The first week of March was sure exciting in the NBA. Here are the front-runners for the major six NBA awards in this week’s NBA Award Watch.
All 30 NBA teams have played somewhere between 62 to 65 of their regular season games. Only the Brooklyn Nets have officially been eliminated from playoff contention, but others will soon follow. The playoff races are in full effect, as are the many awards races across this great sport.
Some awards are more highly contested than others. Often times, the front-runner changes week-to-week. Exciting times are to be had in the NBA, as we’ve cruised through the first week of March.
Here are the front-runners for the major six awards in this week’s NBA Award Watch.
Most Valuable Player: Kawhi Leonard
After seeing Stephen Curry run away with the honors the last two years, it seems that NBA MVP will be more up for grabs that it has in recent memory. There are a handful of viable candidates, but one guy really left his indelible mark on Monday.
San Antonio Spurs small forward Kawhi Leonard was so good at basketball against the Houston Rockets that he had to be randomly drug tested after the game. While the test was actually purely it was purely coincidental, Leonard’s candidacy for NBA MVP isn’t a laugher matter, even if he struggled to pee after the game because he was dehydrated from beating the Rockets.
Leonard is second in the NBA in PER at 28.6, third in Win Shares at 11.3, fourth in Box Plus-Minus at 8.3, and fifth in Value Over Replacement Player at 5.0. To say that advance metrics love Leonard this season would be an understatement.
He’s not putting together the most riveting highlight reel, but Leonard is pure efficiency for San Antonio. With the Golden State Warriors’ stranglehold on the top seed in the Western Conference slipping, don’t be shocked if Leonard wins MVP as the best player on the first-place Spurs at season’s end. Until then, he’s your NBA MVPee.