The NBA season is almost at an end, which means the voting will soon start on the NBA\u2019s major awards. Some of the awards like the MVP, Sixth Man of the Year, and Rookie of the Year seem somewhat settled, but many could still be determined in the last few games of the season. Let’s take a look at the favorites for each award as the season winds down.<\/p>\n
This season\u2019s MVP race was a good one. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander<\/a> and Nikola Jokic<\/a> have been going head-to-head for the award for almost the entire season. However, over the last few weeks, SGA has taken the lead and, according to FanDuel, is now a -4000 favorite to get his first MVP award. Jokic still has a chance at +1000, but SGA\u2019s case will be hard to beat. He’s averaging 32.8 points, 6.3 assists, five rebounds, 1.7 steals, and a block per game, all while shooting over 50% from the field. Above all, he is leading the Thunder to one of the best regular seasons in league history. It’s possible being a three-time MVP hurts Jokic’s case nevertheless SGA is a deserving MVP.<\/span><\/p>\n The Rookie of the Year award and Sixth Man of the Year award also have strong favorites. Right now, Stephon Castle<\/a> is the -1500 favorite to win ROTY, with Zaccharie\u00a0Risacher<\/a> and Alex Sarr<\/a> (+1200) tied for second. Payton Pritchard<\/a>\u00a0is -1200 to win Sixth Man, and Malik Beasley<\/a> (+600) is next up. Unless a major injury or unbelievable hot streak from one of their competitors happens in the last few games, Castle and Pritchard should have these awards locked up.<\/p>\n The Defensive Player of the Year race is probably the most interesting one remaining. Draymond Green<\/a> has made a late-season surge; he is now favored -320 to grab his second career DPOY trophy. He leads Evan Mobley<\/a>, who is +380. Mobley was the DPOY favorite after Victor Wembanyama<\/a> got injured, however, Green has surpassed him recently. This award will likely come down to the last few games of the season as Green is fighting with the Warriors for playoff positioning, while the Cavaliers may prioritize ending their season healthy and ready for a deep playoff run. Green also has the fact that he has been the runner-up for the award multiple times, helping his case.<\/p>\n The NBA\u2019s Most Improved Player Award doesn\u2019t always make sense. When players like Ja Morant<\/a> or Brandon Ingram <\/a>win the award, you ask yourself, weren\u2019t they expected to make leaps as top draft picks? Cade Cunningham<\/a> (a former No.1 \u00a0overall pick) has been favored for most of the year, however, he now sits in second place with +170 odds.\u00a0Dyson Daniels<\/a>\u00a0is the MIP leader with -250 odds, he has improved his scoring from 5.8 points per game to 14.2 and is dominating the league on the defensive end. Daniels\u2019 improvement has been unbelievable, and although Cunningham may be having a more impressive season overall, the high expectations of a number one overall pick lessen his case. Cunningham is also dealing with a calf injury now. Missed games could be the difference between him or Daniels grabbing the award.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Photo credit: \u00a9 Ron Chenoy-Imagn Images<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The NBA season is almost at an end, which means the voting will soon start on the NBA\u2019s major awards. Some of the awards like the MVP, Sixth Man of the Year, and Rookie of the Year seem somewhat settled, but many could still be determined in the last few games of the season. Let’s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5284,"featured_media":132189,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"1","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1608,4,5,9,20,25,62,22],"tags":[3965,409,4605,3966,72,1489,49264],"class_list":["post-132166","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-basketball","category-hawks","category-celtics","category-cavaliers","category-nuggets","category-warriors","category-nba","category-thunder","tag-cade-cunningham","tag-draymond-green","tag-dyson-daniels","tag-evan-mobley","tag-nikola-jokic","tag-shai-gilgeous-alexander","tag-stephon-castle"],"modified_by":"Michael Kovacs, ADMIN","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/132166","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5284"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=132166"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/132166\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":180966,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/132166\/revisions\/180966"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/132189"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=132166"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=132166"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=132166"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Rookie of the Year and Sixth Man of the Year Have Clear Favorites<\/h3>\n
The DPOY Race is Tight<\/b><\/h3>\n
Most Improved Player is a Legit Race<\/b><\/h3>\n