My Officially Unofficial NBA Awards Votes: All-NBA, All-Defense, All-Rookie

There are now just two days of games remaining in the regular season. We are, essentially, at the end, which means it's finally time to get to awards picks. We ran through the individual awards on Wednesday, and we'll finish up today with the team awards: All-NBA, All-Defense, and All-Rookie.

As usual, my votes are officially unofficial. In other words: I don't have an actual ballot. But given the time and resources I put into the covering the league and the fact that you have been following along with me throughout the season, I’m going to lay out how I would have voted, if I’d been afforded a vote.

Lastly, before we begin, it is — as always — important to remember that if I didn’t vote for your favorite player (or elected to place him lower on the ballot than you would have), it’s not because I hate and/or didn’t watch your favorite team. It’s because I hate you, personally.

(Note: Players in each section are listed alphabetically by last name.)

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All-NBA

• First Team
  • Giannis Antetokounmpo
  • Stephen Curry
  • Shai Gilgeous-Alexander
  • Nikola Jokic
  • Jayson Tatum

This is the same list of five players on my MVP ballot. (The actual order of finish: SGA, Jokic, Giannis, Tatum, Steph.) No surprises here. I understand why some people might have someone finish higher on their MVP ballot than they do on All-NBA, and there are times where I might be open to doing the same — but it wasn't the case this year.

• Second Team
  • Jalen Brunson
  • Tyrese Haliburton
  • LeBron James
  • Donovan Mitchell
  • Evan Mobley

Brunson and Mitchell, as mentioned Wednesday, were the final two guys in the running for the fifth spot on my MVP ballot. Had Brunson not missed a month and therefore held a minutes advantage over Steph, I think he probably would have nabbed it. Mitchell's second-half shooting slump (42% from the field and 30% from three) kept him from making that First Team, and honestly could have kept him off the Second had both the season and the slump lasted a couple more weeks. I think he was good enough early on, though, to stave off that larger drop down to Third Team.

Haliburton had basically the inverse of the season he had a year ago. He played like a fringe All-Star contender prior to the break and like a First Team All-NBA guy after it, averaging 20.5 points, 3.3 rebounds, 11.1 assists, and 1.9 steals per game with a 54-44-87 shooting line. Again, he did the opposite last season. The late-season push was enough to merit him a spot here. LeBron... is LeBron James. At 40 years old, he is doing the same things he did when he was like 27. He makes no sense on any level. He even finally turned himself into an elite outside shooter. His total control of the floor at almost all times remains matched only by a scant few, and those guys are the inner-circle MVP candidates. He is a marvel and we should never stop appreciating that we get to watch him. Mobley is my Defensive Player of the Year and was an honorable mention for both MVP and Most Improved Player. The help defense, the ability to guard both bigs and big wings, the improved shooting (and willingness to let it fly), the increased aggressiveness going to the basket (especially against smaller defenders who had the unfortunate task of guarding him), it was all there in spades. He became this year the player we all thought he could be after his promising rookie season, and he earned every last dollar of that max contract extension.

• Third Team
  • Cade Cunningham
  • Anthony Edwards
  • Jaren Jackson Jr.
  • Karl-Anthony Towns
  • Jalen Williams

Cunningham is another one who finally became the player so many thought he could be when he was drafted. He leveraged his size as well this season as I always hoped he would, both as a passer and as a driver. He turned up the defense, too, under new head coach J.B. Bickerstaff, and was part of this Pistons team wildly exceeding all reasonable expectations on that end. Edwards turning himself into one of the highest-volume three-point shooters in the league made a lot of people angry at the start of the season; but when you connect on them as often as he has, there's not really much to complain about. This guy leads the league in threes and became just the fourth player to hit 300 or more in a season! Outrageous stuff. (Malik Beasley has since become the fifth to do it.) I'd still like to see him trade some of the stop-and-pop mid-rangers for attempts at the rim so he can really strike the perfect balance, but the dude is just a ridiculous player and had a great season. JJJ finished just outside my top three for Defensive Player of the Year. He also had maybe the best offensive season of his career, knocking down 37% of his threes and developing a nearly unstoppable post-up/face-up game thanks to his floater and his increased willingness to drop his shoulder into somebody's chest.

I wrote about Towns in the best newcomers post from last week:

He has been truly spectacular offensively, when you look at the season-long numbers. He has, for the most part, done everything you'd want him to do when it comes to being an elite No. 2 scorer. He's averaging 24.3 points per game (up 2.5 from a year ago) while carrying 52-43-83 shooting splits, good for a .627 true-shooting percentage heading into Tuesday night's game against the sad-sack Sixers.

The Knicks light things up when he's on the floor (121.8 offensive rating) and fall off dramatically when he's not (113.7). They also score at almost exactly the same rate whether Towns plays with (122.1) or without Jalen Brunson (121.2), which is just wildly impressive.

And yet... there are still those games where he can disappear for long stretches. They're rare, but they happen. Teams — especially the best teams — have had a lot of success guarding him with wings and taking away his advantages on the perimeter, and when they have, he hasn't done a good enough job of utilizing his size to punish those matchups. The Brunson-Towns pick and roll has been very good, but not as good as it had the potential to be.

And on defense, Towns has not been up to snuff. There have been a few games here and there where he's popped up with truly excellent performances; but on the whole, it's left a lot to be desired. Unsurprisingly, the rim protection numbers are awful. Among 31 players challenging at least 5 shots per game at the rim, per NBA Advanced Stats, Towns ranks 29th in conversion rate allowed. His defense on the back end of pick and rolls has been so bad that he's at times made Mikal Bridges look like a subpar defender and OG Anunoby look like an average one (because a lot of people tend not to understand how pick-and-roll defense actually works).

In other words, Towns has been exactly what the you and I and the Knicks likely expected him to be. An excellent offensive player who totally changes the dynamics of the floor more often than not, but one who gives back quite a lot of that on the less glamorous end of the floor. 

J-Dub finished third for me in Defensive Player of the Year voting:

The guy is so strong, so long, so versatile. He filled in for several weeks as a center (while Chet Holmgren and Isaiah Hartenstein were both injured) despite standing just 6-foot-6 and the Thunder defense did not drop off at all. He obviously benefits from the presences of Holmgren, Hartenstein, SGA, Lu Dort, Alex Caruso, and even Cason Wallace, but the way he smothers wings and bigs alike and works as a team defender is just special.

Obviously, the defense alone isn't enough to merit inclusion on All-NBA. Luckily, that's not all he did. He was the No. 2 scorer with Chet Holmgren out for most of the season, and he handled that role with relative ease. He didn't shoot as well from outside this year as he did a year ago, but he dramatically increased his usage rate, rebounded and passed it better than he did a year ago, and got to the line more often. He's a central-casting No. 2 option on offense who is also an elite defender. That's definitely an All-NBA guy.

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All-Defense

• First Team
  • Dyson Daniels
  • Lu Dort
  • Jaren Jackson Jr.
  • Evan Mobley
  • Jalen Williams

Mobley, Daniels, and Williams were the top three on my DPOY ballot. No surprises there. Dort is an outrageous individual defender. You can't get by him, and you can't get through him. He's tasked with the most difficult matchups night after night, and he passes the test with flying colors. You can easily justify having him on your actual ballot. Jackson remains an extraordinary rim protector, but he's not just that. His ability to handle himself in space and on switches resembles that of Mobley. Were he not so constantly in foul trouble and thus able to play more often, he'd be easier to support further up the ballot.

• Second Team
  • OG Anunoby
  • Rudy Gobert
  • Draymond Green
  • Amen Thompson
  • Ivica Zubac

Had Anunoby defended for the entire year the way he did for the final six weeks of the season, he might have been my Defensive Player of the Year. You can put him on anybody and he is a terrifying menace as a helper, in passing lanes, and when swiping down against drives and post-ups. He has as high a ceiling on that end as anyone in the league not named Victor Wembanyama. Yes, really. We know the story with Gobert. He's one of the best rim protectors in history. I think this was about an average Gobert season defensively (average for him, not average overall), which means he was still really damn good defensively, but not in the inner circle of DPOY contenders for a change. The Draymond public relations tour will probably earn him a bunch of first place votes, but I didn't buy in quite that much. He's fantastic, but the Warriors really taking off on defense coincided with Jimmy Butler's arrival, and I find it hard to attribute the jump solely to Draymond, as he's begging people to do. He more than merits inclusion here based on the whole body of work, though.

Amen and his brother Ausar are All-Dubin members, in large part because they are absolutely terrifying defenders.

The Thompson twins might be my favorite players in the league right now. They are absolutely ferocious. The way these two guys move around the court almost seems unfair. They’re like hulking monsters that have the speed of cheetahs and the reaction time of … I don’t know, something that has a reaction time of zero point zero seconds.

Try dribbling against Ausar. I dare you. You will not have a good time. His defensive highlight reel for the season could be a 10 minutes long without including any steals or blocks. Try a layup without making 10000% sure to protect the ball while Amen is nearby. You will get your shit stuffed so quickly. He is a playmaker of the highest order. And this is just on defense!

Go watch what Amen did against Steph Curry and the Warriors a few days ago. Good LORD, folks. With his size and athleticism — he might be the best athlete in the entire league right now — he is going to be a mainstay on these teams for the next decade. Zubac will probably make some DPOY ballots. This was his best season on that end of the floor, both as a rim protector and in space. He anchored what has been the league's third-best defense, and he did it while having to help cover (along with Kris Dunn, Derrick Jones, and a few others) for a couple of questionable perimeter defenders for much of the season.

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All-Rookie

• First Team
  • Stephon Castle
  • Zach Edey
  • Zaccharie Risacher
  • Kel'el Ware
  • Jaylen Wells

Wells, Castle, and Risacher were my top three in Rookie of the Year voting, so there's no surprise there. Edey was the starting center for most of the season on a playoff/play-in team, and he was extremely productive on a per-minute basis, averaging around 16 points, 14 rebounds, and 2 blocks per 36. He has some weaknesses defensively — put him in a pick and roll against a speedy ball-handler and watch him get twisted into the ground — but overall he was probably a neutral-to-positive player, so he gets a spot here. Ware took a while to enter the rotation and then starting lineup, but from the point he did through the end of the season, he was easily one of the best rookies in the class. His agility is really impressive, and the versatile offensive skill set allowed him to make a potentially awkward fit next to Bam Adebayo work well enough to be counted on. Miami was plus-3.8 points per 100 possessions with both players on the court and minus-0.6 per 100 in all other alignments.

• Second Team
  • Matas Buzelis
  • Donovan Clingan
  • Kyshawn George
  • Ron Holland II
  • Alex Sarr

Buzelis is going to be really good. His combination of size and the on-ball creation ability that he flashed this season will ensure that. If he can consistently shoot it from the outside (and he did make over 35% of his threes this season), that's all the better. Clingan played some really nice defense this season and is an absolute monster rebounder. Like the similarly-massive Edey, he has some weaknesses that can be exploited defensively, but I think he was a positive on that end — and that's rare for a rookie. Speaking of positive defenders, George's playmaking on that end of the floor turned him into one over the course of the season. (It's what earned him a spot on an All-Dubin Team.) His versatility on the other end and improved shooting over the latter half of the season allow me to sneak him onto this roster despite horrific season-long efficiency in Year 1. Holland is already one of my favorite dudes in the league. He is as tough as it gets. He was also a positive contributor to a top-10 defense as a rookie. That's rare as hell. He's also a good rebounder, got himself to the line at a solid clip, and finished well inside. He can't shoot, but I don't care that much just yet. Sarr, like Holland and his teammate George, struggled shooting for most of the season. But he was productive enough and flashed often enough to merit inclusion here. He's the third rookie in history with 100+ blocks, 100+ assists, and 100+ threes.