Deadspin's NBA awards predictions

Perhaps it’s the COVID fatigue, partisan politics, or the malaise of a slumping economy, but this off-season has felt like forever. With elections ramping up in November, we need the NBA back to distract us from our country headed toward political chaos. Both sides of the aisle have become insufferable, and the league always provides a mental break for us lemmings to turn off our brains and inject basketball back into our veins.

Part of that fun is throwing darts at the projection board and seeing what sticks. Which players, coaches, and execs will have the most impact? Who will have a bounce-back year? Who will regress? Which rookie will step forward to become a household name? Which will get lost in the sauce?

We have scouted the league at-large to predict the names who will stand tall at season’s end by having the most impact on their team’s success. Some of these names are long overdue. Others are first-time honorees. Let’s see who comes out on top after the dust settles.

This will be the most exciting race to watch. The Slovenian superstar Luka Dončić plays with less talent than any other superstar in the league, and he still brings 100% to every game, no matter how minor or major. In last year’s second round of the playoffs, he played father to the Phoenix Suns, showing a killer mentality not seen since Kobe Bryant. The Euro League championship showed Dončić in the best shape of his career. He’ll need it as the Mavs GM Nico Harrison committed the biggest blunder of the offseason by letting the team’s second-best player, ball-handler, and homegrown talent, Jalen Brunson, walk for nothing. The burden will be astronomical for Dončić this season and should see him break precedence for usage ratings. But in case you forgot, he doesn’t give a fuck about anything but winning. This league is his, as is MVP.

This was Chet Holmgren’s to lose before he suffered a foot injury that will keep him out for the entire season. His absence leaves a mixed bag of high-ceiling players on bad teams. Of the bunch, the Kings have the best chance to rise out of their putrid standing and make the Play-In. If they do, it will be because rookie forward Keegan Murray bullies past other rookies and his teammates, as well as cements himself in the Kings’ starting lineup.

The Summer League MVP previewed what he is capable of this season, posting a staggering 23.3 ppg / 7.3 rpg / 1.3 spg on 50 percent from the field and 40 percent shooting from three. Murray’s biggest competition will come from Orlando’s first overall pick, Paolo Banchero. Still, if the Kings earn more regular-season wins, Murray can claim a greater impact on his team’s record.

It’s time to give Los Angeles Clippers head coach Ty Lue his fucking flowers. He is one of eight current head coaches to have won a ring and might be the best in-game adjustment maker from the sidelines. Lue is not as loud and brash as some of his fellow coaches, but his calm demeanor and high IQ have garnered the respect of some of the best players in the game. He got the best out of Kyrie Irving with the Cavaliers, helping bring the franchise’s first championship to Cleveland. Lue has a winning percentage of .595 as a coach while making the Finals three times, winning it all in 2016. But Lue has yet to win COTY. That should change this year, as he has kept the Clippers competitive during injuries to their two stars, Kawhi Leonard and Paul George, while bringing out the best in the team’s role players.

When the Denver Nuggets shipped out Monte Morris and Will Barton to the Washington Wizards, it signaled the team’s commitment to second-year pro Bones Hyland, as their backup point guard. Hyland posted an impressive 10 ppg and 2.8 apg on a .558 true shooting percentage (second only to Nikola Jokic) while stuck within a crowded guard rotation. Bones will be the first guard off the bench, with starter Jamal Murray returning to the fray this season. As the team slowly reintegrates Murray on back-to-backs and load management, it will give Bones plenty of chances to show what he can do in an increased role. His 19 mpg should bump up to the mid-20s, allowing him to show off more of his three-point prowess, which led him to set the record last season for the most made three-point shots by a rookie in franchise history.

Mavs fans are a sensitive bunch. When Brunson was officially leaving their moribund franchise for the New York Knicks, they grasped at straws to lament him as a “daddy’s boy.” As if his father being on the coaching staff had more to do with the primary ball-handler role he will have under the familiar face of Tom Thibodeau. Dallas is a one-man team with too few ways to improve around Dončić. In New York, Brunson joins a talented young core as their primary ball-handler, a role he would never have next to the supernova that is Dončić. Brunson solved a two-decades-long problem at the point for the Knicks. Brunson’s points per game and assists per game uptick should earn him the team’s second MIP award in the last three seasons with a higher usage rate and a predictable impact on his teammates. Not bad for the once-depressive Knicks.

The Miami Heat have shoved themselves in a cap corner, creating one of the most bloated, overrated rosters in the NBA. The one player who might have more of a ceiling is Bam Adebayo. The bruising center is due for recognition this year as the best defensive big in the game. If Miami is to retain its place in a renovated and crowded Eastern Conference, it will be because Adebayo makes a jump defensively. This will be hard to do as he has already been named to the All-Defensive Second Team three times. But with the Heat doubling down on defensive liabilities, Kyle Lowry, Duncan Robinson, and Tyler Herro, they’ll need Bam’s switchable Swiss Army knife capabilities more than ever.

This is the year it finally fucking happens. No franchise has been stuck in purgatory longer than the Los Angeles Clippers. Even the Knicks have two championships to their name and were in the Finals back in 1999. The Clippers can’t claim a championship or even a Finals berth. They can claim to be formed, and run, by the worst owner in NBA history. Now that his bum ass has been banned from the league, their fate is controlled by possibly the best owner in the NBA, mega-billionaire Steve Ballmer. Since taking over the Clips in 2014, he has turned the once-hapless franchise into a legitimate threat. This season, they are equipped with the deepest team in the NBA. Once in the playoffs, they could seemingly manage to lose any player, other than Kawhi Leonard, and still win it all. They are two deep at every position and boast switchable perimeter players who can guard and score. Life is good for the ninth-richest person in the world. This June, it should be even better.