Pound the Pavement

The individual awards for this season were actually quite easy to pick. Because All-NBA teams have odd positional restrictions, these picks were agonizingly difficult. Here goes: First Team All-NBA G: Stephen Curry G: James Harden F: Kawhi Leonard F: LeBron James C: DeMarcus Cousins It pains me to leave Draymond Green and Chris Paul off the first team, replacing Cousins and Harden. But Curry, being the consensus MVP, is obviously for the first team. Leonard is the best two-way player in the league; he deserves the spot as well. LeBron is still putting up 25-7-7 on 52% shooting on the best team in the East. The Cavs without him literally cannot win a game. James Harden, even with his record-breaking season of turnovers and utter lack of defense, is carrying a Houston team without another playmaker scoring 29 points a game. Dwight can no longer provide 8-10 possessions of paint scoring. Putting Boogie on the first team is interesting. The Kings have a terrible team, but imagine...

It's the end of a pretty mundane season, in general, but handing out awards was an interesting thought exercise. If I had a ballot, here's what it would look like: Most Valuable Player Stephen Curry Kawhi Leonard Chris Paul LeBron James Draymond Green The case for Curry is obvious: he's the best player on one of the top two teams all time. He has a PER over 31 given 30 minutes a game, something that only LeBron or MJ has done in the shot clock era, is pushing 50/45/90 splits, and has shattered our expectations for shooting threes. So, let's just hand him the trophy. Let's talk about the bottom four in that list. Kawhi is a consensus number two, the best two-way player in the league and the hands-down best player in the second best team in the league. He's developed a killer midrange pull-up and is starting to develop a great pick-and-roll chemistry with Aldridge. His defense is something we'll talk about later. Paul over James is a hot t...