NBA Preseason Awards

As unbelievable as it seems, the NBA Tips-off next week. I’m not ready for it to start yet and it doesn’t appear Jeremy Lin is either.¹ At least I wasn’t ready until I found out that Jalen Rose and Bill Simmons have joined the NBA on ABC team. Now, I’m all in!

In honor of two of my favorite people making ABC the #1 contender for Inside the NBA’s perennial Emmy, I bring you the first annual Haterade Shower NBA Preseason Awards.

Most Underrated – The guy that you may not realize is a star, but already is.

Nominees: DeMarcus Cousins, Kyrie Irving, Paul George, Ricky Rubio

Winner: Kyrie Irving, in a landslide. Kyrie is the truth. He’s basically a 6’3” Chris Paul. Insane first step, lethal handles, can score from anywhere on the floor, makes decisions wise beyond his years and showed last year that he can get buckets, at will, in the clutch. It might be this season, it might be next, but before you know it Kyrie Irving is going to be one of the 7 best players in the NBA—probably top 5.

Most Overrated – The guy who is treated like an elite talent even though his best days are behind him or has always been fugazie.

Nominees: Blake Griffin, Rudy Gay, Amare Stoudemire

Winner: Blake Griffin. Blake is obviously crazy talented from a physical standpoint but his game is extremely limited. He can jump high and has nasty throw-downs but he doesn’t block shots (which is crazy considering his hops), he doesn’t rebound, has no shot, no post moves and isn’t a great defender. People saying he’s a top 10-15 player is absurd. Maybe he’ll get there one day but right now he’s barely in the top 10 Power Forwards.

The Ron Artest Award – The player most likely to give us a memorable moment like throwing your opponent’s sneaker into the crowd, decapitate a player with an elbow, making Craig Sager say “Queens Bridge” on live television or telling a story about a friend getting stabbed in the heart with a broken table leg in the middle of a pickup game. This is obviously the most prestigious of all the awards and comes with the most bragging rights.

Nominees: JaVale McGee, Delonte West, Michael Beasley

Winner: JaVale McGee. JMG doesn’t have the erratic eloquence that Ron-Ron does, but his low-light reel from last year was phenomenal. Running the wrong way on plays, air balling layups and swating balls into the stands that were such obvious goal tends that I thought he was shaving points. Add to that that his mother is always giving us great quotes in attempts to compensate for his craziness and this could be another stellar year for JaVale.

Ski Mask All-Stars – The players who pulled the biggest heists on their teams when it was time to negotiate their contracts. These guys straight stole money from the organization and laughed all the way to the bank. (I’m not mad at them either. My goal in life is to be drastically overpaid, good for them—as long as they’re not taking up cap space on my team.)

Winners: Nicholas Batum—Batum’s a solid role player just not 4 years $45M solid. Hedo Turkoglu—5 years, $54M. Emeka Okafor—6 years, $72M. Amare Stoudemire—5 years $100M. STAT has no knees. The Knicks are better when he’s injured and Subway turned the Knicks trade offer of Stoudemire for 2 $5 Foot longs. Subways counter of one $5 foot long is still being considered by Knickerbockers. Carlos Boozer—5 years, $75M. Nene Hilario—5 years, $67M. If you saw Nene play in the Olympics this year or for the Wizards/Nuggets last season you saw how much of a “Just Another Guy” he is. Denver was ecstatic to trade his contract for JaVale McGee. That says a lot.

The Big Floppy Award (Sponsored by Viagra) – Player most likely to get suspended for excessive violations of the league’s new no flopping rule.

Nominees: Blake Griffin, LeBron James, Shane Battier, Mickael Pietrus

Winner: Blake Griffin. Blake looks like he gets hit by sniper fire 8.9 times per game. You know it’s bad when your own teammates call you out for it. If we only counted defensive flops, Battier would win in easily. But Blake is such a well-rounded flopateer and you have to be an all-around performer to win The Big Floppy.

The Charles Oakley Award – Player most likely to slap another player in the mouth after the game. Oak did this on a regular basis. Usually telling players during the game, “Ima slap the shit out you after the game!” The best was when one player, having earned his open hand slap during the game, thought he could defuse the situation by having his infant son in his arms. Oak gives no fucks about your kid, though. He just took the child from the player and held him in one arm while delivering the slap with the other. Where were reality TV shows when Oak was in the league?

Winner: Zach Randolph. A self-proclaimed “goon,” the story about Randolph being over charged by the weed man and snatching the bud out of his hand , refusing to pay and telling the salesman to “get the fuck out of his house” is too hilarious to not be true.

The Linsanity Award – Player most likely to cause a media firestorm based on his ethnicity, rise from obscurity and thirstiness of his team and local media market.

Winner: Jeremy Lin is really the only candidate here but I think there’s too much pressure on him to be successful. That and the Rockets are terrible. A lot of B team players that fit together as well as Tim Tebow and Lindsey Lohan.

The 07 Celtics Award – The team that would benefit most from tanking the entire season to get a top lottery pick, like the Celtics did in 2007

*Not the worst team, the team that if they tried could most likely make the playoffs but don’t have a realistic shot at winning it all.

Winner: The Chicago Bulls. Derrick Rose coming back from his torn ACL too soon terrifies me. He’s such a great player, such a great kid, such a great competitor. I would hate to see him come back prematurely and cause more damage to his surgically repaired knee. Lose 20 of the first 25 games though and what’s the point of bringing him back mid-season? They might as well wait till next year or the last month of the season. It guarantees that they’ll have a 100% D-Rose in 2013 and he’ll have a top draft pick added to an already deep roster. 2013 Championship!

The Brown Bag Award – Team most likely to make their fans wear brown paper bags over their heads in shame of their team’s performance.

Nominees: Charlotte Bobcats, Washington Wizards, Orlando Magic and Houston Rockets.

Winner: The Orlando Magic. I’m glad they won this award because there’s going to be very little winning for them this season. But hey, anytime you can trade one the leagues 3 best players for an overpaid Arron Afflalo, a Moe Harkless, some worthless draft picks AND can take back more in bad contracts than you sent out, you do it every time. Every time!² 

The You Tube Award – Player most likely to reach 100,000 views on a You Tube video within the first half hour of its posting.

Winner: Blake Griffin. This could have easily gone to Chris Bosh for doing something weird and homo-erotic but Blake’s the 2 time defending champ of the You Tube Award for The Mozgov and The Perkolator. Sorry, but you gotta beat the man to be the man, Chris.

The Scott Skiles Award – The coach most likely to commit a double-homicide on his two point guards because he hates their reckless style of play but recognizes that they’re his 2 most valuable assets.

Winner: This is obviously Scott Skiles award to lose but don’t be surprised if Chris Paul and Chauncy Billups steal the award out from under him by reversing the roles and going Spreewell on Vinny Del Negro.

The All NBA Team – The 2 best guards, 2 best forwards and the best center in the league.

Winners: The first 4 are easy; LeBron James, Kevin Durant, Chris Paul and Dwight Howard’s punk-ass. The second guard is tricky. Derrick Rose isn’t going to be healthy. Kobe is old. Deron Williams hasn’t been himself the past season and a half in New Jersey. Maybe he turns back into the league’s second best point guard with the new energy in Brooklyn and some nice upgrades in his supporting cast. Rondo quietly became one of the NBA’s best players at some point over the past 2 years, but he’s as up and down as a heart monitor so he doesn’t make the list. That leaves the spot open for Russell Westbrook. Russ has gotten significantly better in each of his 4 seasons and there’s no reason to think that trend will not continue.

All Defensive Team – The best 2 guards, 2 forwards and the best center, defensively in the league.

Winners: Dwight Howard, LeBron James, Serge Ibaka, Carmelo Anthony (just kidding), Andre Iguodala and Thabo Sefolosha.

MVP – Most Valuable Player (whose team also finishes in the top 4 in their conference)

Finalists: LeBron James, Chris Paul, Kevin Durant, Dwight Howard

The Winner: Kevin Durant. LeBron will be the best player in the NBA this season—assuming he stays healthy. He’ll put up a ridiculous stat line, again. He’ll get screwed out of the Defensive Player of the Year Award, again. But the MVP award is funny. Kobe only has one despite being the best player in the league for the majority of his career. Steve Nash has 2 and has never made it to an NBA Finals. Michael Jordan was out-voted for by Magic Johnson (’90), Charles Barkley (’93) and Karl Malone (’97), when we all know he was the best player in every full season he played from 1990-1999. KD’s the most likeable superstar. He’s inarguably one of the 3 best players. He’ll probably lead the league in scoring for the third consecutive year. OKC will have one of the best records in the NBA and he’ll get credit for all the growth in Russell Westbrook’s game. Unless the Bron-Bashers come around on him now that he’s an NBA champion, I could easily see Durant winning an asterisk MVP.

1 Lin is barely shooting 20 % this preseason.

2 Maybe I’m just bitter that my former favorite team tortured me with dumb moves and bad luck for so many years but I can’t see any way the Magic aren’t terrible for the next 5 years.