Draymond Green Names His Picks for MVP and Other Awards
Draymond Green has been outspoken this season about his views on his contemporaries in the NBA and a whole lot more by way of his podcast, The Draymond Green Show via Volume Sports. These candid lines from Green have always been something he’s consistently dropped from time to time, but having spent so much of this season sidelined, he had more time to focus on the podcast and getting his thoughts together.
In his most recent episode, Dray gave his picks for the major NBA awards: Defensive Player of the Year, Coach of the Year, Most Improved Player, and more. His pick for Most Valuable Player is an interesting one, as it’s the same sentiment a lot of players are outspoken about. While the media paints it as a race between Giannis Antetokounmpo, Joel Embiid, and Nikola Jokic, Green and other players are of the opinion that the MVP should go to the best player on the best team. Who might that be?
Devin Booker, leader of the league-leading Phoneix Suns, of course.
Green makes a good point about the criteria for the MVP award while naming Booker. Year to year, there’s a lack of clarity surrounding what makes somebody the league’s most valuable, whether it’s the best player on the best team one year like Steph Curry in 2016, or if it’s a player who hasn’t won so much but has accomplished something historic like Russell Westbrook in 2017. For Draymond, his qualifications for Book were simple: He’s been consistently great all season, he’s faced adversity and picked up right back where he left off prior to injuries, and the Suns are the league’s only 60-win team, largely a product of Booker’s leadership despite them being a good team top-to-bottom.
Here’s a list of the other award-winners Green picked out:
This is an interesting list. As is the case most years, there isn’t really a right answer here. You could argue that Giannis should be the MVP because of his individual success while the Bucks look to make another run back to the Finals, or that Cade Cunningham should be the Rookie of the Year because he’s had better counting stats and value than Mobley. The award race is relatively subjective, but there are two interesting things to point out with this one in particular.
The first is that Green has his teammate Jordan Poole as Most Improved. There was a lot of sentiment early in the season that Poole could make the leap, but his success towards the end of last season probably hindered his chances a bit going into this year. His stat improvements don’t jump off the box score, but it should be noted he has improved quite literally everything by a non-insignificant margin: Points, rebounds, assists, shooting percentages, impact stats, defensive metrics, the improvements are all there if you look at them. He may not be an MVP candidate in his 3rd year like Ja Morant, but him stepping up has been arguably much more impressive when you look at especially his last month of play.
The second thing to note is that Green has Suns forward Mikal Bridges as his Defensive Player of the Year. Draymond has always been outspoken about how he feels he’s the best defender in the NBA today (and possibly ever), so for him to give Bridges the nod over himself is an interesting take. Granted, some of it probably has to do with how much time Green has missed this season due to injury, and Bridges is no doubt one of the best defenders in the NBA as there are few who can hold greats like Steph to a subpar shooting night (subpar by Steph standards, of course). Dray’s respect for the young guys in the NBA is certainly something to be noted.
This has been a good NBA season overall for the most part, as the standings are tight in both conferences while teams jockey for playoff seeding position. Some Covid hinderances and injury issues have made the standings end up a little wonky, as well as teams getting hot at the right time and cold at the wrong time, but it will all be settled in the playoffs. To have so many candidates for these various awards without seeing anyone call a take “ridiculously outlandish” is a testament to that.
(Photo credit: Jeff Chiu / Associated Press)