Zach Lowe: NBA Awards

[B-Roy]

http://espn.go.com/nba/story/_/id/15186679/nba-awards-ballot-part-1

A lot of Blazer love from probably the best writer of the NBA.

COACH OF THE YEAR
1. Steve Kerr
2. Gregg Popovich
3. Terry Stotts

MOST IMPROVED PLAYER
1. C.J. McCollum
2. Kemba Walker
3. Ian Mahinmi

SIXTH MAN OF THE YEAR
1. Andre Iguodala
2. Will Barton
3. Ed Davis

Davis' 21 minutes drove Portland toward the unexpected. Thompson has been great, but the Cavs would have finished first or second in the East even if he had held out the whole season. Davis has better stats across the board: 61 percent from the floor as a basket vulture, the fourth-best offensive rebounding rate in the league and much better rim protection numbers.
He has been Portland's best big man; he plays a lot of crunch time, and has stepped into an even more important role with Meyers Leonard hurt and Noah Vonleh fading. When Terry Stotts asked Davis to defend power forwards so that Leonard could hang closer to the hoop against centers, Davis accepted the shift out of position -- and busted his butt to make it work.
There are too many six-point, five-rebound nights for Davis to win this award, but he deserves a hard look.

I've been listening and reading around and Ed Davis is going to get some serious consideration for 6MOTY. He's not going to win of course, but I wouldn't be surprised to see him finish top 5. Good stuff.

 

[BlazerCaravan]

Great stuff; at least one of our players/staff/front office should be top 3-5 in voting for dang near every award category. CJ for MIP, Dame for All-NBA, Ed for 6MOY, Stotts for COY, Neil for EOY.

 

[Natebishop3]

I get why Kerr is going to get it.... but man he doesn't deserve it. He only coached half the year.

 

[Strenuus]

I get why Kerr is going to get it.... but man he doesn't deserve it. He only coached half the year.

NBA narrative > actual coaching.

 

[Duckhook]

I love seeing Lillard on his 3rd team all-league pick. Where's LMA? And also love seeing Ed Davis on the 6th man list!

 

[rasheedfan2005]

I hope lillard is the only all nba player that wasnt an all star.

 

[Sinobas]

Come on, Stotts deserves coach of the year, just because of how much this team exceeded expectations. Sometimes it seems like he's doing weird things with his defense and personell choices, but this team was a couple of freak plays away from a 50 win season. Doubling what national pundits predicted.

 

[Minstrel]

I get why Kerr is going to get it.... but man he doesn't deserve it. He only coached half the year.

He was still around the team a lot during his official coaching absence, when they weren't on the road. And it's not like it was Luke Walton's system. Kerr probably should have won it last year, so giving him credit for this year's team seems fine to me.