Why Thunder’s Shai Gilgeous-Alexander has MVP edge and more NBA midseason awards

Welcome to report card time.

This stretch of January around Martin Luther King Jr. Day is usually peak evaluation time in the NBA front-office world. It’s one of the milestone points where teams will have full-staff pow-wows and talk things out, the equivalent of deep cleaning versus running the vacuum. The timing is perfect: The trade deadline is still a couple of weeks away, but there’s a half season of new data to pore over.

So today, let’s put together a status report of sorts on the major award categories. Consider this a halfway-point snapshot, written in chalk rather than ink. Things can and will happen in the second half of the season that change some or all of what is below.

While I do not have an official award ballot, this is how I would vote if the season ended today, and how I see the races potentially changing. (All stats are through Wednesday’s games.)

MVP of the (Half) Year: Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Thunder

Runners-up: Nikola Jokić, Nuggets; Giannis Antetokounmpo, Bucks

The two-way race between Jokić and Gilgeous-Alexander is fun, because you wouldn’t guess from their stat lines that Jokić is the center and Gilgeous-Alexander is the point guard. Gilgeous-Alexander’s block rate is more than double that of Jokić’s; Jokić’s assist rate is nearly 50 percent higher than Gilgeous-Alexander’s. SGA nearly matches Joker in points in the paint, while Jokić is shooting an unfathomable 47.5 percent from 3.

Realistically, this will be decided by who is better in the second half of the season, as the first half was basically a draw. Jokić has the best PER of all time; Gilgeous-Alexander has the best mark by a guard since Michael Jordan and is leading the league in scoring, plus he’s the engine for the team atop the Western Conference. Gilgeous-Alexander also has played five more games and 89 more minutes through Wednesday; all this stuff matters in a race this tight.

Jokić continues to have the league’s most mind-blowing on-off ratings — the Nuggets are plus-13.0 points per 100 possessions with him on the court and minus-9.9 with him off — but we can’t base the MVP award solely on how crappy Denver’s backup centers are.

Besides, the numbers for Gilgeous-Alexander are arguably even more mind-boggling when you consider the surrounding talent. The Thunder have outscored opponents by a preposterous 18.7 points per 100 possessions in his minutes, and even with the other talent on the roster, they’re outscored when he’s off the court. To understand the ridiculousness of this, consider that the Thunder have the best scoring margin of all time this season, and every other player on the team has an off-court rating of at least plus-10 per 100. Gilgeous-Alexander’s impact is that profound.

This is the first time in a while that we’ve seen a player whose on-off impact stats match those of Jokić. The fact that Gilgeous-Alexander is doing it amid a historic season for his team is the icing on the cake.

While we’re here, shoutout to Antetokounmpo, who would be the runaway Eastern Conference MVP if such a thing existed. He’s clearly No. 3 and has a chance to push higher with a strong finish.

Rookie of the (Half) Year: ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Runners-up: Jared McCain, Sixers; Jaylen Wells, Grizzlies; Kel’El Ware, Heat

Can we put this on hold and give out two trophies next year? The rookie crop has been underwhelming, to say the least. We’re getting flashbacks to Malcolm Brogdon winning in 2017 while averaging 10.2 points per game with a 14.9 PER.

Even that feels like a stretch for this group. You know how many rookies have played at least 25 games, averaged at least 10 points a game and put up a PER above 13? Zero.

The only player to really stand out in the first half was McCain, who played 23 games before a season-ending knee injury.

Normally that would disqualify him from winning the award, but this year, I’m not sure that’s true. Nobody else has come close to McCain in terms of production or impact. Not only is he the only rookie clearing the extremely modest bar of 12 points per game, but he’s also among the few whose advanced stats rate him as something better than tragic.

While the top picks in the class have put up quasi-respectable counting stats, their more advanced numbers are pedestrian at best. Of the bottom 25 players in BPM this season with enough minutes to qualify on Basketball-Reference.com, seven were first-round picks, including three of the top four players. In particular, the momentum for guys like Alex Sarr or Stephon Castle is bizarre to me; both have clear long-term upside, but neither has been good this year.

Instead, let’s talk about Wells, the Grizzlies second-rounder who has been holding down a starting role as a two-way forward for an elite Memphis team. Sure, the Grizzlies have been dramatically better when he’s off the court, even though two of the guys he starts with have huge on-off splits in the opposite direction, but beggars can’t be choosers here.

Wells has both been a solid defender and broken out some unusual, funky shot making. It’s one thing getting into Slo-Mo-esque Euro steps, which he’s done with increasing frequency, but how about one-legged off-the-dribble 3s? Like, what sorcery is this?

For me, Wells has been one of the six rookies who at least clears the bar of “tangibly better than replacement level this year,” joining McCain, Ware, Oklahoma City’s Ajay Mitchell, Memphis’ Zach Edey and the Portland Trail Blazers’ Donovan Clingan. And we’ll always have that one week Dalton Knecht was awesome.

My top three will likely look a little different from others, but whatever. I’m not putting Castle here just because his scoring average makes him look superficially halfway decent. Ware has only played 427 minutes so far, but his minutes have been vastly more productive, and I’d say that is more valuable than any sum of replacement-level minutes that a lot of the other alleged candidates for this award have produced.

It goes without saying that this top three could change massively in the second half. Players like Sarr, Castle and No. 1 pick Zaccharie Risacher don’t lack for talent, and maybe they can use the developmental minutes of the first half of the season to break out over the final 40 games. Or maybe somebody else jumps into the race out of left field; it won’t take a lot to break into the contender pack here.

Coach of the (Half) Year: Kenny Atkinson, Cavaliers

Runners-up: J.B. Bickerstaff, Pistons; Taylor Jenkins, Grizzlies

Receipts!!! I had Gilgeous-Alexander winning MVP and Atkinson winning Coach of the Year before the season, so no reason to revise now. While the Coach of the Year designation for Atkinson was more an acknowledgement of how badly people underestimated Cleveland’s talent this fall, he’s also done some neat stuff: weaponizing Evan Mobley more effectively, pulling guys like Ty Jerome out of the shed with the second unit and easing some of the strain on Donovan Mitchell to play one-on-five. Regardless of what your thoughts were on the Cavs heading into the season, I’d say “35-6 first half” vastly exceeded them. Right now, it’s Atkinson’s award to lose.

Ironically, his biggest push may come from the man he replaced. Bickerstaff has quietly turned Detroit into a respectable defense while still sprinkling enough shooting in to keep the offense humming; the Pistons have a winning record at the moment, something that seemed unthinkable 12 months ago. Jenkins, meanwhile, has helped usher in a complete rethink of Memphis’ offense, one that has made the Grizzlies both unpredictable and effective and led what has historically been a defensive-first squad to a top-five rating on offense.

Sixth Man of the (Half) Year: Payton Pritchard, Celtics

Runners-up: De’Andre Hunter, Hawks; Amen Thompson, Rockets

Pritchard has become one of the league’s most fun players, a 6-foot guard who has the highest offensive rebound rate of any non-7-footer on his team, mashes into bigger players on the dribble and has become the league’s unquestioned master of end-of-quarter heaves. He’s shooting 41.0 percent from 3, ranks fourth in per-minute scoring on one of the league’s best teams and still finds time to dish three assists for every turnover.

With an 18.1 PER on a substantial minutes load (1,217 so far), Pritchard has the type of case that historically has produced winners of this award. The fact he’s contributing so heavily to an elite team with the league’s third-ranked offense is another feather in his cap. This is his award to lose right now.

Hunter has been an offensive magician for Atlanta, having a career year that should land him in Most Improved Player consideration as well. Shooting 40.5 percent from 3 and hammering smaller players for pull-up 2s on switches Khris Middleton-style, Hunter is the Hawks’ leading per-minute scorer. But he’s only played 30 games so far, which leaves him trailing Pritchard by 374 minutes at this juncture. That’s a pretty big gap and would require an equally large difference in their per-minute play to justify putting Hunter first. I can’t quite get there.

Thompson may end up starting too many games to qualify for this award; he’s started 13 times already, including 11 of the Rockets’ last 12 games, and I’m not sure Jabari Smith Jr. will be able to push him out once he returns from injury. For now, however, Thompson qualifies, and he’s been such a force of nature that it’s hard to ignore the impact. Even with near-zero shooting gravity, Thompson’s combination of ballhandling, finishing at the rim and defensive havoc make him a multi-layered threat across the court, and we may still just be scratching the surface of the second-year pro’s long-range potential.

Most Improved Player of the (Half) Year: Norman Powell, Clippers

Runners-up: Tyler Herro, Heat; Santi Aldama, Grizzlies

It was easy to see how Norman Powell might be primed for a bump in his numbers this year, given the likelihood of more minutes and more shots on a Clippers team that would be missing Kawhi Leonard for a big chunk of the year. But I don’t think anyone saw this happening.

At age 31, Powell is having by far the best year of his career. He’s shooting 44.1 percent from 3 on big volume (11.9 attempts per 100), dribbling up to the line any time he gets it in transition and letting it fly. But he’s still a menace inside the arc, too, putting his head down and either getting to the rim or taking advantage of his wicked, underrated short-range game from floater distance. Put it together, and Powell has averaged 23.7 points on 63.3 percent true shooting, a jolt the offensively limited Clippers desperately needed and a key to their surprising first half.

Powell’s PER, true shooting percentage, BPM and usage all are career highs by fairly significant margins; so is his assist rate, believe it or not, so he’s not just blindly flinging here. Defensively, he’s dug in more, too; his steal rate is nearly double that of a year ago.

Herro is a similar story, pushing to make the Eastern Conference All-Star team after it seemed he had topped out as a good sixth man. The Heat’s sixth-year guard has bumped his PER from 15.7 to 20.0 and his true shooting percentage from 55.8 to 62.6. Some of that has been the result of a welcome trade of pull-ups 2s for pull-up 3s, but he’s also been much more effective on short-range pull-ups and paint shots. Amid Miami’s Jimmy Butler drama and an off year from Bam Adebayo, Herro has kept the Heat afloat.

In contrast, Aldama’s tremendous season has received scant national attention, but he’s gone from “Are we sure this guy is a rotation player?” to a contender for the Sixth Man Award in his fourth pro season. (He’s also an extremely interesting free agent this coming summer.) I’m more comfortable putting Aldama here than the usual assortment of second-year pros who dot MIP lists. However, he could end up being a placeholder if the Orlando Magic’s Franz Wagner comes back and plays the way he did before an oblique injury sidelined him.

Defensive Player of the (Half) Year: Victor Wembanyama, Spurs

Runners-up: Evan Mobley, Cavaliers; Jaren Jackson Jr. Grizzlies

Rating defense is hard. While some models still have other veteran bigs rated higher than Wembanyama, others have him at the top of the heap already. There’s no question he’s the game’s most intimidating shot-blocker, with the league’s highest block rate in a quarter century and an innumerable quantity of other opponent of paint shots turned down to avoid certain humiliation.

The Spurs defense is only average overall (16th), but part of that is easily explained by the very ordinary talent surrounding Wembanyama; the team also is dramatically worse in the minutes he sits. While I don’t think his case is quite as open-and-shut as some would opine, he’s clearly the leader right now.

Mobley, Jackson, Atlanta’s ball-thieving Dyson Daniels and the Clippers’ wildly underrated Ivica Zubac are the four players vying for runner-up status on my list. Rudy Gobert hasn’t been as effective as a year ago to my eyes, and a few other stalwarts (Draymond Green, Alex Caruso) have just missed too much time.

The thing about Mobley and Jackson, in particular, is how much schematic versatility they open up for their teams by being defensive chameleons. They’ve reminded everyone of their value this season after finishing third and first, respectively, in the 2023 voting. Toggling between power forward and center and capable of protecting the rim or guarding the perimeter, they’re the embodiment of modern basketball’s “unicorn” ideal on the defensive end. Either could make a charge to win the award if Wembanyama falters, but they’ll probably have to settle for the “others receiving votes” part of the list.

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(Illustration: Dan Goldfarb / The Athletic; G. Fiume, Scott Taetsch, Zach Beeker / NBAE via Getty Images)