NBA awards: Expert picks for MVP, Defensive Player, Rookie of the Year, more with no unanimous selections

Before the 2025 playoffs get started in the NBA, we’re going to take a moment to look back at the regular season and who was deserving of hardware for their work over the last six months. In a good year, there might three exciting awards races by the time we reach April in the NBA. There are often one or two. It’s a function of the 82-game season. Favorites tend to pull away from the pack by the end of the season. Think back to last season. The first-place finishers for MVP (Nikola Jokić), Rookie of the Year (Victor Wembanyama), Defensive Player of the Year (Rudy Gobert) and Coach of the Year (Mark Daigneault) all received at least 72 of the 100 available first-place votes. The only close races were for Sixth Man of the Year, Most Improved Player and Clutch Player of the Year.

But this year? If there are easy picks out there, well, they are certainly harder to find. Jokić and Shai Gilgeous-Alexander have spent the season locked into one of the best MVP races in years — though SGA ended the season as a heavy favorite at most sportsbooks.

Wembanyama’s absence created perhaps the most open Defensive Player of the Year race we’ve ever seen. The absence of  Wembanyama-level prospect has done the same for Rookie of the Year. Half of the league has a plausible Coach of the Year case.

Nobody is running away with anything this year. Every award was plausibly in play through the end of the regular season. The NBA will start announcing winners as the playoffs progress, but for now, the CBS Sports NBA staff has voted on our picks for this year’s awards. Considering how close these races are, though, these picks can’t be treated as gospel. There will be some surprises in the coming weeks. Most of the suspense in the NBA over the next two months will come on the court as the best teams duke it out for the championship, but there’s more than enough left over for this year’s batch of individual trophies.

MVP

So that’s four votes for SGA and three for Jokić. Is this a sign of how the actual vote is going to play out? The MVP race has had no wrong choice this whole season. Gilgeous-Alexander was the catalyst for the league’s best team. He averaged 32.7 points, 6.4 assists and five rebounds per game with 51.9/37.5/89.8 shooting splits and strong defense on a team that won 68 games. Jokić became the first center to average a triple-double (29.6 points, 12.7 rebounds and 10.2 assists) and statistically had his best season in a career that has already seen him with MVP honors three times.

Defensive Player of the Year

Four different players get votes in an award that could go any direction. This award was Wembanyama’s until a blood clot forced him to miss the final six weeks of the season and kept him below the 65-game threshold. Green emerged as the favorite late in the season, while Mobley was a defensive anchor on the East’s best team all season long. Green’s Warriors and Mobley’s Cavs ranked seventh and eighth, respectively, in defensive rating this season.

Rookie of the Year

Rookie of the Year turned into a two-player race by the end of the season. Castle got better as the season progressed for the Spurs, averaging more than 19 points and five assists per game in March and April. Wells averaged 10.4 points and 3.4 rebounds while playing 26 minutes per night for a Grizzlies team that was in the postseason hunt all season long. Wells, unfortunately, saw his rookie season end early last week after fracturing his wrist on a hard fall.

Sixth Man of the Year

Pritchard, of the reigning champion Celtics, scored 14.3 points and hit 40.7% of his 3s off the bench for Boston this season. He was the frontrunner for most of the year. Beasley, meanwhile, was a big part of the Pistons’ turnaround. He averaged 16.3 points per game and hit a 319 3-pointers, the second-most in the league behind Anthony Edwards.

Most Improved Player

Another 4-3 split in our voting, this time between the Hawks’ breakout guard and the veteran Clippers big man. Both players figure to make All-Defense Teams this season. Daniels, the “Great Barrier Thief,” led the league in steals (229) while scoring 14.1 points per game (up from 5.8 last season for the Pelicans). Zubac, meanwhile, averaged 16.8 points and 12.6 rebounds per game — both career highs — and was a major reason why the Clippers stayed steady without Kawhi Leonard for most of the season and earned the West’s No. 5 seed.

Clutch Player of the Year

Brunson and Jokić were the NBA’s two best clutch players all season. Brunson led all players with 5.6 points per game in clutch situations. Jokić averaged 4.2 points per game in clutch situations and made 42.9% of his 3s.

Coach of the Year

Atkinson gets the majority of our votes for turning the Cavs into a regular-season powerhouse who won 64 games and cruised to the East’s No. 1 seed. Udoka and Lue, who coached some Western Conference surprises, also get some love here. Udoka led the Rockets to the West’s No. 2 seed and 52 wins after Houston missed the postseason last year. Lue guided the Clippers to the No. 5 seed after they let Paul George walk in the offseason and played most of the campaign without Kawhi Leonard.

Executive of the Year

Nearly a clean sweep for Presti, the architect of Oklahoma City’s transformation into Western Conference juggernaut. Presti added Isaiah Hartenstein and Alex Caruso to OKC’s roster over the summer, and the Thunder look like even more of a title threat this season. Pelinka, meanwhile, was part of the most stunning trade in NBA history. Even if the Luka Donçić deal is more about Nico Harrison and the Mavericks trading their superstar in his prime, Pelinka still got the deal done and changed the Lakers’ short- and long-term futures in the process.