NBA Season Awards Probably An Empty Affair For Cavaliers Organization

The NBA Awards season is fast approaching, and despite the Cavaliers carrying the NBA’s best record for the 2nd season in a row, don’t expect them to be very heavily decorated by individual awards. In many ways, that makes sense. It mirrors the way this team is constructed. It’s LeBron James first and foremost, but then it’s about being one cohesive team beyond that. So while LeBron deserves all the accolades, the question remains, what awards are his teammates and leaders in the organization worthy of?

Last week, one of our readers named Josh sent us an email asking about each of the awards and whether any Cavaliers had a chance of winning them. He was mostly curious about Mike Brown’s chances of winning Coach of the Year this year, but I thought now would be a good time to address all of the awards. After all, as Brian Windhorst pointed out this weekend in the Plain Dealer, the award ballots have now been sent out to voters. So lets go ahead and look at them one by one.  

Most Valuable Player

This is the one award that is without question going to a member of the Cavaliers organization. LeBron James simply has no peers in this category. He’s averaging 29.8 points, 7.2 rebounds, and 8.6 assists per game. He’s shooting a career best 50.5% from the field while maintaining his 34.4% three point shot. No player in the NBA has a greater fingerprint on their team’s success than LeBron James. The Cavaliers have made 2,800 field goals this year. LeBron has made (731) or assisted (616) on 1,347 of them, or 48.11% of them.

For comparisons’ sake, to further illustrate just how impressive that is, the next closest in terms of % is Steve Nash at 41.86%. Of the 30 team leaders in this stat, only 4 are above 40%, yet LeBron is pushing 50%. As for LeBron’s MVP “competition”, Kevin Durant doesn’t even lead the Thunder in this stat (Russell Westbrook does at 37.36%). Kobe Bryant is at 36.00%, Carmelo Anthony is at 29.10%, and Dwyane Wade is at 41.74%. It’s not fair to lump Dwight Howard into this stat because this isn’t the way to measure what he means to the Magic, but the point remains, nobody has their fingerprint on their team’s overall success like LeBron does.

I’m sure Kevin Durant will get some loyalty votes from Oklahoma City voters, and we all know the Orlando Sentinel’s Mike Bianchi is going to vote for Howard, but a few insane voters not withstanding, LeBron is going to win this award going away, and he deserves it. We are in the era of LeBron.

WHY LEBRON WON’T WIN: He will.

WHY LEBRON SHOULD WIN: He’s the Maestro.

MY PREDICTION: LeBron James.

Sixth Man of the Year

Anderson Varejao received a huge boost in this category when the Houston Rockets traded Carl Landry to the Sacramento Kings. As much as I realize how important Andy is to the Cavaliers, I had a hard time picking him over Landry considering what Landry was doing for the Rockets coming off the bench. In Sacramento, though, Landry is a starter and his 6th man of the year candidacy took a hit from that.

So that leaves this as a 2 man race as far as I’m concerned. Anderson Varejao vs Jamal Crawford. It’s easy to see why this is going to be a tough award for Andy to win. Crawford is putting up 17.7 ppg, 3.0 apg, and shooting .378 from long range. He has an efficiency rating of 18.23. All season long Crawford has been filling up the box scores with his contributions off the bench.

Varejao, on the other hand, is the king of the intangibles. His 8.7 ppg, 7.8 rpg, and 16.11 PER aren’t going to blow away voters like Crawford’s numbers, but if you’ve spent much time at all watching the Cavaliers play this year, you understand what he brings to the team. He is one of the most relentless players in the entire league, never giving up any play, on any potential rebound, on any loose ball, on any steal opportunity. His hands are active, he runs off pick and rolls with LeBron better than anyone else on the team, he moves off the ball on offense constantly looking for seams to cut to the basket and receive the easy assist from LeBron. All this while giving up his flops and attempts to draw charges and instead playing absolute lock down defense and irritating opponents to no end.

When the game is on the line, too, Varejao has proven more valuable to the Cavaliers than Crawford is to the Hawks. Andy is a +24 per 48 minutes of “Clutch Time” (4th qtr or OT, less than 5 mins left, score difference less than 5 points) compared to Crawford’s +19. Again, I’m sure some voters will be wowed by Crawford’s 22 pts per 48 mins of Clutch Time (compared to 10.1 for Varejao), which begs the age old fundamental basketball question. Which do you value more, scoring and quantitative box score stats or all around intangibles and qualitative play? It’s a fair question, but voters tend to go with box score numbers.

WHY VAREJAO WON’T WIN: He doesn’t score enough and can’t escape his reputation as a flopper.

WHY VAREJAO SHOULD WIN: I don’t feel any player does more off the bench to energize their team and provide whatever it takes to win games.

MY PREDICTION: Jamal Crawford.

Coach of the Year

I can keep this one short and simple. In my opinion, Mike Brown doesn’t deserve the award due to the needless incident with not playing Z on the night he was set to break the Cavs’ record for games played. It was careless, stupid, unnecessary, and potentially could have derailed the whole season by turning the locker room against him. He’s lucky that never turned out to be a bigger issue than it really was.

Beyond that, though, he’s not going to win it because many people predicted the Cavaliers to be here anyway. They had the best record last year, but fell short. This year they added Shaq, Anthony Parker, Jamario Moon, Leon Powe, and now Antawn Jamison. Yes, some coaches would have struggled more than Mike Brown has with figuring out how to handle this depth, but I believe some coaches would have done better as well.

Mike Brown hasn’t had a bad year coaching, but when you have the game’s best player and one of, if not the deepest teams in the NBA, then you’re supposed to lead your team here. Coach of the Year generally goes to coaches who exceed expectations.

WHY MIKE BROWN WON’T WIN: Because other coaches have done a better job.

WHY MIKE BROWN SHOULD WIN: Didn’t let players get too down about lack of playing time due to depth.

MY PREDICTION: Scott Brooks, Oklahoma City Thunder

Defensive Player of the Year

Last season LeBron James finished 2nd to Dwight Howard. I understood and respected the decision, but I felt LeBron was just as worthy of it, and the defensive metrics generally backed that up. But overall, you can’t question the impact Dwight Howard has on the game defensively, and we’ve seen plenty of instances where LeBron is hesitant to go into the lane when Howard is there.

This year, LeBron doesn’t even deserve 1st team All-Defense in my opinion. In a season where there has been precious little to be disappointed in, LeBron’s defensive regression has been a stunning development. Sure, he still gets the highlight chase-down blocks, but his on ball defense for the first 40 minutes of the game is generally lazy and lethargic. He frequently is late recovering off helps and he routinely lets his guy blow right by him off the dribble.

Last year the Cavs gave up 101.3 points per 100 possessions when LeBron was on the court. This year that number jumped up to 105.5 pts/100possessions. Last year the Cavs gave up 8.4 more points per 100 possessions when LeBron was on the bench vs on the floor. This year, believe it or not, the Cavs are actually giving up 1.8 FEWER points per 100 possessions with LeBron on the bench. It isn’t until crunch time that LeBron gets serious about playing defense and his numbers back that up as well. Which, to me, shows that this is just an issue of motivation, focus, and desire, and quite frankly, LeBron has not shown the desire to be the league’s best defender on a night in and night out basis this year.

Instead, I would nominate Anderson Varejao as the Cavaliers’ representative for DPOY consideration. The Cavaliers give up 102.8 pts per 100 possessions with Varejao on the floor. They give up 108.3 pts per 100 possessions when he is on the bench. Compared to Dwight Howard, these are very favorable defensive numbers. The Magic give up 103.7 pts with Howard on the floor and 104.8 pts with Howard on the bench. So Varejao’s –5.5 defensive rating blows away Howard’s –1.1 defensive rating. Howard does get more blocked shots and more rebounds than Varejao, and that’s a big part of why he’ll win this award, but I would give my vote to Anderson Varejao.

WHY VAREJAO WON’T WIN: Have you ever heard Jeff Van Gundy call a Cavs game this year? He rambles on and on about Varejao being a flopper despite the fact he has almost completely cut that out of his game. It goes unnoticed by the national media, but us locals know the truth. Varejao has reformed his defensive game and that’s why he is beating everyone not named LeBron James in overall +/- this season.

WHY VAREJAO SHOULD WIN: The Cavaliers have been a much more average defensive team this year than years past. When you factor in LeBron’s defensive regression, I shudder to think about where this team would be without Varejao’s stellar defensive effort all year.

MY PREDICTION: Dwight Howard.

Executive of the Year

Look, Danny Ferry had a team that had the NBA’s best record last year but fell short in the ECF. He could have played things cautious and saved cap space for the summer of 2010 to try to lure another free agent to Cleveland to play with LeBron. Instead, Ferry decided he wanted to win a Championship now. So he went out and spent big money to keep Varejao. He signed Anthony Parker, Jamario Moon, and Leon Powe to free agent deals. He traded for Shaquille O’Neal and Antawn Jamison and only gave up Ben Wallace, Sasha Pavlovic, a couple draft picks, and the draft rights to Emir Preldzic.

I can’t think of a single GM in the league who made more moves that turned out positive for their team than Ferry. The only person even close is probably Dallas’s Donnie Nelson. Unlike the other awards, though, Executive of the Year is voted on by the teams themselves, and so politics will come into play on this.

WHY FERRY WON’T WIN: I’ll defer to Brian Windhorst on this:

It’s a very strong case, especially with the Cavs once again sitting with the league’s best record. But this is where the politics come into play.

“Do you think teams like the Knicks or the Clippers or the Heat are going to vote for Danny?” said one league executive. “There’s no way they want LeBron to think he’s playing for the GM of the year right before he goes into free agency.”

It’s pretty ridiculous when you really think about it. It’s like they think LeBron James is an idiot. LeBron is an incredibly smart and savvy individual and I promise you he’s well aware of what Danny Ferry has accomplished with or without this award. But in politics, reason hardly ever wins.

WHY FERRY SHOULD WIN: He has more pressure on him than any other GM in the league due to having to satisfy LeBron’s desire to win. Rather than panic, though, Ferry has time and time again waited out everyone else and resisted making a move until he was able to leverage others into making the deal Ferry wants to make. Getting Antawn Jamison without giving up JJ Hickson was a stroke of pure genius and on that basis alone he should win.

MY PREDICTION: Danny Ferry. For once, his peers will get it right and give him the credit he deserves.