NBA Awards Watch: Are All-NBA and other honors bad for your favorite team?

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As we head toward the end of the regular season and awards conversations get more heated and desperate, the All-NBA discussion gets incredibly interesting.

It’s still odd to me that All-Star selections tend to get more praise and weight than All-NBA selections. An All-Star nod is a good honor to have and puts you on a previously fun stage. It’s also half popularity contest and an honor for the first half of the season. All-NBA is an accolade for the campaign’s entirety. There also are fewer All-NBA selections (15) than All-Stars (24).

All-NBA nods (along with MVP and Defensive Player of the Year) also ties into the supermax contract players can earn, where their next deal can jump up to 35 percent of the salary cap instead of the standard 30 percent for standard max deals. If you’ve played at least seven NBA seasons, have upcoming contract negotiations and just made All-NBA or did so in two of the previous three seasons, you’re eligible for that pay hike. Teams use it to keep their best franchise players (unless you’re a historic Slovenian, 25-year-old MVP candidate who just led your team to the NBA Finals.)

The NBA has both simplified and complicated this honor with the 65-game rule. If you don’t hit 65 games in a season, you’re not eligible. It cuts down on the pool of players to select from, which makes it easier. In the past, you’ve had to decide if a player playing excellent basketball in 55-60 games means more than a player playing slightly worse in 65-70 games. It’s also a little more complicated when selecting from a pool of position-less players, because the smaller pool might not have players you feel are fully worthy of this honor.

We’ve been concentrating on individual awards throughout the Awards Watch the past couple months. This week, I wanted to get into which players might end up getting All-NBA love. Just to remind you: The selections are no longer two guards, two forwards and one center for three different teams. It could be all centers. It could be all point guards. It could be any combination.

For criteria I use for any awards, please refer back to this post. Any betting odds mentioned are courtesy of BetMGM.

All-NBA Teams

All-NBA First Team

• Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Oklahoma City Thunder: He’s the MVP favorite, so this is obvious.
• Donovan Mitchell, Cleveland Cavaliers: Best player on the best team in the East, and he’s playing excellent basketball.
• Jayson Tatum, Boston Celtics: Best player on the second-best team in the East, and he’s been great on both ends.
• Giannis Antetokounmpo, Milwaukee Bucks: Having another historic season with averages of nearly 30 points, 12 rebounds and six assists.
• Nikola Jokić, Denver Nuggets: He’s right there with SGA for MVP, and he’s averaging a triple-double.

The First Team is pretty simple. Now that we have positionless ballots, your MVP ballot should just be your All-NBA First Team. This isn’t like a couple years ago, when Jokić and Joel Embiid couldn’t both be on the First Team because they were both centers while being the two leading MVP candidates. You don’t really have to think about the voting much. Just migrate that ballot!

All-NBA Second Team

• Stephen Curry, Golden State Warriors: I think it’s fair to wonder if Curry would be here without the Warriors’ midseason surge, but they surged.
• Anthony Edwards, Minnesota Timberwolves: I slid Edwards here over Jalen Brunson because of the games played disparity (more on that below).
• LeBron James, Los Angeles Lakers: The absolute toughest one to keep off the First Team and MVP ballot. Those last games missed just took him off.
• Evan Mobley, Cleveland Cavaliers: Some of this is due to defensive prowess. Some of this is because of his numbers. The rest is because of his team’s success.
• Alperen Şengün, Houston Rockets: I’ve had Şengün in the honorable mention list for MVP for a while. The Rockets’ success locks him in here for me.

James and Edwards are the two in flux. James is right on the edge of jumping up to the First Team. His play this season has been spectacular, and it took off defensively in the second half of the season. But who do you take off the First Team? I think you have to reward the success of Mitchell and that Tatum has been slightly better, plus both their teams have been better than the Lakers. As for Edwards, the more time Brunson misses, the stronger the Wolves star’s case becomes. His numbers are impressive, but do the Wolves have enough team success?

All-NBA Third Team

• Jalen Brunson, New York Knicks: If he doesn’t miss this time with the ankle injury, he’s easily one team up.
• Cade Cunningham, Detroit Pistons: What do the kids call this? An incredible glow-up? I’ve never been older!
• Tyrese Haliburton, Indiana Pacers: His second half of the season gives him a great case.
• Jalen Williams, Oklahoma City Thunder: It isn’t just the team success that puts him here. He’s been great.
• Karl-Anthony Towns, New York Knicks: Most of the season, I thought he’d be on the Second Team, so he’s a lock for at least this.

This is where things get tricky. Let’s acknowledge the obvious here before we get into the rest. If these are the three teams, then Jaren Jackson Jr. got snubbed. I recognize that. If you think that’s absurd, I understand. I’m on the fence about it, but we do have a bit of a squeeze. You’re putting him up against Cunningham, Haliburton and Williams in this debate. I believe Towns is a lock, and Brunson should be, but we’ll get there in a minute.

For me, Cunningham is in. His numbers are great, the team is likely to finish top five in the conference, and he’s good enough to be locked into the Third Team. Haliburton is interesting because he had a slow start to the season with shooting accuracy, but he’s been lights out since we got to 2025. He also has a 6.6:1 assist-to-turnover ratio in 2025. That doesn’t even make sense.

Williams has been incredible on both ends, and the team success puts him over the top for the recognition. He’s the second-best player on a historically great team and has good numbers. He should make it.

Jackson has a case against Haliburton and maybe even Williams, but he could still get in. Why? Because Brunson might not qualify. Brunson is at 61 games played with six games left in the season. He needs to play four more games to qualify. You might be thinking that seems simple enough, except the schedule may not allow him to do that as he comes back from the ankle injury. The Knicks have two different back-to-backs in these remaining six games.

If Brunson somehow comes back in this six-game stretch, it might be asking too much to keep him healthy with an eye toward the playoffs while also trying to get him to 65 games so he qualifies for All-NBA. In that case, Jackson would get in regardless because he would have to. Nobody else has a case as strong as his, and he might even need to be in anyway.

In Jackson’s case, I wonder if Grizzlies fans should even want him to make All-NBA or win Defensive Player of the Year. I think about this often with the supermax deal. This isn’t just about Jackson. It’s about any player who isn’t the absolute franchise star of the team you love. The second they also become eligible for a supermax deal, it restricts your team’s cap flexibility. And in today’s collective bargaining agreement era with second aprons and extended luxury tax penalties, maybe that supermax to the second- or third-best player is a bad thing.

(For anybody wondering about Kevin Durant’s omission, he’s stuck at 62 games and is nursing a bad ankle with only a few games left, and the Suns might not even have an actual chance at the Play-In Tournament by the time he returns. If he returns. At that point, it might not make sense to bring him back.)

Most Valuable Player

Five honorable mentions: Steph Curry, Golden State Warriors | Evan Mobley, Cleveland Cavaliers | Anthony Edwards, Minnesota Timberwolves | LeBron James, Los Angeles Lakers | Alperen Şengün, Houston Rockets

5. Donovan Mitchell, Cleveland Cavaliers (Last week: 5)
4. Jayson Tatum, Boston Celtics (Last week: 4)
3. Giannis Antetokounmpo, Milwaukee Bucks (Last week: 3)
2. Nikola Jokić, Denver Nuggets (Last week: 2)
1. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Oklahoma City Thunder (Last week: 1)

Nothing changes here. As I mentioned above, James is knocking on the door of this ballot, but I just don’t know which player I’d remove. Antetokounmpo still has to get to 65 games played, though. He’s currently at 62 with seven games left (he’ll be fine). As for the Jokić-SGA debate, it’s absurd that, in Jokić’s biggest-scoring games, the Nuggets don’t win. He’s broken 50 points four different times in his career. The Nuggets have lost all four times. He did everything he could Tuesday night with his 61-point triple-double, and his teammates ruined the final two possessions and snatched away the victory. It doesn’t mean anything against Jokić or his case; it’s just a bizarre wrinkle to his big nights.

As for Gilgeous-Alexander, the Thunder don’t really need to rest their guys too much in these final games because they’ll have a week off between the end of the season and start of the playoffs. They could push this win streak and actually go for 70 games. With the season he’s having, Gilgeous-Alexander’s team winning 70 games is about as good of a case you can offer up to take down the season Jokić is having.

Defensive Player of the Year

Two honorable mentions: Jaren Jackson Jr., Memphis Grizzlies | Lu Dort, Oklahoma City Thunder

3. Dyson Daniels, Atlanta Hawks (Last week: 3)
2. Draymond Green, Golden State Warriors (Last week: 2)
1. Evan Mobley, Cleveland Cavaliers (Last week: 1)

I know people continue to talk about Green taking over the race or becoming the betting favorite. I don’t know how the entirety of the season still doesn’t point to Mobley as the best and most consistent case for the award.

Green is a fine selection, and he’s always one of the top defensive players. He still needs to play in four of the final seven games for the Warriors to make sure he qualifies, but that shouldn’t be a problem. I’m having a little bit of a problem with the third spot, though. Jackson and Dort have a really good case for unseating Daniels, who has consistently been in that top three in this space. Dort has recently been third in the betting odds.

Rookie of the Year

Two honorable mentions: Alex Sarr, Washington Wizards | Zach Edey, Memphis Grizzlies

3. Jaylen Wells, Memphis Grizzlies (Last week: 2)
2. Zaccharie Risacher, Atlanta Hawks (Last week: honorable mention)
1. Stephon Castle, San Antonio Spurs (Last week: 1)

Risacher, last June’s No. 1 pick, had a very good February and a great March to put himself into the top three of a lot of ballots. He’s currently second in betting odds. With the way Wells has struggled in the last month or so and the way Castle has surged, it feels like this is going to the Spurs rookie. That’ll give them back-to-back Rookie of the Year winners. That last happened in 2015 and 2016 when Andrew Wiggins (2015) and Karl-Anthony Towns (2016) won the award for Minnesota.

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Sixth Man of the Year

Two honorable mentions: Naz Reid, Minnesota Timberwolves | De’Andre Hunter, Cleveland Cavaliers

3. Ty Jerome, Cleveland Cavaliers (Last week: honorable mention)
2. Malik Beasley, Detroit Pistons (Last week: 2)
1. Payton Pritchard, Boston Celtics (Last week: 1)

The more I think about it, the more I value Jerome’s contribution to the Cavs all season over what Hunter did in splitting time between the Hawks and Cavs. It’s splitting hairs, and Hunter has been great. I just think Jerome deserves more recognition in this role, especially in the times when he’s replacing Mitchell or Darius Garland on the floor. He’s having to keep the level of play much higher to prevent a bigger drop-off. It doesn’t really matter, though, because Pritchard will come close to unanimously winning this.

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Coach of the Year

Two honorable mentions: Mark Daigneault, Oklahoma City Thunder | Ty Lue, LA Clippers

3.  Ime Udoka, Houston Rockets (Last week: 3)
2. Kenny Atkinson, Cleveland Cavaliers (Last week: 1)
1. J.B. Bickerstaff, Detroit Pistons (Last week: 2)

I continue to flip-flop on this ballot. How do you keep Daigneault off the top three when his team is approaching 70 wins? How would you keep Udoka away when he’s led a young Rockets squad from a team that didn’t make the Play-In to one that will probably end up as the No. 2 seed? And then, when it gets to the winner, I’ve found the disparity between Bickerstaff and Atkinson puzzling.

Atkinson has taken a good Cavs team that was seemingly unraveling at the end of last season due to redundancy at certain positions and injuries and led them to the best record in the East. They’ve been historically good. Bickerstaff took over a historically bad team from last year, and with the additions of Tobias Harris and Malik Beasley, he’s turned them into a team battling for the No. 4 seed in the East. The Pistons have tripled their win total from last year and then some. Both seem to have great cases.

Most Improved Player

Two honorable mentions: Dyson Daniels, Atlanta Hawks | Payton Pritchard, Boston Celtics

3. Evan Mobley, Cleveland Cavaliers (Last week: 2)
2. Cade Cunningham, Detroit Pistons (Last week: 1)
1. Ivica Zubac, LA Clippers (Last week: 3)

I’ve talked myself into it being ridiculous that Zubac is not heavily in this conversation. He’s become a stabilizing force in the Clippers offense and not just some safety valve to dump the ball to. He’s become a much better playmaker for his teammates while not increasing his turnover rate. He’s done all this without the consistent presence of a star to help him. I know Cunningham will probably win, and maybe he should. But Zubac has also improved a lot, and that improvement is the reason the Clippers didn’t bottom-out.

(Top photo: Ken Blaze / USA Today Network via Imagn Images)

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