokounmpo, James Harden, LeBron James
Rookie of the Year: Ja Morant, Kendrick Nunn, Zion Williamson
Most Improved Player: Bam Adebayo, Luka Doncic, Brandon Ingram
Defensive Player of the Year: Giannis Antetokounmpo, Anthony Davis, Rudy Gobert
Sixth Man: Montrezl Harrell, Dennis Schröder, Lou Williams
Coach of the Year: Mike Budenholzer, Billy Donovan, Nick Nurse
Some of these seem pretty easy to sort out. Antetokounmpo is the overwhelming favorite to win MVP for the second year in a row. While Williamson was sensational in the minutes he played, Morant was brilliant in his own right and played far more. Sixth Man seems like a safe bet to stay in Los Angeles, but go from Williams’ hands to Harrell’s. Regardless, this is a loaded field of deserving finalists, and we’ll see in the coming weeks who comes out on top in all of these races.
