Ladies and Gentleman, welcome to the most prestigious event of the basketball award’s season calendar, I am certainly glad to have you. If you were lucky enough to be a part of last year’s events, first of all thank you and I love you. Secondly, hopefully you remember how these things work. If you were not part of the 1st Annual Hooper’s Choice Awards, you can catch up here.
Each year that I watch basketball, it seems more and more difficult to be able to come to these kinds of decisions. All of the people that are going to be mentioned in this article are deserving of some recognition for what they have done over the course of this year. Unfortunately, I am not a fan of players sharing awards, so there must only be one. With that being said, let’s get into it.
The Coach Carter Award
Coach Carter fundamentally changed that Richmond squad by changing the culture, and not just by winning a lot of games. That’s who I determine is the winner of this award. Winning matters, absolutely, but it isn’t the only thing; it’s more nuanced than that. How you empower your players, decimating the expectations put on you from the season prior, and how you win the games are all factors for this award. That is why Detroit Piston’s Coach J.B. Bickerstaff gets the nod this year.
I’ve kind of weaseled my way into the Pistons fandom this year for my undying love of Cade Cunningham, and for what I believe in my heart Jaden Ivey will become one day. Even after I watched the Pistons lose 28 straight (!!!) games last year, I never doubted what those two could be. So you could only imagine my anguish when Ivey went down after 30ish games in the season. I thought this team was toast. I thought this team (after going 14–18 to end December) would have plummeted right to the #1 pick because I assumed that was the start of the wheels falling off. Then they go and TRIPLE their win total from last year. Part of that has to do with the superstar play of Cade Cunningham. Part of that has to do with the efforts of Malik Beasley off the bench (more on that later.) Both deserve a huge part of the praise for the turnaround of the Pistons, but no one deserves it more than J.B. Bickerstaff.
After unceremoniously being fired from the Cavaliers last year for “under-performing,” a lot of people assumed that this would be J.B.’s last stop prior to him never coaching again. Now I think it’s safe to say that J.B. will have a coaching gig as long as he wants. You can see how much he loves the city, how much his players love him, and how he can pull through in the coaching trenches when Detroit needs it most. Without J.B. I don’t think we see this good of a Cade Cunningham. I don’t think we see this supernova of a bench performer in Malik Beasley. I also don’t think that the Pistons could have been able to avoid the play-in completely without J.B. at the helm. He changed the culture in Detroit for the better, and I think that the Pistons will be a problem for a very long time in part due to his effort.
2nd: Ime Udoka, Houston Rockets
3rd: Tyronn Lue, Los Angeles Clippers
The Up NXT Award
I’ve personally never cared for the Most Improved Player Award. It was always a bit too subjective for me. Sometimes it goes to a guy who is a former 2nd overall pick, even though we all expect him to be a superstar. That doesn’t scream “Improved” to me. So we have The Up NXT Award, for someone who we didn’t expect to be here. Sure, maybe you are a former lottery pick but the world has forgotten about you. Maybe you’re a 2nd round pick who spent a lot of time in the G-League before making a splash. Or maybe you’re even an undrafted guy taking the league by storm. So the question this year is: who’s Up NXT?
There are a lot of good candidates this year. Hell, the Trailblazers have TWO candidates for this award. I truthfully had a very difficult time coming up with my top 3, but for me and my money, the player who deserves it the most is Toumani Camara from the aforementioned Trailblazers.
What a story. The 52nd overall pick form the 2023 NBA draft, played decent minutes last year, but never made it to the national stage. After this year, Toumani is on EVERYONE’S scouting report. I’ll undoubtedly do a disservice to what he brings to that team, but if you’re interested, Thinking Basketball did a fantastic video describing what he can bring to the table.
The defensive counting stats won’t scream DPOY or anything like that, but they certainly are respectable for a second year player: 1.5 steals, 0.6 blocks, 5.8 rebounds. His advanced stats though? WAY better than your average 52nd overall pick. 115 defensive rating, 2.6 defensive win share, and a 0.8 defensive box +/-, which should be considered impressive once you remember that the Trailblazers lost 46 games this year.
Of course, basketball isn’t played in the stat sheet, and Toumani passes the eye test. I’m not sure that he’ll ever win a DPOY; I think that his style of defense won’t exactly pop for the media voters, but sooner or later, I’m sure he’ll end up on either the Lockdown or the God of War list for my personal awards. There is nothing to dislike about his defense. Great help side defender, great chase down artist, great “back seat” shot blocker. Not only that, he’s one of a handful of guys who can truly guard 1–5. I’ve seen this guy give Jokic hell, make sure Damian Lillard has nightmares, and make LeBron think about his mortality all in the span of a couple of weeks.
If, hopefully when, the Trailblazers are ready to take the leap back to serious basketball, I hope that Toumani is on that team. He reminds me so much of guys like Pippen, Kawhi, and Metta World Peace on the defensive end. Will he ever reach those heights? I don’t know, but this early on in his career is promising. Those are very big shoes to fill, but I think he’ll be up for the challenge eventually.
2nd: Deni Avdija, Portland Trailblazers
3rd: Ivaca Zubac, Los Angeles Clippers
The New Kid on the Block Award
You know, for this draft class being considered “weak,” people sure are split on who should win the Rookie of the Year Award. I always thought that this draft class would have had a lot of role players, and a couple of gems, and so far that seems to be correct.
Last year, I went against the grain and gave this award to Chet Holmgren instead of Victor Wembanyama, much to the chagrin of my discord friends (join the discord we have a lot of fun.) This award isn’t for who I think will have the better career, even though sometimes I do think it’ll end up that way. It is for the Rookie who had the better season, and in my view, no one had a better rookie season than Stephon Castle.
Counting stats check out: 14.7 PPG, 3.7 RPG, 4.1 APG, with 0.9 SPG to boot. Certainly not as efficient as I would like him to be, but I think that’ll come with time.
I’ll go ahead and spoil it, the other two I had on my short list are Zaccharie Risacher and Alex Sarr. I think both of them are going to be great, for the record, and the stats back it up:
Risacher: 12.6/3.6/1.2 on 45/35/71 shooting splits
Sarr: 13/6.5/2.4 on 39/30/67 shooting splits
Risacher will surely end up being the more efficient player, and Sarr is already and will continue to be the better defender, maybe the best defender of the class. The one thing that both of these guys have had that Stephon Castle didn’t was an opportunity.
Steph Castle gets drafted to the San Antonio Spurs, and when I heard that I almost jumped out of my seat. I admittedly love all UCONN players, and Steph Castle is no different. I have seen the future of the league and it is Area 51. The further we got into the season, however, the more I realized that he was going to be facing an uphill battle. The Spurs brought in the Point God, Chris Paul. Makes sense to me, he’d be a tremendous help to Wemby and his growth. At that point, I figured that eventually Steph would take the reins over from Chris Paul, and be the starting PG of the future. THEN the Spurs go out and get De’Aaron Fox, and that complicated things. Sooner or later Wemby goes out with DVT, and then Fox decided to get surgery. FINALLY, it’s Castle’s time to shine, and shine he has.
He’s been able to have as good of a season as the other two, while starting significantly less games. Risacher started 73, Sarr started all 67 games he played, while Castle started only 47. To be stuck behind one of the greatest PGs of all time, and then be stuck behind an All-Star kind of PG, all while being able to make your mark when it matters is special. Stephon Castle may never reach the SGA heights that I predicted him to, but he certainly will be a great player in the league, and he’s this year New Kid on the Block.
2nd: Zaccharie Risacher, Atlanta Hawks
3rd: Alex Sarr, Washington Wizards
The Super 6 Award
Boy do I love bench guys. From who I watch on highlights or during the game, to who I try to be when I play a 2K MyCareer, I appreciate the guys who hold it down when the starters leave the floor. Sometimes I think it’s harder than being a starter. Not only from the ego perspective, but also you don’t get a chance to get warm or make mistakes; you’re thrown into a situation and you have to react accordingly. The Super 6 Award has a special place in my heart. There aren’t a ton of awards that I think I have a similar mindset for when compared to the rest of the field, but I view this award the same way I do The King of the Court Award: what would your team be without this player?
I told you that you’d see his name again later, and Malik Beasley is my guy for this award. It’s really easy to be a good bench player on a good team, I believe. Sometimes players get a rub just because they’re on a 60 win team, and I don’t think that this award, or Malik, exemplifies that. Again, Cade and J.B. also deserve a lot of credit for what the Pistons have done this year, but Malik changed the outlook of that team for the better.
It starts when he signs for a 1yr/$6M contract. I thought FOR SURE he could have signed for more money, or at least the same money in a better situation. I mean, this team lost 28 (!!!) games in a row last year. Why would you want to go there?
Then Jaden Ivey goes down. You could have EASILY pushed for a starting job after JI went down, but to stick to your guns and want to produce on the bench for the betterment of the team takes a lot of guts. Much like last year’s winner Russell Westbrook, I’m not sure this team works as well as it does if Malik pulls the veteran card and becomes a starter. Maybe it messes up the flow, or maybe the ego rubs the people the wrong way. It very easily could have been detrimental to the Pistons season.
All of those qualities would have had him in contention for the award; what put him over the edge is the fact that he’s been on an absolute HEATER this year. Malik played all 82 games this year, only starting 18, and averaged 16.3 PPG, shot 41.6% from 3, oh and just a little flex, made the 8th most 3’s by a player in a season with 319, and it should not come as a shock that it’s the highest amount by a bench player ever.
Malik certainly has made a name for himself in Detroit. He’s got 313 ties, and it seems like the city has taken to him. I’d be very surprised if he doesn’t get a lucrative multi-year deal after this. If he does, much like this award, it is very clearly deserved.
2nd: Naz Reid, Minnesota Timberwolves
3rd: Payton Pritchard, Boston Celtics
The Lockdown Award
Since the dawn of time, the NBA has almost required the presence of a big who can protect the paint. The job description has changed over the years, but you would be hard pressed to find a successful team who didn’t have that type of player. Ben Wallace, Dwight Howard, Hakeem Olajuwon, and Bill Russell are guys who come to mind immediately. Then over time the job description, and the player mold, changed a bit. We start to see guys like Draymond Green come in and be able to guard 1–5, then guys like Anthony Davis and Bam Adebayo follow his style. The game has changed, but the need for a player like that has not. You need a QB for the defense; someone to take charge and build a defensive philosophy around, and that’s what it means to be a Lockdown.
I’d like to consider myself as a pretty unbiased person: sure, I have my favorite teams and players, but if someone is balling out, I have the ability to acknowledge that. Luckily for me, sometimes the stars align and a player I really enjoy also earns a spot at the top of an award list, and that is the case this year with Evan Mobley.
I love E-Mob. I have for a really long time. I personally believe if Wemby and Chet Holmgren didn’t exist, we’d all be talking about Evan Mobley like we do those two, just from the defensive perspective. He SMOTHERS people. He’s one of 3–5 guys in the entire world that you’d rather take any other shot in the world if he’s guarding you. 1.6 blocks, 0.9 steals, and 9.3 rebounds a game surely check the boxes for the casual viewer, but he’s very much the QB for that Cavaliers defense.
I will jump in front of this and say that the Cavs have not had a great case defensively as a team since the turn of the new year, and even after that, they are 7th in opponent’s point in the paint and 4th in points off turnovers. I’d like to shout out Jarrett Allen and Deandre Hunter, because they are obviously a big part of the story there, but I think this team looks very different if E-Mob isn’t doing Lockdown things. I didn’t even mention the fact that Mobley has flourished offensively as well this year. He’s having a fantastic year, and he needs to be recognized for that, so he is this year’s Lockdown Award winner.
2nd, Jaren Jackson Jr., Memphis Grizzlies
3rd: Ivaca Zubac, Los Angeles Clippers
The God of War Award
The thing I value the most in a defender is being able to guard 1–5. That has to be the single most valuable skill you can have on that side of the ball. It’s something that every defender should strive to be, and yet there are so few of them.
There are plenty of specialists, but the most dangerous defenders can guard Steph Curry, LeBron James, and Nikola Jokic in the same week. Sure, they won’t be able to stop them per say, but to be able to hold your own is what gets you the God of War moniker. There are a handful of guys who could possibly do it, but to me, Amen Thompson has really shown that he’ll end up being the archetype of defenders for years to come.
8.2 RPG, 1.4 SPG, and 1.3 BPG is what pops out of the box score to me. Even if you don’t watch any Rockets games at all during the year, you could see these stats and say “yep, that’s a good defender.” The advanced stats do as well. 108 Defensive Rating, 3.9 Defensive Win Shares, and a 2.6 Defensive Box +/- for the young defensive phenom.
Sooner or later, we will start to see every NBA team desire a player archetype like Amen Thompson. We will very soon see the future of defending, and when every team has a super athletic, do-it-all forward who can defend 1–5, we are in for some really fun basketball.
2nd: Dyson Daniels, Atlanta Hawks,
3rd: Ausar Thompson, Detroit Pistons
2 Hard 2 Guard Award
*NEW AWARD ALERT! NEW AWARD ALERT!*
Some of you may know that I also do video content on YouTube, and the reason we have a new award is that I was doing some research for a video. I’ve gone back through the last 40 years of MVP voting to determine each season’s Offensive Player of the Year. At the time of writing this piece, that video is not live yet, but once it is, you can click on the hyperlink (here), or you can subscribe to my YouTube channel in the links below when that video gets published.
Now, how did I determine this? How did I go back through all of those seasons and find a definitive Offensive Player of the Year, or in this case, a 2 Hard 2 Guard winner? A lot of math.
This is my formula, and I’ll break it down real quick but these stats just made sense to me to quantify them as the best offensive metrics to use.
PRA: a total average number of points, rebounds, and assists for the season. Some people will argue that rebounds are defensive stats, and while I used them in defensive arguments above, I don’t think they are. I just think they are neutral stats.
ORT: offensive rating is an estimate of points produced by a player per 100 possessions. It’s been a metric for a very long time to view if a player is having a good offensive season.
TS%: A lot of people will still use eFG%, and I won’t cause a big stink about it, but I think that true shooting is the better metric, because TS% factors in a player’s free throw attempts and success rate. Whether we like it or not, free throws are part of the game, and the best offensive players in the world get to the line.
OWS: offensive win share is an estimate of a number of wins contributed by a player’s offense, which is also used to determine a successful offensive player.
OBPM: offensive box plus/minus is a box score estimate of the offensive points per 100 possessions a player contributed above a league-average player, translated to an average team.
Divide that total number by 5, and we get what I call the Roundball Range (patent pending), and that determines the winner.
Now, I should note that for this year due to the timing of this writing, I am using an “unofficial list.” For that video I’m working on, I used the MVP voting list. This year, since the list hasn’t been made official yet, I am using the Kia MVP Ladder, and potentially taking some liberties if someone in the top 10 doesn’t exemplify the spirit of the award (Rudy Gobert when he was in MVP conversations.)
It should be a surprise to absolutely zero people that Nikola Jokic is the winner this year. Very easily the best offensive season we have ever seen. Not only has he had the greatest offensive season, he’s had the highest number in multiple categories if not this year, then the last four years (in which he unsurprisingly also won the award all four years.)
52.5 PRA, 133 ORT, 66.3 TS%, 12.7 OWS, 9.9 OBPM for a 54.88 Roundball Range (highest of all-time.) Truly incredible. I don’t have any other words for it. We are witnessing the greatest offensive peak that the game has EVER seen, including the likes of Michael Jordan and Wilt Chamberlain. We should consider ourselves incredibly lucky to be a part of history.
2nd: Giannis Antetokounmpo, Milwaukee Bucks
3rd: Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Oklahoma City Thunder
The King of the Court Award
Part of the reason I added the 2 Hard 2 Guard Award is because I believe that there is a difference between being the best offensive player (or the best player in the world) and being the “most valuable.”
If there isn’t a difference, then Michael Jordan would have 10 MVPs, same with LeBron. You could make an argument that Jokic should have won the last 7 MVP awards. There is a difference, and that’s why we have to ask the question I keep coming back to: what would this team be without this player?
That’s why Shai Gilgeous-Alexander is my King of the Court.
If you disagree and say Jokic, or Giannis, or Tatum, or even Jalen Brunson, I will not argue with you. All of those guys and a couple more have arguments to be considered the best in the world and the “most valuable.” For me, in all of my time watching the Thunder this year, I think that SGA is the difference maker for this team. I think that without this team, we’re talking about an, at best, play-in team.
I think that the OKC Thunder have done a tremendous job accumulating talent. Chet is a defensive demon, J-Dub is coming into his own as a player, the off-season pickups like IHart and Caruso are meshing well. That team works well, but that team only goes as far as SGA lets them.
Not only are the Thunder the 1st seed in the West for a second straight year (after going 40–42 in the 2022–2023 season,) but they are doing this while their core rotation pieces are missing A TON of time.
Out of their core 8–10 players, here are the amount of games missed:
Jalen Williams: 13, Chet Holmgren: 50, Jaylin Williams: 35, Alex Caruso: 28, Isaiah Hartenstein: 25, Cason Wallace: 14, Kenrich Williams: 14
The Thunder missed their starting center, their starting power forward, their backup center, and their backup guards for roughly 20% of the season minimum. This team should be competing for a top 5 pick in this year’s draft, and instead this team is decimating opponents to the tune of a 12.9 point differential. A top 3 offense in the league, the number one defense in the league, and they are 16 (!!!) games in front of the #2 seed in a very very tough west. None of this is possible without SGA.
Offensively, an absolute juggernaut. Sure, he doesn’t have the box score stats that Jokic has, but he isn’t a slouch in that department. 32.7 PPG (1st in the league,) 5 RPG, 6.4 APG. 57/37/89 shooting splits, with a 63.7% TS% and a 129 offensive rating.
Defensively, an absolute unit. 1.7 SPG, 1.0 BPG, 107 defensive rating, 4.8 defensive win shares, 2.6 defensive box plus/minus. Statistically the best defender on that OKC team that includes Lu Dort, Alex Caruso, and Cason Wallace.
No matter what way you chalk it up, at absolute worst, he is a top 3 offensive performer this year, and top 7 defensive performer (not just among guards, among all players,) and he’s hyper efficient. He is doing things that we will one day reminisce on and say that we got to witness one of the greatest complete seasons of all time. It saddens me a bit that this year will get lost in the shuffle because they aren’t in a big market, but I will not allow that to happen. SGA is the best player in basketball this year: the stats, the advanced metrics, and the eye test all say its so. SGA has earned the Crown, and that is undisputed.
2nd: Nikola Jokic, Denver Nuggets
3rd: Giannis Antetokounmpo, Milwaukee Bucks
Round The Game 
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