Ladies and gentlemen. Boys and girls. The wait is over.
The NBA returns after a long, but entertaining four-month gap between the end of the 2022-23 postseason and the start of the 2023-24 regular season. And while the action begins tonight and overreactions are sure to flood social media, plenty will happen over the course of the next seven months that tells the story over the season.
But why wait until everything plays out to start when you can be prophetic in your takes today? Let’s get bold and make our preseason bets for this regular season’s award winners.
More NBA:
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All odds via BetMGM
Rookie of the Year - Chet Holmgren (+350)
Rob Ferguson-USA TODAY Sports
Chet at +350 isn’t just the zig, while everyone zags to Victor Wembanyama (-145). It’s an educated guess, even if unpopular.
Holmgren has a leg up on Wemby as he’s gotten a year of NBA training under his belt, which is a bigger deal than most realize regarding on-court execution, picking up on schemes and systems, etc. And the likelihood that Holmgren’s Oklahoma City Thunder flirt with the postseason as Wembanyama’s realistically hover around the bottom of the West might sway voters.
Zig, folks.
Most Valuable Player - Jayson Tatum (+700)
Maddie Meyer/Getty Images
The thinking here is simple: the Boston Celtics finish with the best record in the NBA in convincing fashion, as Jayson Tatum leads the league in scoring. The script was nearly identical through the first chunk of last season, which had Tatum at the center of way-too-early MVP talk. It’ll happen again, but I think he and the Celtics keep their foot on the gas from start to finish.
Coach of the Year - Nick Nurse (+1600)
John E. Sokolowski-USA TODAY Sports
A redemption season is on the way for Nick Nurse. Despite a couple of disappointing recent seasons in Toronto, he still isn’t that far removed from being widely considered as one of the five-or-so best coaches the league has to offer. Is he that? I can’t make an argument for it, but he’s still capable. A new environment might do the trick for Nurse, and assuming the James Harden saga drags on for a while, a finish near the top of the conference would also do wonders for the Coach of the Year discourse.
Defensive Player of the Year - Anthony Davis (+900)
(AP Photo/Marcio Jose Sanchez)
Not that he needed to, but Anthony Davis did remind us last (post)season how he can do things on the defensive end that not many others can. He’ll always get the Lakers bump from the media as long as he reps the purple and gold, but with the Lakers on track to being a really good basketball team this season, a DPOY award seems like something to bet on.
Most Improved Player - Mikal Bridges (+900)
(Photo by Sarah Stier/Getty Images)
It feels like the most recent MIP award winners get to a new team, carve out a more significant role, and do some things they hadn’t done in previous stops on the court. I am talking about Brandon Ingram’s transition from the Los Angeles Lakers to the New Orleans Pelicans that led to the MIP in Year 1 (2019-20), Julius Randle’s MIP in his second season with the New York Knicks, and, of course, the reigning MIP, Lauri Markkanen’s winning of the award this past season in his debut as a Utah Jazz.
Mikal Bridges showed post-2023 trade deadline that there’s far more to his game to unlock than many could have believed. And now, with an entire season as the primary offensive option, I’d expect him to take another step forward.
Sixth Man of the Year - Malik Monk (+1200)
(Photo by Ezra Shaw/Getty Images)
Why is no one talking about the Sacramento Kings? Chip-on-their-shoulders season is incoming, I’d imagine. It’s hard not to see all of the young players making another leap, including reserve player Malik Monk, one of the few players who come off the bench with the capability of scoring 40-plus points on any given night. He’s tough to stop once he gets rolling. Plenty of those nights in store for the 2023-24 season.
