It's time for Part Two of our annual NBA awards ballot! Today, we name my All-NBA, All-Defensive, and All-Rookie teams. All-NBA was the tightest race I've ever seen.
Part One -- the individual awards -- was revealed yesterday.
All-NBA
First team
G Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Oklahoma City Thunder
G Donovan Mitchell, Cleveland Cavaliers
F Jayson Tatum, Boston Celtics
F Giannis Antetokounmpo, Milwaukee Bucks
C Joel Embiid, Philadelphia 76ers
Second team
G Stephen Curry, Golden State Warriors
G Jrue Holiday, Milwaukee Bucks
F Luka Doncic, Dallas Mavericks
C Nikola Jokic, Denver Nuggets
Third team
G Damian Lillard, Portland Trail Blazers
G De'Aaron Fox, Sacramento Kings
F LeBron James, Los Angeles Lakers
F Jaylen Brown, Boston Celtics
C Domantas Sabonis, Sacramento Kings
• This was probably the toughest All-NBA ballot I've filled out.
• The first team was easy-ish; four of the five players on my MVP ballot, plus another (Gilgeous-Alexander) who just missed out. Doncic had the second first-team guard spot until the Mavericks disintegrated into an unforgettable embarrassment.
Doncic is better than Mitchell. Doncic had a better offensive season, though Mitchell matched Doncic's shooting efficiency. (Mitchell also stole two games by committing lane violations on his own intentional missed free throws; he deserves some separate honor for that.) Mitchell could never match Doncic's playmaking.
Mitchell was much more diligent than Doncic on defense, and first-team All-NBA -- just about the highest individual honor that exists -- doesn't seem the right place for any member of a team who will be best remembered for falling from the conference finals to outside the play-in tournament.
• This is where Dallas fans clamor that Gilgeous-Alexander's team finished under .500, a wee two games ahead of the Mavericks.
Well, those two games were the difference between a chance at the postseason and the Mavs biting their nails in the lottery drawing room. Expectations matter too. The Mavs' supporting cast was a mess, but the Thunder around Gilgeous-Alexander are young and thin -- threadbare in the frontcourt over the last 25 games. Gilgeous-Alexander's numbers speak for themselves. He was miles better than Doncic on defense, and Doncic's wilting there -- whether from lack of conditioning, whining to the referees, or general despondency -- contributed to the erosion of the Mavs' spirit.
• The pivot point was sliding Doncic to forward. He is eligible at both guard and forward, and that reflects reality. Doncic has the role of "point guard," but you could just as easily label him a "point-forward"; he's 6-foot-7, and after the Kyrie Irving trade, Doncic started games as the second-biggest Mav -- often guarding power forwards.
Slotting Doncic at forward is not the same as doing so with Anthony Davis, Sabonis, Bam Adebayo, Jokic, or Embiid -- all eligible at both forward and center. Those guys mimic different positional roles to varying degrees, but they literally never play any position other than center. Finagling them to forward felt like cheating. Doing so with Doncic makes some sense, and opens another spot for a guard -- the most crowded position.
The trickle-down effect: nudging Brown from second- to third-team forward, and bumping Julius Randle out. (Pascal Siakam and Lauri Markkanen were the next two forwards after Randle. Both would be worthy. Siakam rediscovered his roaring early-season form over Toronto's last 15 games, but his impact dipped over the middle 40. Randle's numbers are better. The Raptors struggled to find an identity and style all season. Markkanen was dynamite as a scorer, but he falls short of these guys as a playmaker.)
Playmaking is why James beats out Randle despite logging 18 fewer games and 800 fewer minutes. I'd have no qualms with Randle and one of Siakam and Markkanen making it over James -- and with James being excluded. It's all splitting hairs. If you multiplied production times minutes played, Randle probably comes out a bit ahead of James in that (hypothetical) cumulative score.
But that it would be way closer than an 800-minute gap suggests is why James lands here. Perhaps the greatest player of all time averaged 29 points, 8 rebounds, and 7 assists -- and he remains one of the game's half-dozen scariest chess masters. There are zero teams that would be more frightened game-planning against Randle than James. James slipped on defense, but Randle was only so-so there -- with a bad habit of whiffing on boxouts.
We all know James is better than Randle. I have consistently weighed the "who's better?" factor -- which encompasses track record -- much more heavily in the "All-" genre of awards (at third team, especially) than in parsing individual honors.
There is a minutes threshold somewhere. Kevin Durant was a first-team-level player but appeared in only 47 games. Not enough. James played 200 more minutes than Kawhi Leonard. All three would have made All-NBA teams had they appeared in 60-ish games, but if you have to choose one -- and you don't -- it should be James.
• At guard or forward, Butler has to be All-NBA: 23 points, 6 rebounds, 5 assists, tons of free throws and good defense for a team relying on castoffs.
• Brown was a tougher choice. Advanced metrics have never loved him for a combination of reasons -- shaky playmaking, blah rebounding, hazy off-ball defense, and that Boston's scoring margin typically declines when Brown plays without Tatum.
But 27 points, 7 boards, 3.5 dimes, 58% shooting on 2s, and very good on-ball defense against any type of perimeter scorer -- that's All-NBA quality, as much as anything Siakam, Randle, and Markkanen did. Brown was durable, and his team is in a different stratosphere than the Raptors, Knicks, and Jazz. He (barely) gets the nod.
• Other potential solves at third-team forward: Jaren Jackson Jr. and Davis. Davis played at an MVP level in, what, 30 of his 56 games? If you are in the MVP conversation for 30 games, you have a place in the All-NBA discussion. But Davis doesn't play forward, and the NBA asks voters to consider players at the positions they play most. Davis was the league's third-best center on a per-minute basis, but Sabonis gutted through a busted thumb to play in 23 more games and 830 more minutes on a better team. His brilliance as the whirring hub of Sacramento's league-best offense -- 19 points, 12 rebounds, 7 dimes, 61.5% shooting -- merits a spot.
I came very close to putting Jackson ahead of one of James and Brown. He was my pick for Defensive Player of the Year in another razor-thin race, and his development on offense was maybe an even bigger win for the Grizzlies. Jackson is the common denominator in almost every good Memphis lineup.
But Jackson isn't the creative fulcrum James is (duh), and Jackson logged about 200 fewer minutes.
• Analytics estimating a player's total value contributed (mostly) favor Curry and Lillard over a bunch of starry guards who played more than those two did: Jalen Brunson, Anthony Edwards, Darius Garland, Trae Young, Irving, Ja Morant, DeMar DeRozan (eligible at forward too), Zach LaVine, James Harden, Tyrese Haliburton, and a few others. That dovetails with the eye test: Curry and Lillard are two all-time greats who performed at nearly career-best levels.
I suspect a lot of voters will leave off Lillard after Portland's second straight humiliating tankfest. It's hard to justify that with Doncic almost certain to make it from another losing team. Lillard averaged 32 points on career-best shooting. The Blazers -- this injured and then bad team -- outscored opponents by 2.1 points per 100 possessions with Lillard on the floor. That's almost identical to such splits for Gilgeous-Alexander and Doncic.
Lillard cracked 2,100 minutes in 58 games. That's enough.
• Brunson was the toughest guard omission. It seems unfair that the Knicks might end up with zero All-NBA players when teams below them in the standings will get one. It's icky, but it happens every year. It's not as if the Knicks are some juggernaut. They are a very good No. 5 seed. The Memphis Grizzlies, the No. 2 seed in the West, have no one here, either.
Brunson was a rock in 68 games -- an efficient scorer and cultural touchstone. Still: I'm confident Curry and Lillard produced at least as much value as Brunson in 12 and 10 fewer games, respectively.
Holiday on second team might surprise some folks, and I'd have no issue flip-flopping him with one of Fox or Lillard -- or having one of Brunson, Harden, or someone among that pile of just-barely-off guards bumping Holiday altogether.
But this was Holiday's finest all-around season: 19.3 points, 7.4 assists (more than Brunson), very good shooting from every area of the floor -- and the usual smothering defense. Given Holiday's two-way excellence, he seemed like the best blend of durability and per-minute production among the guards who played between 60 and 70 games. The team with the best record getting two players seems right, since its (in theory) third-best player -- Khris Middleton -- missed 49 games.
• Harden -- the NBA's assist leader -- was not as tough an omission as he would have been had the season ended three weeks ago. He finished with a bit of a whimper. Harden appeared in 58 games, but given his slow start, he was probably at his A level in 40-ish of them.
• Devin Booker played five fewer games than Lillard and only three fewer than Curry -- and about 100 fewer minutes than Curry. Booker played at an All-NBA level in those games: 28 points and 5.5 assists on 49% shooting -- 35% on 3s and 55% on 2s. Curry and Lillard were just a bit better in more minutes -- Lillard by almost 300. It was hard to find room for all three, unless you omit Fox.
My first version -- with Doncic at guard -- squeezed Fox. I'm not convinced Fox should be a write-in-pen lock: 25 points and 6 assists on 51% shooting -- 58% on 2s, and a disappointing 32% on 3s. He defended with more energy, but Fox tops out as average on that end. Advanced metrics shrug at Fox as they do Brown.
But Fox's overall numbers are really good. He played almost 2,500 minutes in 73 games for a No. 3 seed that doesn't have much off-the-bounce depth. Fox was perhaps the league's best crunch-time player, and those gorgeous last-second leaners and fadeaways had a material effect on Sacramento's win total.
• Morant finished with 61 games and almost exactly as many minutes as Curry -- 150-ish fewer than Lillard. On the floor, Morant was not quite as good as those guys. Off the floor, he threw his team into turmoil.
• Garland has seized Holiday's throne as the league's most underrated player. Garland deserved a much deeper look here than some voters appear to have given him.
ALL-DEFENSIVE
First team
G Derrick White, Boston Celtics
F Evan Mobley, Cleveland Cavaliers
F Jaren Jackson Jr., Memphis Grizzlies
C Brook Lopez, Milwaukee Bucks
Second team
G Jrue Holiday, Milwaukee Bucks
G Herbert Jones, New Orleans Pelicans
F Giannis Antetokounmpo, Milwaukee Bucks
F O.G. Anunoby, Toronto Raptors
C Draymond Green, Golden State Warriors
• The first team came together fast -- the three guys on my Defensive Player of the Year ballot, plus White and Caruso. I wobbled a bit on Caruso given his low minutes total, but I weigh minutes a little less in these "All-whatever" award categories. It is more about picking the very best in this specific season, provided said players cross some minutes threshold. Caruso gets there at almost 1,600 minutes in 67 games.
He was the league's best per-minute guard defender -- a one-man turnover creator who can stand up most power forwards and offer some rim protection.
Factoring in minutes, White was the season's best defensive guard. He is fast, smart, always in the right place, and a shockingly effective shot-blocker -- 23rd overall in blocks.
• Holiday was an easy choice for one of the final two guard spots. At full throttle, he might be the league's best perimeter defender -- immovable one-on-one, capable of locking up elite scorers of almost every size and style. He has an incredible knack for pickpocketing his own man from right in front of the poor sucker's face, and darting into passing lanes before the passer realizes what's about to befall him.
This category is isolated to one side of the floor, but basketball doesn't work that way. Offense and defense interact, one flowing into the other. Holiday had much more to do on offense than White and Caruso -- more than even the Bucks anticipated, given Middleton's injuries.
It's always tricky in this category comparing great two-way players like Holiday to specialists like Matisse Thybulle -- guys who play 25 minutes (in good seasons) and mostly stand around on offense. They should defend every second in an absolute frenzy. Holiday defending near his best levels for a lot of his minutes is more impressive than a Thybulle-type defending every minute that way.
Caruso is more than a specialist, though he attempted so few shots as to border on that status. But even when he isn't shooting, Caruso is involved enough as a secondary playmaker to snare a first-team spot here given his dominance on defense.
• The three frontcourt positions on the second team were hell, even though it seems as if Anunoby, Antetokounmpo, and Green should be locks. Green is the best defender of the past 15 years; how handy that he is eligible at both forward and center! The Warriors allowed 109.2 points per 100 possessions with Green on the floor and 115.3 when he sat -- roughly the difference between the league's No. 1 and No. 23 defenses.
He is still a cinder block in the post with magnet hands and savant-level anticipation. He is, somehow at 6-foot-7, an elite rim protector.
Antetokounmpo is an unparalleled and all-encompassing terror. Anunoby led the league in steals and was perhaps the front-runner for Defensive Player of the Year through 30 games. Somehow, all three fall to second team here! My god. I'd have zero issue with any or all three landing on the first team. It is unfathomable -- yet very possible -- that at least one might not make either team.
The toughest cuts at forward were Jaden McDaniels and Mikal Bridges, followed in some order by Jimmy Butler, Dillon Brooks, Kawhi Leonard, Paul George, Jarred Vanderbilt, and too many others. Leonard can still dial it up to "Sharktopus" mode, but he appeared in only 52 games -- not enough given the (ridiculous) competition here. Bridges slipped a hair -- understandable given the load he carried on offense in Brooklyn and for his final month in Phoenix.
McDaniels is a brutal omission. The Minnesota Timberwolves stuck him on almost every sort of player, confident he would shut off their water. He appeared most comfortable hounding guards -- both ball-dominant point guards and roving shooters. McDaniels is a major deterrent at the rim, with some spectacular chase-down blocks in transition.
Advanced metrics are not as kind to him, and he isn't quite as physically imposing as some of these other candidates. You have to split hairs somehow.
• The second center spot came down to Green, Bam Adebayo, Anthony Davis, Joel Embiid, Nic Claxton, Myles Turner, and a few others. Holy smokes, what a field. I've had some impartial coaches and executives lobby for both Embiid and Davis to outright win Defensive Player of the Year. I couldn't quite get there with either. Davis missed too many games. Embiid's effort can wane, though he remains a defensive architecture unto himself. He is a force field; opponent attempts at the rim fall off a cliff with Embiid on the floor.
Turner faded from the conversation as the Pacers faded from the play-in, but there is always a seat for him at this table. Claxton rivals Adebayo as the league's switchiest center, and Claxton held opponents to 51.9% on shots at the rim when he was the nearest defender -- one of the stingiest marks among all bigs. He is a little more vulnerable against behemoth size; opponents scored almost 1.2 points per possession directly out of post-ups against Claxton -- one of the higher marks in the league, per Second Spectrum.
Adebayo allowed an ugly 65% on shots at the basket. For whatever reason, he was not quite as airtight as he was last season -- when I voted him Defensive Player of the Year.
• Brooks, Butler, Jones, and George were eligible at both forward and guard. The short list for the last guard spot was composed of those four, plus Marcus Smart, Luguentz Dort, and a few others. (Several guards did outstanding work off the bench -- including Delon Wright, Jalen Suggs, and Donte DiVincenzo for half his games -- but backups don't face the best opposing scorers and lineups as often as do starters.)
Smart would normally get the nod -- I had him on first team last season, though not on my Defensive Player of the Year ballot -- but he suffered more hiccups than usual this season. Butler didn't have the same every-possession influence as in prior seasons. Brooks is tireless blanketing No. 1 options every damned night, but I gravitated toward Jones' rangy all-court game. The Pelicans could assign him to almost any opposing player, and he is more destructive off the ball than Brooks.
Opponents shot almost 4.5% worse than expected -- based on shot location and the identity of the shooter -- with Jones as the closest defender, one of the largest such differentials among all defenders, per Second Spectrum. (Opponents outshot expectations by a tick with Brooks as the closest defender.) That's not always reliable as a standalone number, but almost all advanced metrics favor Jones here. He is the best defender on a New Orleans team that somehow finished sixth in points allowed per possessions -- only three spots behind Memphis. Jackson is the keystone of the Grizzlies' second-ranked defense.
All-Rookie
First team
Jalen Williams, Oklahoma City Thunder
Bennedict Mathurin, Indiana Pacers
Keegan Murray, Sacramento Kings
Second team
Jalen Duren, Detroit Pistons
Jabari Smith Jr., Houston Rockets
Andrew Nembhard, Indiana Pacers
• No positional designations here!
• The first three spots are simple: the top three on my Rookie of the Year ballot. I'm fascinated to see how voters parse the last two first-team choices. I suspect Murray, Mathurin, Ivey, and Smith will all get votes. I considered Eason too; he walked into the league as a solid multipositional defender and fierce rebounder. He is scattershot on offense, but channels his freneticism in productive directions. He should develop into a good starter.
Murray should be almost unanimous on first team. He has been steady at both ends on a winning team. Not many top-five picks are built to contribute right away in supporting roles on top-three seeds. Murray is. He hit 41% from deep and mixed in nifty cuts -- skulking backdoor along the baseline, and developing nice bob-and-weave chemistry with Sabonis. Murray held up on defense across both forward positions, with some switchability beyond that. That's a way-ahead-of-his-years off-ball player on a good team.
Mathurin slammed into the rookie wall about 55 games in. (Advanced metrics are unkind to him.) Smith outplayed him over the last 25 games. Ivey might have improved more than anyone here within the season. Game by game, he honed craft -- slowing down on the pick-and-roll, pinning defenders on his hip, reading layers of defense, and beginning to anticipate rotations. He piled up hot-scoring games late, and nudged his 3-point mark toward league average.
I at first dropped Mathurin to second team, but he reclaimed the fifth first-team spot with a strong final half-dozen games. Mathurin has some pretty typical rookie scorer tunnel vision; he had 116 assists and 152 turnovers, and careened headlong into thickets of bodies when teammates stood wide open all over the place. Mathurins' defense was hit or miss, though his strength gives him some schematic and positional flexibility.
Still: The dude averaged 20 points over a significant stretch of the season. Warts aside, that is nothing to sneeze at for a rookie. Mathurin carries himself with a certain puffed-chest bravado. That's what you want. He was not intimidated by anyone, and he won't be intimidated by the moment when the Pacers arrive at games of real importance.
Mathurin played in games with stakes as Indiana hung in the postseason race. The Rockets and Pistons never faced any real stakes.
• Smith, Eason, and Ivey are no-brainers on second team; I wouldn't quibble too hard with any of them sneaking into the first team over Mathurin. Smith just started so slowly, and he only barely got to 30% on 3s. But he trended the right way, and defended like all hell. He looks like a winning player.
Ivey's 46% mark on 2s and ugly turnover rate -- expected for any rookie point guard, let alone one going semi-solo once Cade Cunningham underwent surgery -- undid a good chunk of his positive play. He was often lost on defense. Raw numbers suggest a first-team case, but I couldn't get there. Either way, his in-season growth bodes very well.
• The last two spots came down to Duren, Nembhard, AJ Griffin, Jeremy Sochan ... and that's really it. Several other rookies surged late, but didn't play enough to compete with these guys: Ochai Agbaji, David Roddy, Shaedon Sharpe, Jaden Hardy, Bryce McGowens, Malaki Branham.
Sharpe played the most minutes among them, but so much of his production was isolated to Portland's late-season tankfest. Branham was next in minutes, with a crafty midrange bag and a tough-to-grasp staccato rhythm to his off-the-bounce game. He fights on defense. He came on too late, when the Spurs were in ultra-deep tank mode.
Dyson Daniels and Christian Braun, both good two-way players, earned real roles on winning teams. But they barely eked past 1,000 minutes, and spent good portions of the season out of the rotation.
Griffin emerged as a solid backup, shooting 39% on 3s and knifing into the lane for high-arching floaters. He fell to the fringes of Atlanta's rotation then (briefly) out of it. Sochan logged more minutes than Griffin despite appearing in 16 fewer games, and after a slow start proved himself one of the most intriguing prospects in this class. He is a smart connector type on offense with some nascent bully-ball and isolation scoring chops. On defense, Sochan might turn into the rare player who can plausibly guard five positions. His jumper will define his ceiling.
The bouncy Duren, though raw, was more productive in the starkest terms than either of them. He is an explosive rim runner -- a dunking menace who sucks in defenders, unlocking open 3s for Detroit's shooters. He flashed glimpses of a face-up game and soft touch on hooks and flip shots. Duren already has one elite skill: offensive rebounding. He is the Pistons' best center prospect today.
Nembhard is the least glamorous of the bunch, but he logged 2,000 minutes and started for a team that had play-in hopes for about 85% of the season -- meaning he also competed more against opposing starters than most of the candidates here. He is a rugged and slick defender who moves the ball and hits enough 3s to keep defenses honest.