We are a quarter of the way through the 2024-25 NBA regular season, which gives us at least a 19-game sample from every team in the NBA to evaluate. There have been some standouts and disappointments in the early going this season, and as we get into the meat of the regular season schedule, we wanted to take a look at how we would handle awards voting through a quarter of the season. We’ll start with the actual main NBA awards, and then hand out a few of our own to highlight players and teams we feel have been particularly noteworthy thus far.
MVP: Nikola Jokic
It takes a special season for a guy with three MVPs in the last four years to be the favorite for another, but that’s what we’re seeing from Nikola Jokic so far this year. He’s averaging a silly 30.1 points, 13 rebounds, 10.4 assists, 1.7 steals, and 0.9 blocks per game on an equally outrageous 56.4/52.2/81.6 shooting splits, and he leads the league in just about every advanced metric. His presence has kept the Nuggets afloat as his on/off splits are once again hysterical, as Denver has a +11.99 net rating when he is on the court and a -15.27 when he’s off of it. If the Nuggets nab one of the six playoff spots in the West and Jokic maintains anything close to this production, it’ll be his fourth MVP. However, if Denver is a Play-In team and Jokic’s production and efficiency dips, it could certainly open the door for someone like Shai Gilgeous-Alexander on a top seed, but for now, it’s Jokic and then everyone else.
Honorable Mentions: Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Jayson Tatum, Giannis Antetokounmpo
DPOY: Victor Wembanyama
Yeah, I mean, come on, it’s Wemby, and in all likelihood, it’s going to be Wemby for as long as he is in the NBA. Watching Victor Wembanyama play defense is hilarious, as he is obviously long and gigantic and an incredible athlete. But also — and this is the really dangerous part — Wembanyama has an excellent understanding of where he has to be, how to get to where he has to be, and how to go for blocks and steals without putting the rest of his team at a disadvantage if that doesn’t work. He averages 3.4 blocks and 1.3 steals per game, and is by some margin the best player in the league at making guys go “I am going to try to score at the rim … wait, no, nevermind.”
Honorable Mentions: Dyson Daniels, Evan Mobley, Jaren Jackson Jr.
ROY: Jared McCain
This year’s ROY race figured to be wide open given the lack of clear star power at the top of this year’s class, and that’s played out so far in the early part of the season. The frontrunner at the moment is Sixers rookie Jared McCain, who has been one of the few (and perhaps the only) bright spots for Philly so far this season. McCain is averaging 16.1 points per game on 45.9/37.7/90.6 shooting splits, and has found himself having to carry a much heavier scoring burden than expected with the many star absences the Sixers have faced. That he’s acquitted himself so well so quickly to the NBA game is impressive, and he’s given Sixers fans a needed positive to cling to in an otherwise disastrous season in Philadelphia.
Honorable Mentions: Stephon Castle, Jaylen Wells, Dalton Knecht
6MOY: Payton Pritchard
The Celtics have, unsurprisingly, been very good to start the season as they embark on their quest for a title defense, and have done so despite some key absences here and there. A big reason for their consistency is the ability of guys to step up into larger roles, and no one has done that better this year in Boston than Payton Pritchard, as he’s averaging 16.4 points per game off of the bench on 48.9/43.1/87.5 shooting splits. We’re not that far removed from Pritchard hoping to be traded somewhere he could get playing time, but his (somewhat forced) patience has paid off in becoming a key cog in the Celtics machine. He has been an ideal fit for Joe Mazzulla’s offensive system that wants players to hoist as many threes as possible, and Pritchard has taken that green light to heart, launching nearly 8.6 threes per game and making 3.7 of them a night. Traditionally, the Sixth Man award has gone to the league’s best microwave scorer off the bench, and Pritchard doing that on high efficiency for the best team in the NBA makes him a heavy favorite for the award.
Honorable Mentions: Buddy Hield, Amen Thompson, Ty Jerome, De’Andre Hunter
MIP: Franz Wagner
MIP has become an award typically handed out to a young player that makes the leap from “good” to “star.” Whether that should be how the award is handed out is an entirely different conversation, but it’s hard to argue that Franz Wagner fits that mold in the first quarter of the season. With Paolo Banchero sidelined due to an oblique injury, Wagner has stepped into the lead role in Orlando and played spectacularly, leading the Magic to a 15-8 record, good for third in the East. Wagner is averaging 23.7 points, 5.9 assists, 5.6 rebounds, and 1.8 steals per game on 46.4/33.3/86.4 shooting splits, leading the way for Orlando on both ends of the floor. After a horrific shooting year in 2023-24, Wagner has bounced back to being closer to league-average from three, which is really all he needs to complement his phenomenal finishing at the rim and short mid-range game. That he’s playing this well and this efficiently as a scorer without a single above-average shooter around him (the Magic have a 31.3 three-point percentage, which is 29th in the league) is incredible, and if he can keep up this level once Banchero returns, the Magic are going to be an incredibly tough team to deal with.
Honorable Mentions: Jalen Williams, Jalen Johnson, LaMelo Ball
COY: Kenny Atkinson
The Cavaliers basically brought back the exact same roster from a year ago banking on new head coach Kenny Atkinson to put the pieces together into a coherent puzzle, and he’s done just that to start this season. While the real test will come in May and June, no one expected the Cavs to boast the best record in the NBA at this point of the season and their 15-0 start to the year was spectacular. Atkinson has not just gotten their core group of starters to play at a high level together, but their bench unit has been tremendous as well, headlined by the play of Caris LeVert and Ty Jerome.
Honorable Mentions: Ime Udoka, Taylor Jenkins, Jamahl Mosley
League Pass MVP: LaMelo Ball
Ball’s talent is undeniable, and has been undeniable for quite some time. His issue is and has been his inability to stay on the floor — he appeared in 58 games, total, over the last two years, and is unfortunately dealing with a calf strain right now. But when he plays? Goodness gracious, this guy is a blast. I define League Pass MVP as “guy who I can’t take my eyes off of, for good and bad reasons,” and that sums up Ball’s game to a tee. Consider his league-wide ranking in the following categories:
Points per game: second (31.1)
Field goal attempts per game: first (24.9)
Shots missed: first (256)
Three-pointers made per game: first (4.7)
Three-pointers attempted per game: first (13.1!!!!!!!!)
Turnovers per game: third (4.5)
He also leads the Hornets with 6.9 assists per game. When he is on the floor, stuff happens. It’s usually good, it’s sometimes bad, and it is always, without a doubt, entertaining.
The Usos Award for Tag-Team Excellence: Amen Thompson and Tari Eason
This really fun thing happens when the Houston Rockets play basketball games. At some point, Amen Thompson and Tari Eason check in from off the bench, and then the other team tends to have an incredibly bad time. Both guys are strong, mean, and incredibly athletic — Thompson might be the best pound-for-pound athlete in the NBA — and they’re both in that fun spot that young players find themselves in where you can see that they are getting better and more comfortable the more they play. That is absolutely horrible news for the other 29 teams in the league, because both of them knowing exactly how to use their athleticism on both ends of the floor (seriously, watch them just envelop opposing players, it’s so funny) is only going to make the Rockets better. Hey! On that…
Biggest Surprise Team (Good): Houston Rockets
Watching the Rockets this year is nothing short of awesome. Ime Udoka has gotten a young group (with a few veteran touches) to really buy in on the defensive end of the floor, and while their offense is by no means perfect, they are able to scrap together points by just never turning the ball over and killing teams with their ability to grab offensive rebounds — Alperen Sengun has mastered that move where you just know where and how a ball is coming off the rim, while Thompson and Eason in particular are great at using their athleticism to gain extra possessions. Is this real? Is this fake? Is this team going to ride it out with a consolidation trade for a star? Will they stick with their young guys? Who cares! They’re 15-7, a game and a half out of first in the cutthroat Western Conference, and look awesome.
Honorable Mentions: Cavaliers, Warriors, Magic
Biggest Surprise Team (Bad): Philadelphia 76ers
Big, big yikes. I’ll admit that I thought the Sixers were the second-best team in the Eastern Conference coming into this year, and that the trio of Tyrese Maxey, Paul George, and Joel Embiid fit perfectly. Instead, the vibes in Philly are wretched, in part because this trio has run into the problem that we saw last year with the Phoenix Suns: When you build around guys who are hurt all the time (more George and Embiid, as Maxey has been healthy prior to some injury issues this year), you have to bake that into your analysis. That trio has played all of six minutes together, and if not for a pleasant surprise in McCain, things could be worse than 5-14, somehow. Maybe they get hot and sneak into the Play-In if Embiid and George can get healthy and find their form — not impossible, as the bottom of the East is terrible — but they need things to get on track as soon as possible.
Honorable Mentions: Pelicans, Timberwolves, Pacers
