Hoops Rumors Polls

The competition for the league’s 15 All-NBA spots was fiercer than ever in 2020/21, with tens of millions of dollars up for grabs for certain players based on the voting results. Since the NBA has already started to announce its end-of-season award winners, we want to give you an opportunity to vote on the All-NBA rosters for 2020/21 before they’re officially revealed.

We started last Wednesday with the First Team before moving onto the Second Team on Friday. We’ve closed those polls and now we’re wrapping things up by focusing on the Third Team.

Here are the voting results so far:

2021 All-NBA First Team

• Guard: Stephen Curry (Warriors)
• Guard: Luka Doncic (Mavericks)
• Forward: Giannis Antetokounmpo (Bucks)
• Forward: Joel Embiid (Sixers)
• Center: Nikola Jokic (Nuggets)

2021 All-NBA Second Team

• Guard: Damian Lillard (Trail Blazers)
• Guard: Bradley Beal (Wizards)
• Forward: Julius Randle (Knicks)
• Forward: LeBron James (Lakers)
• Center: Rudy Gobert (Jazz)

Lillard is a lock for the Second Team if he doesn’t make the First Team, and Beal is absolutely a worthy second guard. The forward spot is a little trickier, though I think Randle deserves this spot. A healthy James would’ve been a strong contender for a First Team spot, but since he played just 45 of 72 regular season games, it won’t surprise me if he ends up on the Third Team in the actual vote.

As for the center spot, it’ll be interesting to see how voters handle the NBA’s generous dual positional eligibility for Embiid and Jokic. If they both make the First Team (one as a center, one as a forward), Gobert has a clear path to a Second Team spot. If not, Gobert will be bumped to the Third Team.

On that note, before we move on to the Third Team polls, don’t forget that several players qualify at multiple positions on the NBA’s official ballot. We won’t share that full list of notable multi-position players again here, but you can check it out in our Second Team post.

Be sure to take advantage of the opportunity to select two players apiece in both the guard and forward polls. We’ll leave the polls open for a couple days before sharing and breaking down the results later this week.

Vote for your All-NBA Third Team below, then take to the comment section to explain your picks!

Guards

(choose two)

Trade Rumors app users, click here to vote on the All-NBA Third Team guards.

Forwards

(choose two)

Trade Rumors app users, click here to vote on the All-NBA Third Team forwards.

Center

Trade Rumors app users, click here to vote on the All-NBA Third Team center.

The competition for the league’s 15 All-NBA spots was fiercer than ever in 2020/21, with tens of millions of dollars up for grabs for certain players based on the voting results. Since the NBA has already started to announce its end-of-season award winners, we want to give you an opportunity to vote on the All-NBA rosters for 2020/21 before they’re officially revealed.

We started on Wednesday with the First Team before moving onto the Second Team today. We’ll vote on the Third Team early next week.

Here are the voting results so far:

2021 All-NBA First Team

• Guard: Stephen Curry (Warriors)
• Guard: Luka Doncic (Mavericks)
• Forward: Giannis Antetokounmpo (Bucks)
• Forward: Joel Embiid (Sixers)
• Center: Nikola Jokic (Nuggets)

I certainly have no qualms with these picks, and wouldn’t be surprised if these players end up in the top five of MVP voting for 2020/21.

Is it a little ridiculous to view Embiid as a forward? Absolutely! But, as we outlined in our First Team poll, the NBA was pretty lax with several positional designations on this year’s official ballot, perhaps to ensure that an outcome like this is possible — Jokic and Embiid were two of the five most impactful players in the NBA this season, but one would end up on the Second Team if both are only eligible at center.

Should the NBA just do away with positional designations altogether and let voters pick the 15 best players? Probably! But for now, we’re sticking to the league’s positional designations, with some help from Howard Beck of SI.com (Twitter links). As a reminder, here are the most notable multi-position eligible players who didn’t make the First Team:

Players eligible at both center and forward:

• Bam Adebayo
• Anthony Davis
• Draymond Green
• Domantas Sabonis
• Karl-Anthony Towns

Players eligible at both forward and guard:

• Devin Booker
• Jaylen Brown
• Jimmy Butler
• Paul George
• LeBron James
• Zach LaVine
• Kawhi Leonard
• Khris Middleton
• Ben Simmons
• Jayson Tatum

A couple more notes before we move onto the Second Team polls:

1. If there’s a player you believe deserves All-NBA consideration who isn’t named below, be sure to mention him in the comment section — if I agree, I’ll make sure he’s included in our Third Team poll.
2. Be sure to take advantage of the opportunity to select two players apiece in both the guard and forward polls.

Vote for your All-NBA Second Team below, then take to the comment section to explain your picks!

Guards

(choose two)

Trade Rumors app users, click here to vote on the All-NBA Second Team guards.

Forwards

(choose two)

Trade Rumors app users, click here to vote on the All-NBA Second Team forwards.

Center

Trade Rumors app users, click here to vote on the All-NBA Second Team center.

The competition for the league’s 15 All-NBA spots was fiercer than ever in 2020/21, with tens of millions of dollars up for grabs for certain players based on the voting results. Since the NBA has already started to announce its end-of-season award winners, we want to give you an opportunity to vote on the All-NBA rosters for 2020/21 before they’re officially revealed.

We’re starting today with the First Team before moving onto the Second Team on Friday and the Third Team early next week.

Because we want to essentially put you in the position of the media members who had All-NBA votes, we’re going to make certain players eligible at multiple positions, as they were on the official ballots. Here, via Howard Beck of SI.com (Twitter links), are the most notable multi-position eligible players:

Players eligible at both center and forward:

• Bam Adebayo
• Anthony Davis
• Joel Embiid
• Nikola Jokic
• Karl-Anthony Towns

Players eligible at both forward and guard:

• Devin Booker
• Jaylen Brown
• Jimmy Butler
• Luka Doncic
• Paul George
• LeBron James
• Zach LaVine
• Kawhi Leonard
• Khris Middleton
• Ben Simmons
• Jayson Tatum

Frankly, I find some of these classifications a little ridiculous — if the NBA is going to play this fast and loose with positional designations, why not just remove them altogether and let voters pick the 15 best players?

I don’t think it makes any sense to vote, say, Booker as a forward or Leonard as a guard. And Basketball-Reference’s data suggests Embiid has never played a single minute at forward in his entire NBA career.

Of course, making Embiid and Jokic eligible at two positions allows voters to put those two MVP finalists on the First Team. Beware if you decide to go that route though — placing Jokic and Embiid on the First Team may result in a fourth center making the Third Team over a more deserving guard or forward.

A couple more notes before we move onto the polls:

1. If there’s a player you believe deserves All-NBA consideration who isn’t named below, be sure to mention him in the comment section — if I agree, I’ll make sure he’s included in our Second and Third Team polls.
2. Be sure to take advantage of the opportunity to select two players apiece in both the guard and forward polls.

Vote for your All-NBA First Team below, then take to the comment section to explain your picks!

Guards

(choose two)

Trade Rumors app users, click here to vote on the All-NBA First Team guards.

Forwards

(choose two)

Trade Rumors app users, click here to vote on the All-NBA First Team forwards.

Center

Trade Rumors app users, click here to vote on the All-NBA First Team center.

In his latest piece for The Athletic, Joe Vardon makes the case that the NBA’s Coach of the Year race for the 2020/21 season should focus on New York City. In Vardon’s view, the choice for the winner ought to come down to Knicks head coach Tom Thibodeau and Nets coach Steve Nash.

As Vardon writes, Thibodeau has exceeded expectations in his first year at the helm with the Knicks, taking a roster that doesn’t look drastically different from last year’s 21-45 squad and turning it into a legit playoff team (35-28 so far). Prior to the season, oddsmakers put the Knicks’ over/under at 22.5 wins — and Hoops Rumors voters took the under.

Thibodeau has Julius Randle playing the best basketball of his career and has succeeded this season despite missing Mitchell Robinson for a significant chunk of the year and not getting much from several of the Knicks’ recent lottery picks, including Obi Toppin, Frank Ntilikina, and Kevin Knox.

Nash, meanwhile, has way more talent on his roster than Thibodeau does, but superstars Kevin Durant, James Harden, and Kyrie Irving have rarely all been healthy at the same time, appearing in just seven games together. Nash has often had to cobble together a rotation that’s missing several players – including one or two of those stars and veteran guard Spencer Dinwiddie – but Brooklyn still holds the top seed in the Eastern Conference at 43-20.

Although Thibodeau and Nash are legit candidates for Coach of the Year recognition, neither one cracked the top two of Zach Harper’s most recent ballot at The Athletic. Harper’s current pick for the award is Suns head coach Monty Williams.

Williams’ Suns were 26-39 entering bubble play last summer, but went 8-0 at Walt Disney World and parlayed that late-season success into an impressive 2020/21 showing — the club currently has the NBA’s second-best record at 44-18. While Devin Booker and Chris Paul have had great seasons, Phoenix lacks a traditional, Finals-tested superstar like LeBron James or Kawhi Leonard, making the team’s performance in a tough Western Conference all the more impressive.

Second on Harper’s ballot is Quin Snyder, the one head coach whose team has a better record than Williams’ Suns. The Jazz hold the No. 1 seed in the West with a 45-17 mark and have already exceeded their 2019/20 win total in 10 fewer games.

No team has had a stronger season from start to finish than Utah, which hasn’t relinquished that top seed in the conference for a single day since February 2, despite the fact that many of this year’s MVP ballots likely won’t include a single Jazz player.

Sixers head coach Doc Rivers also deserves consideration for Coach of the Year honors. He may not be a frontrunner for the award, but Rivers will certainly receive some votes for leading Philadelphia to a 41-21 record and the No. 2 seed in the East so far, even with team MVP Joel Embiid unavailable for about a third of the club’s games.

Hawks coach Nate McMillan has earned a honorable mention as well, having led Atlanta to a 20-9 record since Lloyd Pierce‘s dismissal. He’ll only end up coaching 38 games though — as is the case with MVP and other awards, I wouldn’t expect voters to give serious consideration to a candidate who was only “active” for about half the season.

What do you think? With just over two weeks left in the 2020/21 regular season, who do you think should be the frontrunner for the Coach of the Year award?

Trade Rumors app users, click here to vote.