2021 NBA awards: Final picks for All-NBA, All-Defensive and All-Rookie teams

All-NBA First Team

• Stephen Curry, Golden State Warriors
• Damian Lillard, Portland Trail Blazers
• Luka Doncic, Dallas Mavericks
• Giannis Antetokounmpo, Milwaukee Bucks
• Nikola Jokic, Denver Nuggets

If not for the positional designations on these All-NBA teams, Embiid would be First Team, and one of Damian Lillard or Luka Doncic would be bumped down. Fortunately, we don’t even have to engage in the Luka vs. Dame debate. Instead, we can just celebrate them alongside Stephen Curry as three fringe MVP candidates putting up impossible numbers for teams that aren’t expected to contend for titles in the loaded Western Conference.

While their lack of team success holds them back in the MVP conversation, they’re all more than worthy of an All-NBA First Team bid. Curry averaging a league-leading 32.0 points, 5.8 assists and 5.5 rebounds per game and nearly posting 50-40-90 splits despite being his team’s only offensive weapon, constantly getting double-teamed and attempting a career-high 12.7 3-pointers per game — in his age-33 season, no less! — was patently absurd. He was nightly, mandatory viewing, and the Golden State Warriors would’ve been bottom-feeders without him.

Lillard was not quite on that level, but he was almost as disrespectful to opponents’ defensive schemes. Dame put up 28.8 points, 7.5 assists and 4.2 rebounds per game while knocking down 39.1 percent of his 10.5 long-range attempts per game. Despite his team’s meager plus-1.8 point differential, the Portland Trail Blazers finished 12 games above .500, almost solely because of how deadly their superstar was in the clutch. Lillard led the league with 162 points in crunch-time (12 more than the next-closest player), shot .511/.391/.947 in those scenarios and carried the Blazers to a 24-13 record in the clutch — fourth-best in the NBA.

Doncic wasn’t as dominant down the stretch, but much like Lillard carried his Blazers for long stretches without CJ McCollum and Jusuf Nurkic, the Dallas Mavericks star carried his team to the 5-seed in the West despite Kristaps Porzingis (29 games missed), Josh Richardson (13) and Dwight Powell (14) being out for significant time. Dame’s best teammates missed more games, but it relatively evens out since Doncic’s supporting cast is not quite as good. In any case, Luka putting up a 28-9-8 stat line while improving his 3-point touch in just his third season proves he’s on an MVP trajectory, and he’ll probably become the next player to average a triple-double after Oscar Robertson and Russell Westbrook.

In the frontcourt, Giannis Antetokounmpo is a top-three MVP candidate. If anyone could average 28.1 points, 11.0 rebounds, 5.9 assists, 1.2 blocks and 1.2 steals per game on 56.9 percent shooting for a title contender and have it fly under the radar, it’s the Greek Freak. But even if voter fatigue (and voter remorse, after watching his Milwaukee Bucks flame out twice in the playoffs) is a real thing in the MVP conversation, that shouldn’t hold him back in the All-NBA debate. He’s the best player on both ends of the floor for a Bucks squad that’s top-10 in both offensive and defensive rating.

Finally, there’s Nikola Jokic. It’d be silly to leave the MVP frontrunner off the First Team, and it’d be even sillier to listen to anyone making a serious MVP case for anyone but Jokic. Sometimes the talking heads crave debate and controversy, and when the race for such a major award is so cut and dry, they feel the need to conjure some up. That’s fine. It doesn’t change the fact that Jokic had a historically good season and is the runaway favorite for MVP, which makes him a no-brainer for First Team honors.

Averaging 26.4 points, 10.8 rebounds and 8.3 assists per game, the Joker ranked 13th in the league in scoring, seventh in assists and 10th in rebounds. If that wasn’t well-rounded enough for you, he also finished first in (deep breath) Player Efficiency Rating, win shares, offensive win shares, Box Plus/Minus and Value Over Replacement Player.

The fact that he improved as a defender, accounted for eight assists a night as a seven-footer and led the Denver Nuggets to a top-three seed in the loaded Western Conference is remarkable, and it becomes doubly so when one realizes he’s done all that despite the Nuggets’ rash of injuries. Michael Porter Jr. (11 missed games), Will Barton (16), Paul Millsap (16), Jamal Murray (24) and Monte Morris (25) all missed considerable time. The key to overcoming it was not only his superb play, but his availability — a category where he washed almost everyone else away by playing all 72 games. No need to overthink this one.