NBA Award Watch: Curry, Griffin and Oladipo headline the honors
With Week 2 in the books, we’re handing out awards to players for their amazing performances, showcasing different skills — on and off the court.
Two weeks into the NBA season, you couldn’t have convinced me that the Memphis Grizzlies would be the No. 1 seed in the West and the Boston Celtics would be the No. 1 seed in the East. Both teams are playing fantastic basketball and have found themselves with early season success.
Numerous other players and coaches have done the same and that’s what we’re evaluating in the #NBAAwardWatch column. Before we get to dishing out the honors, let me introduce the various awards we’ll be handing out this year.
In this weekly column, I’ll start to hand out awards based on the performances of the previous week. Obviously, some weeks I’ll take a look at the major NBA honors, including MVP, Defensive Player of the Year, Rookie of the Year, Sixth Man of the Year, Coach of the Year, Most Improved Player and Executive of the Year. Other than these usual honors, I’ll also hand out awards for the Best Dunk, Dazzling Dime, Perfect Play, Fantastic Fashion and Terrific Tweet.
Let’s go ahead and select winners for the first week in the #NBAAwardWatch.
Most Improved Player — Victor Oladipo
Remember on NBA Draft night when Paul George was traded for a bag of peanuts? In those bag of peanuts was Domantas Sabonis and more importantly Victor Oladipo.
A once highly touted college player, Oladipo was drafted in the first round by the Orlando Magic. Not finding much success in his original home, the Magic shipped him to Oklahoma City, where the two-guard didn’t shine alongside Russell Westbrook.
Last season, Oladipo averaged 15.9 points, 4.3 rebounds and 2.6 assists per game. While it’s only been six games, the former Thunder guard has been stellar. He’s upped his averages to 25.5 points, 4.5 rebounds and 3.2 assists per game.
His field goal percentage has improved by six percentage points and his 3-point percentage has improved by 10 percentage points. All of a sudden, folks in Indianapolis are starting to forget that they had Paul George due to the play of Oladipo.
Typically, this is an award that’s handed out to players that return from injury and prevail, but I’m handing it out to a player that’s had a rough season and has truly improved his game in the offseason. Oladipo will need to keep this up for the next 70 or so games, but he’s off to a blazing start.