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Hoops Rumors Glossary: Early Bird Rights

April 25th, 2022 at 11:07am CST by Luke Adams

Bird rights offer teams the chance to sign their own free agents without regard to the salary cap, but they don’t apply to every player. Other salary cap exceptions are available for teams to keep players who don’t qualify for Bird rights. One such exception is the Early Bird, which applies to players formally known as Early Qualifying Veteran Free Agents.

While the Bird exception is for players who have spent three seasons with one club without changing teams as a free agent, Early Bird rights are earned after just two such seasons. Virtually all of the same rules that apply to Bird rights apply to Early Bird rights, with the requirements condensed to two years rather than three. Players still see their Bird clocks restart by changing teams via free agency, being claimed in an expansion draft, or having their rights renounced.

As is the case with Bird rights, a player’s clock stops when he’s released by a team and clears waivers, but it would pick up where it left off if he re-signs with that same team down the road without joining another club in the interim. For instance, Gary Payton II will have Early Bird rights this offseason because – even though he was waived last fall – he has finished two consecutive seasons with the Warriors and didn’t join another team between his stints in Golden State.

The crucial difference between Bird rights and Early Bird rights involves the limitations on contract offers. Bird players can receive maximum-salary deals for up to five years, while the most a team can offer an Early Bird free agent without using cap space is 175% of his previous salary (up to the max) or 105% of the league-average salary in the previous season, whichever is greater.

These offers are also capped at four years rather than five, and the new contracts must run for at least two years — the second year can be non-guaranteed, but can’t be a team or player option.

Besides Payton, some notable free agents who will have Early Bird rights during the 2022 offseason include Bobby Portis (Bucks), Nicolas Batum (Clippers), and JaMychal Green (Nuggets).

In some instances, teams can benefit from having Early Bird rights instead of full Bird rights if they’re trying to preserve cap space. The cap hold for an Early Bird player is 130% of his previous salary, significantly less than most Bird players, whose cap holds range from 150-300% of their previous salaries.

However, having a player’s Early Bird rights instead of his full Bird rights puts a team at a disadvantage in other cases. For instance, when Christian Wood reached free agency in 2020, his Early Bird rights only allowed the Pistons to offer a starting salary of up to about $10.05MM, a figure the Rockets topped in their three-year, $41MM offer.

In order to match or exceed that number, Detroit would have had to use cap room — having Wood’s full Bird rights would’ve allowed the Pistons to make a far more substantial offer without requiring cap space.

Meanwhile, some players with limited NBA experience are subject to a special wrinkle involving Early Bird rights, called the Gilbert Arenas Provision, which applies to players who have only been in the league for one or two years. We cover the Arenas Provision in a separate glossary entry, so you can read up on the details there. It would apply this offseason to a player like Bucks wing Jordan Nwora, though he seems unlikely to get a huge contract offer.

Finally, one more distinction between Bird rights and Early Bird rights applies to waivers. Players who are claimed off waivers retain their Early Bird rights, just as they would if they were traded. Those who had Bird rights instead see those reduced to Early Bird rights if they’re claimed off waivers. This rule stems from a 2012 settlement between the league and the union in which J.J. Hickson was given a special exception and retained his full Bird rights for the summer of 2012 even though he had been claimed off waivers that March.

Note: This is a Hoops Rumors Glossary entry. Our glossary posts will explain specific rules relating to trades, free agency, or other aspects of the NBA’s Collective Bargaining Agreement. Larry Coon’s Salary Cap FAQ was used in the creation of this post.

Earlier versions of this post were published in previous years by Luke Adams and Chuck Myron.

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Players Eligible For Rookie Scale Extensions In 2022

April 22nd, 2022 at 9:32am CST by Luke Adams

When the NBA’s 2022/23 league year begins this summer, players eligible for free agency will be able to begin negotiating and reaching contract agreements with suitors. In addition to those free agents, another group of players will also become eligible to sign new deals.

For players who are entering the fourth and final year of their rookie scale contracts, the first day of the new league year (July 1) is the first day they can agree to rookie scale extensions. Those players, who were 2019 first-round selections, will have until the day before the 2022/23 regular season starts to finalize long-term agreements with their current teams.

Players eligible for rookie scale extensions can sign new deals that run for up to four – or even five – years, with those contracts taking effect beginning in 2023/24. If they don’t sign extensions during the coming offseason, those players will be eligible for restricted free agency in the summer of 2023.

Eleven players who were eligible for rookie scale extensions during the 2021 offseason signed new deals. That number was a new record, and continued a recent trend — we’ve seen an uptick in rookie extensions during the last few years as more teams look to lock up their promising young players in advance of free agency. We should expect several more rookie scale extensions to be signed between July and October of this year.

Here are the players who will be eligible to sign rookie scale extensions during the 2022 offseason:

The following players were selected in the first round of the 2019 draft along with the players listed above. However, they aren’t eligible for rookie scale extensions this year for the reasons noted:

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Four NBA Teams Have No 2022 Draft Picks

April 20th, 2022 at 4:12pm CST by Luke Adams

In a typical NBA draft, each team receives two picks — one in the first round and one in the second. However, as our pre-lottery draft order shows, only five NBA teams (the Knicks, Pistons, Hawks, Wizards, and Rockets) control exactly two picks in the 2022 draft. The other 25 clubs currently hold either more or less than that.

Two of the picks in the 2022 draft have been forfeited — Milwaukee and Miami lost second-rounders as penalties for jumping the gun in free agency.

Of the draft’s 58 remaining selections, 10 are controlled by the five teams noted above. Twelve more are owned by the Spurs, Timberwolves, and Thunder, who have four apiece. And 27 others are held by the Cavaliers, Pacers, Hornets, Magic, Grizzlies, Pelicans, Trail Blazers, Warriors, and Kings, who each have three.

That leaves nine picks for the league’s remaining 13 teams. The Celtics, Raptors, Bulls, Bucks, Heat, Mavericks, Nuggets, and Clippers each own one, while the final pick – No. 23 overall – will be controlled by either the Nets or Sixers. Philadelphia traded it to Brooklyn in the James Harden blockbuster, but the Nets have the option of letting the 76ers keep it and acquiring Philadelphia’s unprotected 2023 first-round pick instead.

Whichever team ends up not getting No. 23 will be one of four clubs that doesn’t currently have a draft pick in 2022. The other three? The Suns, Jazz, and Lakers.

Phoenix traded away its 2022 first-round pick two years ago for Chris Paul and its second-rounder earlier this year for Torrey Craig. Given that the Suns won 64 games and ensured those picks will land at No. 30 and No. 60, it’s safe to assume they have no regrets.

Like Phoenix, the Jazz used their 2022 first-rounder to acquire their current starting point guard (Mike Conley). The team gave up its second-rounder two years ago to land Elijah Hughes. Those trades may not have been quite as successful as the Suns’ deals, but the picks Utah surrendered landed in the bottom third of the draft order, at No. 22 and No. 52 — that’s not a huge loss.

The Lakers, who missed the playoffs, will have to surrender a lottery pick this year. We don’t know yet where exactly it will land, but the odds say it’ll probably be at least No. 8 or No. 9 — and it could end up as high as No. 1.

The Lakers can at least take solace in the fact that they gave up both of their 2022 draft picks in the Anthony Davis blockbuster, which helped them win a title in 2020. Still, of the teams without any ’22 draft selections, L.A. is the club that could most use one to inject its roster with some young, inexpensive talent. It will be interesting to see whether the Lakers find a way to get involved in this year’s draft, flexing their financial muscle by buying their way into the second round.

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Hoops Rumors Glossary: Bird Rights

April 20th, 2022 at 11:05am CST by Luke Adams

The Bird exception, named after Larry Bird, is a rule included in the NBA’s Collective Bargaining Agreement that allows teams to go over the salary cap to re-sign their own players. A player who qualifies for the Bird exception, formally referred to as a Qualifying Veteran Free Agent, is said to have “Bird rights.”

The most basic way for a player to earn Bird rights is to play for the same team for at least three seasons, either on a long-term deal or on separate one- or two-year contracts. Still, there are other criteria. A player retains his Bird rights in the following scenarios:

  1. He changes teams via trade. For instance, the Pistons will hold Marvin Bagley III‘s Bird rights when he reaches free agency this offseason, despite just acquiring him in February. His Bird clock didn’t reset when he was traded from Sacramento to Detroit.
  2. He finishes a third season with a team after having only signed for a partial season with the club in the first year. The Warriors signed Juan Toscano-Anderson midway through the 2019/20 season, adding him to their roster in February 2020. When his contract expires this offseason, Toscano-Anderson will have Bird rights despite not spending three full seasons with Golden State, because that half-season in ’19/20 started his Bird clock.
  3. He signed for a full season in year one or two but the team waived him, he cleared waivers, and didn’t sign with another team before re-signing with the club and remaining under contract through a third season. This one’s a little confusing, but let’s use Toscano-Anderson as a case study once more. After he finished the 2019/20 season with the Warriors, Toscano-Anderson was waived by the team in December 2020. Because the Warriors re-signed him shortly after cutting him and he didn’t join a new team in the interim, the swingman’s Bird clock picked up where it left off once he was back under contract, so he’ll have full Bird rights this summer.

A player sees the clock on his Bird rights reset to zero in the following scenarios:

  1. He changes teams via free agency.
  2. He is waived and is not claimed on waivers (except as in scenario No. 3 above).
  3. His rights are renounced by his team. However, as in scenario No. 3 above, a player’s Bird clock picks up where it left off if he re-signs with that team renounced without having signed with another NBA team. For example, Taj Gibson had Early Bird rights last offseason, then had those rights renounced by the Knicks as the team attempted to gain extra cap room. Since Gibson eventually signed a new deal with New York, he remains on track to secure full Bird rights this summer — that wouldn’t have been the case if he had signed with a new team.
  4. He is selected in an expansion draft.

If a player who would have been in line for Bird rights at the end of the season is waived and claimed off waivers, he would retain only Early Bird rights.

Meanwhile, a player with Bird rights who re-signs with his previous team on a one-year contract (or a one-year deal with a second-year option) would lose his Bird rights if he’s traded. As such, he receives the ability to veto trades so he can avoid that scenario.

[RELATED: Players who had the ability to veto trades in 2021/22]

The Bird exception was designed to allow teams to keep their best players, even when those teams don’t have the cap room necessary to do so.

When a player earns Bird rights, he’s eligible to re-sign with his team for up to five years and for any price up to his maximum salary (with 8% annual raises) when he becomes a free agent, no matter how much cap space the team has — or doesn’t have. The maximum salary varies from player to player depending on how long he has been in the league, but regardless of the precise amount, a team can exceed the salary cap to re-sign a player with Bird rights.

A team with a Bird free agent is assigned a “free agent amount” – also called a cap hold – worth either 190% of his previous salary (for a player with a below-average salary) or 150% of his previous salary (for an above-average salary), up to the maximum salary amount. For players coming off rookie scale contracts, the amounts of those cap holds are 300% and 250%, respectively.

The Hornets, for instance, will have a cap hold worth $16,264,479 for Miles Bridges on their 2022/23 books — 300% of his $5,421,493 salary for ’21/22. Charlotte could renounce Bridges and generate an extra $16MM+ in cap flexibility, but the Hornets would then lose the ability to re-sign him using Bird rights, which would force them to use either cap room or a different cap exception to re-sign him. As such, we can count on Charlotte keeping Bridges’ cap hold on the books until his free agency is resolved.

Note: This is a Hoops Rumors Glossary entry. Our glossary posts will explain specific rules relating to trades, free agency, or other aspects of the NBA’s Collective Bargaining Agreement. Larry Coon’s Salary Cap FAQ was used in the creation of this post.

Earlier versions of this post were published in previous years by Luke Adams and Chuck Myron.

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NBA Team Option Decisions For 2022/23

April 19th, 2022 at 9:17am CST by Luke Adams

Having already created a space to track this offseason’s player option decisions, we’re turning our attention today to team options. Over the next couple months, we’ll use the space below to keep tabs on all the team options for 2022/23, making note of whether they’re exercised or declined.

True team options are different than non-guaranteed salaries, which aren’t listed in the space below. Non-guaranteed salaries are less restrictive and provide a little more flexibility than team options, which clubs must act upon by a specific date (June 29) each year.

However, team options can be useful at the end of a contract, since turning down that option allows the team to retain some form of Bird rights on the player — waiving a player with a non-guaranteed salary doesn’t present that same opportunity. Additionally, a handful of contracts still don’t become fully guaranteed once an option is picked up, giving teams an extra level of flexibility.

The list below doesn’t include rookie scale team options for 2022/23, since those third- and fourth-year options function differently than team options on standard veteran contracts. Those ’22/23 rookie scale team option decisions were made during the 2021 offseason, and can be found here.

The standard team options for 2022/23 are listed below. This list – which can be found anytime under the “Hoops Rumors Features” menu on the right sidebar on our desktop site or on the “Features” page in our mobile menu – will be updated throughout the fall to note the latest decisions as they’re reported and/or announced.

Unless otherwise indicated, a player’s salary will become guaranteed once his team option is exercised.

Boston Celtics

Brooklyn Nets

Charlotte Hornets

  • Jalen McDaniels ($1,930,681): Exercised
    • Note: McDaniels’ salary remains non-guaranteed even with his option exercised, but will become fully guaranteed on August 1.

Cleveland Cavaliers

  • Dean Wade ($1,930,681): Exercised
    • Note: Wade’s salary remains non-guaranteed even with his option exercised.

Detroit Pistons

Houston Rockets

Indiana Pacers

  • Oshae Brissett ($1,846,738): Exercised
    • Note: Brissett’s salary remains non-guaranteed even with his option exercised.

Los Angeles Clippers

  • Ivica Zubac ($7,518,518): Declined
    • Note: Zubac and the Clippers reached an extension agreement that involved declining his option.

Los Angeles Lakers

Minnesota Timberwolves

  • Jaylen Nowell ($1,930,681): Exercised
    • Note: Nowell’s salary remains non-guaranteed even with his option exercised.
  • Naz Reid ($1,930,681): Exercised
    • Note: Reid’s salary remains non-guaranteed even with his option exercised, but will become fully guaranteed on July 20.

Oklahoma City Thunder

Philadelphia 76ers

Sacramento Kings

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Poll: Who Should Win 2021/22 NBA Awards?

April 18th, 2022 at 1:20pm CST by Luke Adams

The NBA announced the 2021/22 finalists for its six major awards on Sunday, revealing the top three vote-getters for Most Valuable Player, Rookie of the Year, Sixth Man of the Year, Coach of the Year, Defensive Player of the Year, and Most Improved Player.

Our writers already shared their picks for this year’s awards (though not all of them made the cut when the finalists were announced). Now we want to know what you think.

Select your winners for this year’s major NBA awards in the six polls below, then head to the comment section to weigh in with your thoughts.

Our polls only include the three finalists in each category, but if you think someone else deserves to win one of these awards, be sure to use the comment section to “write in” that pick and explain your reasoning.

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NBA Player Option Decisions For 2022/23

April 18th, 2022 at 8:31am CST by Luke Adams

A number of NBA contracts include player options in the final year. Those option years give the player the opportunity to either opt into the last year of his deal and finish out his contract or to decline the option and hit the free agent market a year early.

Several factors play a part in a player’s option decision. The value of the option salary is obviously crucial, as is the player’s performance in the season leading up to his decision.

The state of the NBA’s salary cap also generally becomes a necessary consideration for players weighing their decisions. If the salary cap is projected to increase only modestly, or if not many teams around the league project to have cap room, a player may be more inclined to take the guaranteed money rather than trying his luck on the open market.

This year’s player options are listed below. This list – which can be found anytime under the “Hoops Rumors Features” menu on the right sidebar on our desktop site or on the “Features” page in our mobile menu – will be updated throughout the spring and early summer to note the latest decisions as they’re reported or announced.

While some players may face earlier deadlines, all option decisions must be finalized by June 29.

Brooklyn Nets

Chicago Bulls

Dallas Mavericks

Denver Nuggets

Detroit Pistons

Houston Rockets

Los Angeles Clippers

Los Angeles Lakers

Miami Heat

Milwaukee Bucks

Oklahoma City Thunder

Philadelphia 76ers

Toronto Raptors

Washington Wizards

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Community Shootaround: First Round Of Playoffs

April 16th, 2022 at 9:46am CST by Dana Gauruder

With the play-in tournament in the rearview mirror, the NBA playoffs officially begin on Saturday. There are a lot of intriguing first-round matchups and we could see quite of few of them reach the seven-game limit.

Let’s take a quick look at all eight series:

Eastern Conference

Western Conference

  • No. 1 Suns vs. No. 8 Pelicans — Phoenix deserves to be the favorite to come out of the West again after cruising to the league’s best record. New Orleans is happy to get here after a woeful start and going without Zion Williamson all season. Can CJ McCollum match Devin Booker in the scoring column?
  • No. 2 Grizzlies vs. No. 7 Timberwolves — Ja Morant says he’s ready to go after a late-season injury scare. Vastly-improved Memphis has a strong supporting cast around Morant but have to neutralize the high-scoring trio of Karl-Anthony Towns, D’Angelo Russell and Anthony Edwards.
  • No. 3 Warriors vs. No. 6 Nuggets — Stephen Curry is expected to return from his foot injury just in time for Golden State’s postseason run. The Warriors don’t have a true center to guard superstar Nikola Jokic, so they’ll throw all kinds of looks at him.
  • No. 4 Mavericks vs. No. 5 Jazz — Luka Doncic‘s calf strain changes the whole dynamic of this series. Can Dallas hang in there with its franchise player either sidelined or less than 100 percent? Utah stumbled down the stretch but it’s healthier than last postseason and Donovan Mitchell will undoubtedly ramp up his production.

That brings us to our question of the day: Who are your picks to win all the first-round playoff series?

Please take to the comments section to make your selections. We look forward to your input.

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Potential 2022 RFAs Whose Qualifying Offers Will Be Impacted By Starter Criteria

April 15th, 2022 at 10:17am CST by Luke Adams

The NBA’s rookie scale, which determines how much first-round picks earn during their first four NBA seasons, also dictates how much the qualifying offers will be worth for those players when they reach restricted free agency after year four. However, the value of those qualifying offers can fluctuate depending on whether or not a player has met the “starter criteria.”

Here’s how the starter criteria works in a typical year:

  • A player who is eligible for restricted free agency is considered to have met the starter criteria if he plays at least 2,000 minutes or starts 41 games in the season before he reaches free agency.
  • A player can also meet the criteria if he averages either of those marks in the two seasons prior to his restricted free agency. For instance, if a player started 50 games one year and 32 the next, he’d meet the starter criteria, since his average number of starts over the last two seasons is 41.

The thresholds for the starter criteria this year are a little different due to the truncated nature of the 2020/21 season. We outlined those tweaks at the start of the season.

A player’s ability or inability to meet the starter criteria can affect the value of the qualifying offer he receives as a restricted free agent, as follows:

  • A top-14 pick who does not meet the starter criteria will receive a qualifying offer equal to the amount the 15th overall pick would receive if he signed for 120% of the rookie scale.
  • A player picked between 10th and 30th who meets the criteria will receive a qualifying offer equal to the amount the ninth overall pick would receive if he signed for 120% of the rookie scale.
  • A second-round pick or undrafted player who meets the criteria will receive a qualifying offer equal to the amount the 21st overall pick would receive if he signed for 100% of the rookie scale.
  • For all other RFAs, the standard criteria determine the amounts of their qualifying offers.

Extending a qualifying offer to a player eligible for restricted free agency officially makes that player an RFA, ensuring that his team has the right of first refusal if he signs an offer sheet with another club. It also gives the player the option of signing that one-year QO.

Generally, the value of a restricted free agent’s qualifying offer isn’t hugely important, since very few RFAs accept those offers outright. There are exceptions though.

Last offseason, for instance, Bruce Brown met the starter criteria heading into restricted free agency, increasing the value of his qualifying offer to $4,736,102. The Nets decided to issue that qualifying offer and he accepted it. Had he fallen short of the starter criteria, Brown only would have been eligible for a qualifying offer worth around $2MM and his free agency could have played out very differently.

Top-14 picks who failed to meet starter criteria:

With all that in mind, let’s check in on how this year’s RFAs-to-be will be impacted by the starter criteria. Listed below are the former top-14 picks on track for restricted free agency who did not meet the starter criteria. These players will be eligible for qualifying offers worth $7,228,448.

Seven of the 14 players selected with lottery picks in the 2018 draft signed rookie scale extensions in 2021, meaning they won’t have to worry about the value of their qualifying offers this offseason.

Of the other seven, the three players listed above failed to meet the criteria. Bagley is the biggest loser in the trio — his qualifying offer would’ve been worth approximately $14.76MM if he had met the starter criteria. Sexton’s would’ve been about $8.56MM, while Knox’s would’ve been $7.92MM.

Even with the amount of his qualifying offer lowered a little, Knox likely won’t receive a QO at all, making him an unrestricted free agent. Bagley and Sexton are much safer bets for QOs.

Top-14 picks Deandre Ayton (Suns) and Mohamed Bamba (Magic), each met the starter criteria, locking in their QO amounts at $16.42MM and $10.1MM, respectively. Miles Bridges (Hornets) also met the starter criteria, as detailed in the next section.

Jerome Robinson was the only top-14 pick from ’18 who was waived before completing his rookie contract — he’s no longer on an NBA roster and won’t be eligible for a qualifying offer this summer.

First-round picks between 10-30 who met starter criteria:

A player who fell into this category would see the amount of his qualifying offer increase to $7,921,300. Bridges, the No. 12 overall pick, was the only player to qualify.

As a result of meeting the starter criteria, Bridges’ qualifying offer will increase from about $7.46MM to $7.92MM, a modest bump. It shouldn’t change the outlook of his free agency, since he’ll almost certainly receive a lucrative long-term offer.

Trail Blazers guard Anfernee Simons looked like one of the best candidates to join Bridges in this group. He needed to make 41 starts this season for Portland, but only got to 30 before he was shut down for the season with a left knee injury. His qualifying offer will remain at $5.76MM, but that shouldn’t have a major impact on his free agency, since he’ll likely work out a multiyear deal with the Blazers.

Meanwhile, because Kings wing Donte DiVincenzo was a full-time starter for the Bucks in 2020/21, he only needed to make seven starts this season to meet the starter criteria. However, he ultimately started just once for Milwaukee and Sacramento, even when he was playing heavy minutes down the stretch for the Kings.

DiVincenzo’s qualifying offer will remain at $6.6MM, which actually could have a tangible effect on his free agency — if he doesn’t get a multiyear offer with a starting salary much higher than his qualifying offer, accepting the QO and reaching unrestricted free agency in 2023 may be DiVincenzo’s best option. Presumably, that’s why his camp reportedly wasn’t thrilled that he was still coming off the bench at the end of the season.

Second-round picks and UDFAs who met starter criteria:

The players listed below signed as second-round picks or undrafted free agents, but met the starter criteria and are now eligible for a qualifying offer worth $4,869,012.

Of course, it’s very possible neither Dort nor Tate will even become a free agent this summer, since their contracts both include team options for 2022/23.

The Thunder could decide to turn down Dort’s minimum-salary option for next season in order to make him a restricted free agent this year instead of an unrestricted free agent next year, but there’s no guarantee they’ll go that route. If they do, his QO would be worth $4.87MM instead of $2.22MM.

Meanwhile, there’s no incentive for the Rockets to decline Tate’s option, since he’ll still be eligible for restricted free agency in 2023, so the amount of his potential qualifying offer this summer will be rendered moot.

Among other second-round picks and undrafted free agents, Hornets wing Cody Martin (1,866 minutes), Clippers swingman Amir Coffey (30 starts), and Trail Blazers forward CJ Elleby (28 starts) are a few who were in the ballpark of the starter criteria, but none got there. Martin, Coffey, Elleby, and the rest of this year’s restricted free agents won’t have their projected qualifying offers impacted by the starter criteria.

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Hoops Rumors’ 2021/22 NBA Award Picks

April 15th, 2022 at 7:00am CST by Hoops Rumors

No Hoops Rumors writers are among the 100 media members who voted on the NBA’s award winners in 2022, but we still have some thoughts on which players are most deserving of hardware for their performances this season.

Here are our choices for the six major awards:

Rory Maher

There are plenty of statistics that indicate Jokic was the NBA’s Most Valuable Player, but these are the most convincing, in my opinion: Denver was +19.5 points per 100 possessions better with Jokic on the court vs. off (compared to +11.3 for Joel Embiid and +10.8 for Giannis Antetokounmpo), per Cleaning the Glass. And despite missing their second- and third-best players, the Nuggets had a .622 winning percentage when Jokic played (a 51-win pace), compared to .250 when he didn’t (a 20.5-win pace).

Mobley and Scottie Barnes were neck-and-neck for Rookie of the Year for me, but I gave Mobley the edge due to his defensive impact.

The Jazz had a 104.5 defensive rating when Gobert was on the court — 1.7 points stingier than Boston’s league-leading mark — and he led the league in rebounding, was third in blocks, and opponents shot significantly worse than expected when he was defending them.

Bane was a solid rotation player as a rookie and a borderline All-Star as a sophomore, nearly doubling his scoring average (9.2 PPG to 18.2 PPG) while maintaining fantastic efficiency for a 56-win Grizzlies squad (the team was just 3-3 without him). There were many other worthy candidates, including Tyrese Maxey, Darius Garland, Jordan Poole, Dejounte Murray, Josh Hart and Jarrett Allen. I didn’t seriously consider Ja Morant because putting a player who was already really good as MIP just felt…wrong.

Herro and Williams look like well-earned shoo-ins for their respective awards, but Taylor Jenkins, J.B. Bickerstaff, Nick Nurse, Erik Spoelstra and Ime Udoka also deserve recognition for leading their teams through a challenging season.

Dana Gauruder

Embiid gets the nod over Jokic and several other worthy candidates because his stellar play saved the Sixers’ season despite the turbulence caused by Ben Simmons. Controversies and awkward situations typically tear teams apart. Embiid carried Philadelphia to a tie for the second-best record in the East – the Sixers were 45-23 when he played and just 6-8 without him.

Cunningham got off to a slow start after spraining his ankle in training camp. He lived up to his status as the top pick after the All-Star break, averaging 21.1 PPG, 6.5 APG and 5.7 RPG. He gets a slight nod over Mobley and Barnes.

The Suns rolled to the best record in the league behind a defense that held opponents to the third-worst field goal percentage. Bridges was usually assigned to the other team’s top offensive threat and quietly shut many of them down.

Herro is the easiest pick among the awards. He averaged 20.7 PPG and 4.0 APG in 32.6 MPG for the team with the best record in the East.

The Warriors had to wait for Klay Thompson to return, then lost Stephen Curry for the last few weeks of the season. Poole filled the scoring void during those absences, averaging 18.5 PPG and 4.0 APG in his third season.

The Grizzlies went from four games over .500 last season to 30 games above .500 this season. Even when Morant was injured late in the season, Memphis continued to win. Jenkins deserves plenty of the credit for the dramatic improvement.

Arthur Hill

  • Most Valuable Player: Nikola Jokic (Nuggets)
  • Rookie of the Year: Evan Mobley (Cavaliers)
  • Defensive Player of the Year: Marcus Smart (Celtics)
  • Sixth Man of the Year: Tyler Herro (Heat)
  • Most Improved Player: Ja Morant (Grizzlies)
  • Coach of the Year: Taylor Jenkins (Grizzlies)

Jokic’s brilliance kept the Nuggets competitive despite playing nearly an entire season without Jamal Murray and Michael Porter Jr. His offensive production has exceeded what he did when he won the award last season, and his defense has gotten better as well.

Mobley landed on a perfect team for his skill set and he helped the Cavs become a surprise contender. With a unique mixture of offensive talents and a dominating presence on defense, he excelled amid the pressures of a playoff race.

Smart became a full-time point guard this season and played an important role in Boston’s smothering defense. Smart has been openly campaigning for the award, touting his ability to guard all five positions, and there’s a good chance that voters will listen to his argument.

Herro provides Miami with the league’s most dangerous weapon off the bench, averaging 20.7 PPG and shooting 39.9% from three-point range. He has a chance to win several Sixth Man awards during his career if he remains in his current role.

Morant was already really good, but he has taken his game to an elite level during his third NBA season. He posted career highs in every major category and seemed to provide a few highlight-reel plays every night. His presence will make the Grizzlies a difficult playoff matchup for anyone.

No team has exceeded expectations more than Memphis, which climbed to the No. 2 seed in the West. Jenkins gets contributions from nearly his entire roster and has put together a young, exciting squad that is both successful and fun to watch.

Alex Kirschenbaum

  • Most Valuable Player: Giannis Antetokounmpo (Bucks)
  • Rookie of the Year: Scottie Barnes (Raptors)
  • Defensive Player of the Year: Mikal Bridges (Suns)
  • Sixth Man of the Year: Tyler Herro (Heat)
  • Most Improved Player: Desmond Bane (Grizzlies)
  • Coach of the Year: Monty Williams (Suns)

The MVP race has come down to a contest between three big men for the first time in eons, and you can’t go wrong with any of them. Among them, Giannis Antetokounmpo – the reigning Finals MVP and two-time regular season MVP – is the best player on the best team. While Nikola Jokic boasts some surreal offensive stats, I don’t love giving my vote to players on teams that occupy the bottom halves of their conference’s playoff picture. A team’s place in the standings should matter, though the injuries to Jokic’s two best teammates certainly limited Denver’s ceiling.

Scottie Barnes is a quintessential Masai Ujiri player — a big, switchy, athletic forward who already looks destined to become an impact defender. His game is incredibly fun to watch, and it’s always nice to see players with so much two-way ability get recognized with end-of-year hardware. Between Barnes and Evan Mobley, it has been a heck of a year for big two-way rookies.

Miles Bridges has been a critical and somewhat under-appreciated piece for a stellar 64-18 Suns team that appears to be the heavy title favorite, assuming Chris Paul holds up for four playoff rounds. It’s time for the wings to reclaim this award from the trees! Bridges’s stifling defense has been a crucial cog for one of the best two-way teams in the league. The premiere swingman defender of the 2021/22 season deserves this nod.

Someone on Miami should win something, but that’s not why Herro is the Sixth Man of the Year. He deserves this, as the de facto late game bucket-getter for the top club in an unusually competitive Eastern Conference. His defensive liabilities are the reason he’s a sixth man rather than a starter, but this award isn’t for Starter of the Year, so that’s not really a problem. The 22-year-old third-year guard out of Kentucky, in line for a lucrative contract extension this summer, averaged career-bests of 20.7 PPG (on .447/.399/.868 shooting), 5.0 RPG, 4.0 APG and 0.7 SPG in 66 games for the 53-29 Heat.

I’ve loved to see Desmond Bane’s transformation while with the Grizzlies. It’s always exciting to watch a young non-lottery player (he was the No. 30 pick in 2020 out of TCU) without a traditionally definable role evolve into a crucial part of a playoff contender, and Bane is this year’s model. In his second season, the resilient wing has established himself as the full-time starter for the second seed in the Western Conference. His counting stats have seen a massive uptick from his rookie numbers of 9.2 PPG, 3.1 RPG, 1.7 APG in 22.3 MPG during 2020/21. This season, in 76 games (all starts) for a 56-26 Memphis club, Bane averaged 18.2 PPG, 4.4 RPG, 2.7 APG and 1.2 SPG. He also posted elite shooting splits of .461/.436/.903.

Yes, Taylor Jenkins is nipping at Monty Williams’ heels for Coach of the Year honors this season. But awarding the hardware to Williams for what he’s done with the Suns in 2021/22 is not a “make-up” award (the NBA equivalent of Al Pacino winning his first-ever Oscar, about two decades too late, for Scent of a Woman). Williams was the head coach for the team that has by far been the best in the NBA this year, not an easy feat to achieve following a disappointing 2021 Finals loss. Over the course of his tenure in Phoenix, Williams has taken a lottery-bound 2019/20 club to the class of the league in just three seasons. Yes, personnel moves had an impact on that, too, but Williams has been able to guide the Suns’ many young guns to maximize their potential, alongside the team’s savvy vets.

Luke Adams

  • Most Valuable Player: Nikola Jokic (Nuggets)
  • Rookie of the Year: Scottie Barnes (Raptors)
  • Defensive Player of the Year: Rudy Gobert (Jazz)
  • Sixth Man of the Year: Tyler Herro (Heat)
  • Most Improved Player: Tyrese Maxey (Sixers)
  • Coach of the Year: Monty Williams (Suns)

It’s a brutal year to pick an MVP and a Rookie of the Year — the top three contenders for each award would be runaway favorites in most other seasons and any of them would be worthy winners.

I ultimately gravitated toward Jokic and Barnes, in part because they played significantly more than the other top MVP and ROY candidates. When two or three players are producing at such a similar rate, the one who performed at that level for an extra few hundred minutes is inherently providing his team more value over the course of the season. Jokic’s staggering on/off-court numbers and Barnes’ impressive defensive versatility (he guarded every position and often took on the most challenging perimeter assignments) were also among the deciding factors.

Voter fatigue and Utah’s up-and-down season will likely result in a new Defensive Player of the Year this year, but I couldn’t find a compelling reason not to pick Gobert, who remained elite in 2021/22 and whose presence in the paint does more to alter an offensive game plan than a single perimeter stopper can. Despite a relative lack of strong defenders around Gobert, the Jazz played like the NBA’s best defense when he was on the court and were the equivalent of the league’s 21st-best defense when he sat. Bam Adebayo and Draymond Green rivaled Gobert’s impact, but missed a little too much of the season — 26 and 36 games, respectively.

Most Improved Player is nearly as difficult to pick this season as MVP and ROY, with a larger pool of legitimate candidates. I don’t subscribe to the notion that second-year players don’t deserve this award (sure, they’re “supposed to” improve, but the award isn’t Most Unexpectedly Improved Player), so I’ll give the nod to Maxey, who played the most minutes of any Sixer this season and whose huge jumps in both production and efficiency helped the team withstand Simmons’ absence without missing a beat.

Herro averaged over 20 points per game and shot nearly 40% from beyond the arc for the East’s No. 1 seed, while Williams led the West’s No. 1 seed to a 64-win season (and an incredible +33.4 net rating in “clutch” situations) despite missing Paul for a few weeks in the second half. Herro and Williams are betting favorites for their respective awards for good reason.

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