2025-26 Second Quarter NBA Awards

Imaginary hardware for arbitrarily-defined time sequences

With the holiday craziness out of the way, trade season is heating up. I find January basketball somewhat perplexing; we’re still learning about players and teams, but 85% of the conversation centers on fake trades.

I’m not into kinky trade machine stuff. Don’t talk to me about all these my-worst-player-for-your-underrated-star garbage ideas that clog the internet like winter pollen explosions. I want fire (or at least presaging smoke), not somebody banging two stones together in hopes of creating a spark.

Real trades are great! But until some come down the pipeline, I’ll be keeping the focus on the hardwood. I hope you’re okay with that.

Now, I’ve got some second-quarter awards to hand out.

My first-quarter awards ran through the end of November. For this batch, I’m only looking at games played from December 1st, 2025, to January 12th, 2026. As always, these aren’t predictions of the real end-of-year winners.

To qualify for the official awards, players have to play in 65 games (approximately 79% of the full 82-game season). I use the same threshold for quarterly awards for consistency.

Onwards!

Coach of the Quarter: Joe Mazzulla, Boston Celtics

I was higher than most people coming into the season, predicting they’d be a solid playoff team. Still, there’s a difference between above-average and whatever murder-engine the Celtics have become. The team tied for the fewest losses in the quarter by going 13-6, with a quarter-leading net rating of +10.2. Their number-one offensive rating was a whopping 3.5 points per 100 possessions higher than second-place Denver’s. And remember, this is a team that lost several of its best players in the offseason, including First-Team All-NBAer Jayson Tatum!

I’ve never really understood the surprising (albeit, now, far dwindled) number of people who think Mazzulla isn’t a great coach, or that he’s too rigid. No coach is perfect, but Mazzulla is as good as anyone at tweaking his strategy to fit his personnel.

Aside from Jaylen Brown, the Celtics don’t have a ton of players capable of getting to the rim. But they’re overflowing with talented jump-shooters, and Mazzulla has empowered them to attack from the midrange, a space that’s become verboten to most teams. As I wrote previously, how many role players — even good ones — are allowed to do this on the reg?

Not many, and most are on the C’s.

And midrangers have another, subtler effect: They almost never result in turnovers. That’s helped Mazzulla turbocharge Boston’s possession game, something their cadre of try-hards can excel at. In this quarter, they’re a top-five offensive and defensive rebounding team, and they boast the second-lowest turnover rate. Loose balls get dysoned up by the greedy hands of players like Jordan Walsh and Neemias Queta, formerly fringe NBA guys (not anymore!) who know that cleaning up the garbage can open team pocketbooks.

The crazy thing is that the Celtics could play even better! Derrick White and Payton Pritchard still haven’t quite found their shooting stride from outside. If those two become the 39-40% shooters from deep they’ve been in the past, this explosive attack becomes even explodier.

I just wrote about the impact Jordan Ott has had for the Suns; he’s pushed every right button so far. Mitch Johnson in San Antonio single-handedly punctured the myth of OKC’s invulnerability (*tugs collar, coughs*) and navigated through Wemby-less stretches with aplomb.

Chris Finch in Minnesota, JB Bickerstaff in Detroit, and even Tiago Splitter for a rallying Portland team deserve credit for strong team performances in the quarter, too. And I have more coming on Denver’s David Adelman soon.

Rookie of the Quarter: Cooper Flagg, Dallas Mavericks

Flagg’s growth rate is positively bambooian. After an expectedly rocky start to his NBA career, playing out of position and learning the nuances of the NBA game, Flagg has exploded in the second quarter. He averaged 22 points on 50% shooting from the field, including 35% from deep, while assisting more than five times per game and notching a steal and a block each. Those are crazy numbers for a rookie!

Flagg’s jumper is developing, but he’s already elite in the in-between spaces. Most notably, he can pull off twirling push shots, half floater and half hook, with either hand. This is something that a lot of 10-year vets can’t pull off reliably:

And we knew Flagg could pass — there’s a reason coach Kidd thought to try him at point guard — but it’s still exciting to see a just-turned-19-year-old doing this:

Less sexily but no less important, Flagg has also done an admirable job not turning the ball over. Rookie stars always struggle with this, but Flagg’s turnover rate of 11.2% is actually better than the positional median. Compare to, say, New Orleans’ Derik Queen, who is turning it over 16.4% of the time, or even Kon Knueppel’s 13.8%. Yet another well-boding sign for his future, particularly given how much ballhandling Flagg has been asked to do.

There are a lot of talented rookies, but Knueppel (last quarter’s winner) continues to shine with the best rookie shooting season of all time. And I can’t stop watching VJ Edgecombe, as he pairs clutch threes with eye-popping defensive sequences. It’s hard to see in the GIF, but he blocks this layup twice:

Interior Defensive Player of the Quarter: Isaiah Stewart, Detroit Pistons

Stewart has gradually become a defensive monster over his career. He really started lighting up advanced stat leaderboards last year, and while I took notice, I hesitated to talk him up too much, as he was mostly defending backups.

This year, however, he’s started more games and is playing bigger minutes, and the numbers shine even brighter. He’s legitimately turned himself into one of the best rim protectors in the game. Among qualifying players, he led the league with 4.6 blocks per 100 possessions this quarter. He was second in the league in FG% allowed at the rim, letting opponents score just 43.2% of the time (trailing only Kevin Durant, weirdly). That is a whopping 19% lower than expected!

Using season-long lineup data, with Beef Stew on the court, the Pistons only allow opponents to shoot a quarter of their shots at the rim in the first place, a 95th-percentile figure, and make just 55.9%, a 99th-percentile figure. All of these strengths turn into glaring weaknesses when Stewart rests; he’s a one-man brick wall. Or maybe a singular giant brick. A Whomp, if you will.

Rudy Gobert had another strong quarter, albeit one that doesn’t shine quite as brightly as Stewart’s in some of the individual stats. Chet Holmgren for OKC is a snarling octopus around the rim, and Scottie Barnes continues to impress with his versatility and effort levels. But this is Stewart’s award.

Perimeter Defensive Players of the Quarter: Javonte Green, Detroit Pistons/Ausar Thompson, Detroit Pistons

Three Pistons winning quarterly defensive awards? I might be out over my skis a bit here, but I didn’t really find these awards particularly challenging to choose this time.

My only difficulty came in trying to disentangle the impact of the veteran Green and rising defensive superstar Thompson (and I feel bad for leaving out Ron Holland, another slavering hound on the perimeter). Eventually, I threw up my hands and gave it to them both. After all, while Ausar Thompson will be a mainstay in All-Defensive conversations for years to come, Green is 32. This might be his moment.

You want quantitative or qualitative analysis first? Qualitative? Let’s do it. Green (who is beloved by one of my long-time readers — here’s to you, Barron Hall) wasn’t even assured a roster spot when 2025-26 got underway, but he’s now carved out an indispensable role (and had his contract fully guaranteed!). Green is a coiled snake, patiently biding his time. No pass is safe; no loose handle goes unpunished. Watch him lurk, then strike:

Meanwhile, after giving my Defensive Player of the Year award to Amen Thompson last year, I said I might’ve been choosing the wrong twin (Ausar was ineligible due to games played). This season, Ausar is trying to right that wrong with some of the most mesmerizing blocks I’ve ever seen. The laws of physics make exceptions for Thompson. Look how easily he eats up ground on this chasedown block (and stay for the bonus Stewart block!):

Put Green and Thompson together, and it’s a horror movie come to life with two bad guys instead of one. Freddie vs. Jason, but critically acclaimed. Imagine being James Harden here and seeing two of the league’s scariest dudes coming your way. You can see the panic rising. I’ve rarely felt sorrier for a ballhandler:

The numbers: For the year, Green has the highest D-LEBRON of any non-Thunder perimeter player, and Thompson isn’t far behind. Thompson is also top-12 in five of BBall-Index’s proprietary perimeter defense stats¹ and is fifth in deflections per possession, while Javonte Green leads the league in swipes for the quarter by a huge amount (4.6 steals per 100 possessions to second-place Lonzo Ball’s 4.0). Green also avoids the foul trouble that Thompson sometimes finds himself in, and his more reliable offensive game means he’s sometimes an easier fit to close games with, too.

Either way, when it comes to harassing the other team, Pistons coach JB Bickerstaff has an embarrassment of riches to choose from.

Sixth Man of the Quarter: Naz Reid, Minnesota Timberwolves

After a somewhat slow start to the season, Naz Reid has found his groove. The former Sixth Man of the Year winner reclaims his throne for this quarter, bringing his usual brand of electric shooting and self-creation to give the Wolves some desperately needed offensive punch off the bench.

Reid averaged 16 points in the quarter, including hitting 39% on more than seven triples per game. He also notched nearly three assists per game, a noteworthy number for a player who typically is more of a play finisher than a playmaker.

Reid is legitimately one of the best scoring bigs in the game. It’s not just the shooting, although that’s a major part of it. He can put the ball on the floor and attack like a much shorter player, but he’s also still big enough to pull a schoolyard-bully routine:

The Reid-at-center lineups were getting historically blitzed to start the year, to the point where the defensive limitations outweighed his substantial offensive contributions. But Reid, often in conjunction with power forward Julius Randle, figured out a way to limit the non-Gobert-minutes’ defensive damage to “bad” instead of “gruesome” (somewhat corralling his tendency for hopeless swipes at the ball that inevitably result in fouls has helped, as has a hefty dose of zone defense). And given that Reid-at-center lineups are scoring 129 points per 100 possessions, a 99th-percentile mark, merely “bad” defense is good enough.

I thought about picking Isaiah Stewart for this award, too, but there’s been enough Pistons talk. Isaiah Collier averaged more than seven assists per game off the bench for the Jazz in the quarter, which has to be some kind of record if it holds up. Boston’s Anfernee Simons completely turned his season around. And the Spurs’ Keldon Johnson, Heat’s Jaime Jaquez, and Nuggets’ Tim Hardaway Jr. are putting up big point totals off the pine.

But Reid stands supreme — for now.

Most Improved Player of the Quarter: Anthony Black, Orlando Magic

Most Improved Player of the Quarter is an exceedingly annoying one to pick, as I’m looking for players who have improved from the first quarter to this one, not from last year to this year. It requires a lot of data wrangling and context-sifting.

Eventually, I settled on Orlando’s Anthony Black. Black is one of several defensive-minded, oversized guards who have popped up over the last few years. For most of his short career, his offensive warts have overshadowed his defensive contributions. But something clicked for Black halfway through this season, and he’s turned into Orlando’s shiniest silver lining.

Of qualifying players, only Boston’s Derrick White and Denver’s Peyton Watson had a larger raw jump than Black’s 5.4 points per game improvement from the first quarter to the second. Black showed a newfound confidence in his three-ball, upping his attempts per game from 3.5 (in 27 minutes) to 5.4 (in 33 minutes) and canning 36% of them. The triple went from a hindrance to roughly league-average accuracy and volume, and while NBA defenses still aren’t falling over themselves to close out on Black, he at least made them pay for ignoring him to double-team Paolo Banchero. Hell, for the shooting-starved Orlando Magic, 36% on 5.4 attempts is practically Curry-like!

Most of Black’s threes are catch-and-shoots from the corners, but he started dabbling recently with a little pull-up to punish teams for going under screens:

The three becoming tenable has allowed his stronger strengths to shine in the absences of first Banchero and now Franz Wagner and Jalen Suggs. Black touched the ball more on a per-minute basis, and he received it in more varied spots. He found ways to be effective snaking through the defense with and without the ball, he was a beast in transition, and he nearly doubled his per-game assists (5.1 per game for the quarter). This improvisational creativity had been long dormant:

Despite Black’s 6’7” size, the Magic almost always use him to guard the other team’s best ballhandler, where his combination of length and quickness forces smaller stars into difficult shots. He can hold his own against bigger players when the Magic switch, too.

Ultimately, I’m not sure where Black levels out. He’s undoubtedly been a beneficiary of the Magic’s many injuries, but he’s had opportunities before and never shown out like this. He won’t be an 18-point scorer forever, but it’s nice to know that he can do it for a prolonged stretch.

It went against every fiber of my being not to pick Denver’s Peyton Watson here, a player I’ve been high on for a long time. But this is a quarterly award, and most of Watson’s improvements have happened in the seven games since Jokic went out with an injury. And, as I hinted at with Adelman above, I’ll have a lot more to say about Watson in the very near future, so worry not, Nuggets fans.

Most Valuable Player of the Quarter: Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Oklahoma City Thunder

Player I’m Talking About Instead: Jaylen Brown, Boston Celtics

Despite the Thunder’s individual struggles in the quarter, SGA still led the league in scoring per possession while shooting 55% from the field, 38% from deep, and 90% from the charity stripe. He also had the highest plus/minus of any MVP candidate for the quarter; while OKC has looked mortal, largely due to cold shooting and Jalen Williams’ struggles, SGA has been as invulnerable as ever. He’s the winner.

But I’ve already talked about Shai’s MVP bonafides plenty. There’s another player who has a case nearly as strong, and it’s not someone we would’ve predicted before the start of the season: Jaylen Brown. Brown was just a hair behind SGA in quarterly scoring on strong 50/41/80 shooting splits of his own, averaged nearly as many assists, and gathered more rebounds (although he also turned it over far more often than Gilgeous-Alexander). The Celtics actually had a better record in Brown’s games played (11-5) than the Thunder in Shai’s (11-6).

Brown’s outrageous midrange shooting continues to be one of the stories of the season. Long midrangers make up more than a quarter of his shot attempts, an insane number in 2026, and he’s canning nearly half. In fact, Brown is maintaining above-median efficiency on the third-highest usage in the league, trailing only Luka Doncic and Giannis Antetokounmpo. (Doncic was another nominee for this award, but the Lakers were pretty woeful in his minutes for the quarter, and he couldn’t stop missing threes or turning it over; Giannis didn’t qualify.)

Brown has done it while still being Boston’s best on-ball defender. His performance against a similarly surging Kawhi Leonard, in which he dropped 50 points on the Clippers while holding Leonard to just 22, was one of the statement games of the season so far.

Given the number of players who are already or are on track to be disqualified from the year-end awards list, Brown has a real shot at making the final MVP ballot.

(I now assume Jayson Tatum will be returning this season. How the balance of power seesaws between the two as Tatum gets back to game speed will be verrrrryyyy interesting.)

1. Ball screen navigation, passing lane defense, off-ball chase defense, perimeter isolation defense, and pickpocket rating. That well-roundedness is incredible! As of this writing, no other player can say that.