2024-25 Awards, Part II: Most Valuable Player, Defensive Player of the Year, Rookie of the Year and Clutch Player of the Year

MVP, DPOY, ROY, and CPOY, for short

It’s been a good NBA regular season, and it’s not over yet! As of when I’m writing this, Western Conference seeds 4-8 all have the exact same number of losses. In one day, a team could go from home-court advantage to being the road team in a play-in game. That’s ridiculous!

Thankfully, this will be my final awards piece before we get back to actual basketball. I’m ready to write about something else. Part I of my awards can be found here.

Clutch Player of the Year

Jalen Brunson, New York Knicks

Truthfully, I’m not sure what the point of this award is. Given that there are still a few games left in the season, it’s possible that someone could steal this extremely small-sample-size award; clutch shots this late in the year might matter more. Imagine someone hits a shot getting their team out of the play-in race in the West on the last day of the season? That’s about as clutch a regular-season shot as you can get.

Right now, the stats overwhelmingly say it’s Jalen Brunson. He’s averaging the most points in clutch minutes and shooting over 50% from the field, and nobody else has anything like that combination of volume and accuracy.

Let’s not waste any more time here.

Rookie of the Year

1. Zaccharie Risacher, Atlanta Hawks

2. Stephon Castle, San Antonio Spurs

3. Jaylen Wells, Memphis Grizzlies

This was the second-hardest award to choose this season. I don’t feel great about where I landed.

But no other rookie quite checks the boxes like Zaccharie Risacher. Wells is a better defender, and Castle is putting up bigger numbers, but Risacher has few holes in his game and has become a very important player for an Atlanta Hawks team that’s been trying to win all season long.

Since January 6th, Risacher has averaged 14.0 points per game compared to Castle’s 17.3 points, but he’s been legitimately efficient: 49% from the field and 40% from deep, adding up to 60% true shooting (above league average). Castle, meanwhile, was well below average at 53% true shooting.

Risacher isn’t quite the individual guardsman Castle is, but he’s a more advanced team defender. He flies around in transition on both ends, a perpetual motion machine:

Risacher is a much better passer than his low assist totals would lead you to believe, but the Hawks primarily use him as a play finisher. He’s already a master at off-ball movement, sprinting around the court creating space for himself and others:

He turned 20 today (happy birthday, Zacch!); more on-ball opportunities could arise in the next few seasons. It’s also worth pointing out that he’s the only rookie with three 30+ point games; while his path to true stardom is murkier than some other rookies due to a less-developed on-ball game, it’s not crazy to think he could be a 20-point scorer at some point in his career.

Stephon Castle is by far the most exciting new player, and he’ll likely win the award in real life — voters rarely look past top-line box scores for the frosh. I’m okay with it. Castle’s a good individual defender still learning how to play team defense in the NBA, and he’s been given free rein to soak up usage and put up numbers — which he does in style. He’s got Koenigsegg torque in his muscular frame:

Castle has the tallest ceiling but arguably the most to prove of the high-level rookies. Much will come down to his three-point shot. Defenses already ignore him on the perimeter, and for all his thrilling dunks and nifty roll-man plays, guards that aren’t three-point threats are a liability in today’s NBA unless they have overwhelming advantages in other areas, which Castle currently does not. He looked more willing to shoot from deep than I expected; hopefully, he can use the offseason to adjust the rangefinder.

Jaylen Wells doesn’t have raw counting stats that pop off the page, but he does sport the best EPM of any rookie. He’s undoubtedly had the toughest defensive assignments night in and night out. Every game, he has to guard guys with signature shoes, and he’s done well enough to be a key player in the Grizzlies’ top-10 defense.

Wells will earn some first-place votes. Despite a late-season swoon as he ran headfirst into the rookie wall, he still has higher season-long efficiency numbers than Risacher or Castle, even though he’s doing less overall than those two.

Defensive Player of the Year

I have been extremely stressed about this award for weeks. Victor Wembanyama was the clear-cut winner until his season ended. Alex Caruso has a very strong case, but he, too, won’t qualify.

After those two, who stands out? Allow me to quote myself from a piece I did last week for Locked On:

Draymond Green is 35 and having, what, the sixth-best defensive year of his career? Evan Mobley is routinely isolated and attacked at the end of games. Lu Dort isn’t the best defender on the Thunder at his own position. Dyson Daniels is a one-trick pony (a very cool trick, but still!).

Advanced stats can’t make up their minds on these guys (and are unreliable anyway), and while all obviously shine on tape, nobody has looked infallible. There isn’t an obvious right answer (Martim Pardal had a good visualization of the numbers breakdown for most candidates, if you want to get nitty-gritty-dirty).

There are plenty of good reasons to go with any of those players. If you want someone else, Rudy Gobert has a very underrated case, and we didn’t even talk about Jaren Jackson Jr. or my guy Ivica Zubac, whom at least one publication has declared worthy of the award. But as I’ve hinted at for a while, I’m going in a different direction.

1. Amen Thompson, Houston Rockets

2. Evan Mobley, Cleveland Cavaliers

3. Draymond Green, Golden State Warriors

I’ll note off the bat that this isn’t a Marcus Smart situation, whom I had a very distant third the year he won the real award. Smart’s fantastic season was (in my minority opinion) overshadowed by the dominant defensive years put forth by Rudy Gobert and Bam Adebayo.

I have a bias toward big men. This year, however, the most dominant defensive bigs haven’t shone quite as brightly. Wembanyama and Chet Holmgren might be the two best defensive centers in the league right now, but neither qualifies for the award. As I said when picking All-Defensive Teams, I’m not sure that the remaining bigs have such a large structural advantage over the best wing defenders, particularly since both Mobley and Green are hybrid bigs who mix perimeter defense with rim protection.

Anyway, that’s a lot of context explaining why I didn’t go with a consensus choice. All that hemming and hawing does a disservice to my Defensive Player of the Year, Amen Thompson.

The second-year Rocket might be the best qualifying on-ball defender in the league, with the versatility to guard the quickest lightning bugs and the strength to battle rhinos in the paint. He is definitely the best off-ball wing defender. Nobody as routinely turns stealth into violence:

The athletic marvel is the only player in the league averaging at least 1.3 blocks and 1.3 steals per game. Thompson allows a lower percentage at the rim than either Green or Mobley, creates more deflections than both, smacks more shots than Green (on an absolute and rate basis), and generally causes utter havoc. Second Spectrum says that of All-Defense-caliber defenders, only OG Anunoby allows fewer blow-bys — and Anunoby typically guards bigger, slower players.

Thompson has a real-life turbo button. He impacts more plays than any perimeter defender I’ve seen since prime Kawhi Leonard because he knows he can help and still get back to cover his man. Players will think they’re safe, only to see him coming at them like a horror movie villain who’s realized he doesn’t have to shamble all the time. Speed is way scarier:

Only Green gets (slightly) more love from the advanced stats, and that may be due to how they weigh expectations from previous years. Thompson is usually right behind him, and the second-year player actually tops all qualifying players in single-season D-EPM.

It’s funny; I’ve had Thompson on top of my DPOY rankings for a while, but I hadn’t really seen anyone outside of the Houston area back me up. Then, he puts on a defensive clinic in two straight games against Steph Curry (1-for-10 in the game) and Shai Gilgeous-Alexander (10-for-22, only two free throws). Containing stars of those wattages is a team effort, but Thompson was the spearpoint. He even got some love from Zach Lowe in his inaugural podcast.

Two mediocre games wouldn’t have swayed me, but two great ones sure were a nice exclamation point on Thompson’s incredible defensive season.

Evan Mobley is a deserving candidate. He’s a jack of all trades who faces a tremendous number of isolations and holds up well, even as the Cavaliers provide him little to no help. They trust Mobley to do the job, and he comes through more often than not.

He’s not quite an elite rim protector, but he’s a very good one. He’s been anchoring excellent defenses as both a power forward and a center, despite a Cavs team that doesn’t always surround him with immense defensive talent.

Teams do target him more than I’d like, but a big part of that is to directly involve him so that he can’t blow up the play as a help defender. If he’s in the pick-and-roll, you can account for him. If you let him roam, you may as well give up:

I really value versatility in a defender, and outside of Bam Adebayo (who spent too much of the season in drop, where he doesn’t excel to the same degree), no big in the league can do as many things as well as Mobley. (That pops even more as a playoff defender.)

Draymond Green is still the smartest guy on the floor. You can watch him barking commands and gesticulating wildly as he orders his troops around like the world’s largest and loudest general. So much of what Green does happens before the snap, as he audibles to counter whatever he’s discerned is coming next (For a recent example, Joe Viray had a good thread).

Not to say that Green doesn’t destroy offenses during play. As always, the Warriors never allow teams to shoot at the rim when Green is on the floor, an effect that largely dissipates when he’s off. Green has lost a half-step, but Synergy still rates him as one of the league’s best isolation and switch defenders.

Either Mobley or Green is almost certain to win the award. That’s fine and dandy. But Thompson is my pick.

Most Valuable Player

1. Nikola Jokic, Denver Nuggets

2. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Oklahoma City Thunder

3. Giannis Antetokounmpo, Milwaukee Bucks

4. Jayson Tatum, Boston Celtics

5. Donovan Mitchell, Cleveland Cavaliers

Shai Gilgeous-Alexander is a phenomenal player, basketball's most versatile and unstoppable scorer. The last game he didn’t score 20+ points came before Halloween (!). He’s had not one, not two, not three, but four 50+ point games. On a per-possession basis, Shai is having one of the most prolific and efficient scoring seasons of all time for an OKC team rocking a historically great margin of victory.

SGA has compiled more isolations than nine NBA teams (and he’s scoring like a breeding bull released upon the cows in those possessions). The way he creates space defies our modern understanding of physics. Watch as he turns a 1-on-2 into a wide-open layup:

This isn’t a juvenile “best player on the best team” argument; it’s a top-three player in the NBA (at worst) on the best regular-season team we’ve seen in a decade.

And yet, despite all that, this was an easier decision than I expected. Nikola Jokic is a three-time MVP enjoying the best offensive season of his career; there’s just not much anyone can do to overcome that.

Jokic is arguably the best screen-setter in the league, and he’s just as dangerous receiving one. He’s an unstoppable scorer in the paint. He’s nailed 42% of his triples, and he’s a top defensive rebounder. He’s not an elite defender, but he is averaging the fourth-most steals per game in the league and never fouls.

SGA has had a couple of 50-point games? Adorable. Joker dropped a 60-point triple-double and the NBA’s first-ever 30/20/20 game. If you take free throws away, Joker actually leads the league in scoring. Shai is scoring with elite efficiency; Joker’s true shooting is substantially better.

I’m surprised how quickly people are willing to give MVP to a guy over a couple of points per game and a loaded supporting cast (the Thunder still crush opponents without Shai, albeit nowhere near to the same degree).

Is it fair to penalize someone for having great teammates? I don’t know; can anyone say with a straight face that if, say, Jokic and Jamal Murray switched spots with SGA and your pick of Hartenstein or Holmgren, the Nuggets would be better or the Thunder worse? I doubt it.

Shai is likely a little better defensively, but it’s not enough to tilt the scales.

SGA is an incredible (and incredibly fun) player in pole position to earn his first championship ring this year. His is having an MVP-caliber year that would’ve been worthy of the award in many previous seasons (and will be enough for one now).

In many ways, I hope Gilgeous-Alexander wins. My hottest NBA take is that voter fatigue is actually a feature, not a bug. Most people would agree that Jokic is the best player in the world. But is he that much better than everyone else that he gets to keep all the trophies for himself? Are we sure?

Something would be lost in the NBA’s history if Most Valuable Player went through five or six-year stretches simply going to the consensus best player every half-decade. It makes for a far richer tapestry if MVP acknowledges other greatness, too.

Regardless, if we’re being intellectually honest with ourselves, Jokic deserves it if we aren’t taking other seasons into account. If you’re wondering what a player has to do to wrestle the crown from Big Honey, well, so am I.

Giannis Antetokounmpo takes a distant but clear third place. He’s posting the highest assist and lowest turnover rates of his career and has evolved a midrange jumper to complement his rampages to the rim. It’s fun when a player so well-established develops new tricks. I’m excited to see a healthy Giannis in the postseason for the first time in a while.

Jayson Tatum is the most flexible superstar in the league. He’s unstoppable driving to the rack, guards centers without complaint, mugs the glass like it’s a fat-walleted tourist, and is having the best passing year of his career. If the Celtics do make a deep playoff run, I hope he’s given a little more respect in the postseason awards this time around.

Donovan Mitchell’s impact is more substantial than his numbers (which are still fantastic, if somewhat muted due to a lighter minutes load). He’s Cleveland’s best overall player, has turned himself into a strong perimeter defender, and has developed a Jimmy Butler-like ability to cede spotlight and responsibility to younger teammates so that he can pace himself for when it matters most.