Chapter 425: The Only Consolation

While the playoffs are in full swing, the major awards of this season's NBA are also coming out one after another. Judging from the league's consistent urine in the past, except for a few awards such as the Most Improved Award, the other awards are basically divided by the strongest teams in the East and West.

The NBA doesn't like to be pretentious, and it doesn't like to put the most important thing at the end, and it is the regular season MVP that is the most important award that comes out first. In Chang Wei's impression, the MVP competition in the first decade of the 21st century is quite fierce, and no one can have an absolute advantage, and this year is no different. Although the shooting guard position is full of talent because of Jordan, it is the two top power forwards in the West who have the best chance of being crowned MVP, Duncan of the Spurs and Garnett of the Timberwolves.

Before the award was announced, the bookmakers were more optimistic about Garnett, although the Timberwolves' record is not as good as the Spurs, but Garnett can be said to have single-handedly supported the whole team, and Duncan has more helpers around him than him. In fact, individual heroism is an important point when it comes to selecting MVPs, and Garnett's flamboyant personality is more popular.

Unfortunately, it was Duncan who won the MVP in the end, and this is the second consecutive season he has won this award. When the league officially announced the voting results, everyone was silent, Duncan and Garnett had a fairly close share of votes, 31.09% and 28.15% respectively, and in the case of similar data, the Spurs' record in the West still added a lot of points to Duncan.

Of course, this MVP battle also led to a season-long confrontation between the two No. 21s, which was not terminated until Garnett left the Timberwolves in frustration. Thinking of the career development trajectory of the two in his previous life, Chang Wei smiled helplessly, Duncan's career is much longer than Garnett's, and it is more successful, but Duncan's taciturn style is still not as inspiring as Garnett, but this does not prevent him from becoming one of the best power forwards in history.

He was followed by the Defensive Player of the Year, and no one can match Big Ben in this regard, and it is the only award that Chang Wei thinks the Pistons can win. After all, Big Ben has further improved this season with his help, averaging 9.2 points per game, not to mention, and becoming the league's rebounding champion with 15.8 rebounds, while 3.5 blocks also made him the block king. Although everyone knows that the Pistons are a team that eats on defense, as the mainstay of the defensive end, Big Ben's role is undoubted, as long as the authority in charge of voting is not blind, he will write Big Ben's name on his ballot.

The final voting results proved that Big Ben's advantage in the race for the best defensive player was simply overwhelming, with 50.43% of the votes and 85.47% of the people voting for him first, which was enough to ensure that he could secure the trophy, considering that Artest, who came in second with only 11.59% of the votes.

Originally, Chang Wei thought that after the best defensive player was released, other awards would have nothing to do with the Pistons, but he didn't expect to see a familiar name in the selection of the best sixth man again. Jamal Crawford, the Pistons' sixth man, is averaging 12.1 points, 3.7 rebounds and 2.2 assists per game this season, which is statistically impeccable, and this performance has also earned him the second-highest score in the Sixth Man of the Year award.

Although Crawford ultimately lost to the Kings' small guard Bobby Jackson, it also made Dumas look up to Chang Wei, who would have thought that this guy who was unknown in the Bulls and was not regarded as a key development target could take on the responsibility of the sixth man? But Chang Wei found out and advocated bringing him to Detroit, and now Crawford is an indispensable member of the Pistons, and the second-place vote in the Sixth Man of the Year selection is enough to tell.

The Most Improved Award was given to Spurs point guard "French Little Sports Car" Parker, which made Chang Wei feel a little surprised. The Most Improved Season award in his previous season went to Arenas, and Parker didn't even make it into the top three. However, since Chang Wei suggested that the 76ers choose Arenas and use him as a super sixth man, this award has been insulated from him, unless he joins a team as the boss in his previous life, and there is still hope for the fastest improvement award in the case of skyrocketing ball rights.

But Parker deserves his award, averaging just 9.2 points, 4.3 assists and 1.2 steals per game last season, and has five games off the bench. After settling into the Spurs' starting point guard position this season, Parker played all 82 regular season games, with his stats rising to 16.7 points, 5.4 assists and 1.5 steals, while shooting 5.2 percentage points. Rao, whose 26.71% of the vote was only a narrow victory, was almost surpassed by Jazz's Halplin.

Arguably the Spurs were the biggest winners this season, as the Spurs won not only Duncan and Parker, but also Popovich. After Jordan's peak, the pattern of being strong in the West and weak in the East gradually formed, even if the 76ers won the championship for two consecutive years, it could not change this phenomenon, and the Western team did have many more stars than the East. The Spurs were able to fight their way out of the encirclement, and in addition to Duncan's strong play, Popovich's strategy was equally important, which was also his first best coach title.

Of course, Chang Wei knows very well that this is just the beginning, and the reason why the Spurs were able to become an enduring powerhouse in their previous life was that Popovich's role was far greater than any star in the team. Prior to Chang's rebirth, Popovich had won the Coach of the Year award three times, tied with Pat Riley and Nelson Sr. as the most awarded coach in history.

The last exciting award is Best Rookie. What makes Chang Wei feel relieved is that although Prince does not get many votes, he is also a rookie with the top five votes, he never expected Prince to win this award, it is good to be ranked fifth, although the 0.31% vote rate is a little cold, but how to say it is also an encouragement to him!

Rookie of the Year doesn't have any record requirements, so rookies from underdogs are more likely to win because they can brush their stats with impunity. But this time the best rookie is still the Suns' "little bully" Stoudemire like in his previous life, averaging 13.5 points, 8.8 rebounds and 1 block per game fully deserves this award. Followed by Yao Ming, who Chang Wei has been paying attention to, in fact, his statistics are not bad, averaging 13.5 points, 8.2 rebounds and 1.8 blocks per game, and he failed to get the best rookie probably because of his Chinese status, and Stoudemire's style of play is indeed much better than him.

However, Chang Wei is not worried, he believes that after this summer's special training, Yao Ming will definitely surprise the whole league next season, and it is not impossible to win the fastest improvement award at that time.