NBA Should Refrain From Giving Out Individual Awards With the Season Cut Short

Should the NBA do away with awards this year?

Transcript

00:00 Hey everyone, Rohan Nodkarni from Sportscoaster.net here. Hope everyone is staying safe,

00:04 staying indoors if you're like me, your hair is kind of making you look like a bad scientist

00:08 right now. Obviously there's been a lot of talk over the last few weeks about how the NBA

00:13 wants to get its season back going. The league is looking through a lot of proposals right now,

00:18 including one that would have the players quarantined at Walt Disney World. I think

00:22 it's great that the league is thinking through as many ideas as possible. I don't think there's

00:27 such a thing as a bad idea right now. Obviously they have to look at the worst case scenario for

00:32 every idea they have, but it's totally okay for the league to be thinking about how to resume,

00:37 given that they get the go-ahead from public health officials of course. Something that we

00:42 haven't heard a lot of in the discourse about the NBA's possible return is what are they going to do

00:48 with the end of season awards? This is going to be a fascinating season in terms of how it's

00:53 recorded in the NBA history books. Does the league still give out individual awards in a shortened

00:58 season? Obviously we've had lockout seasons in the past where players still received awards.

01:03 This is a whole totally different beast than that. I mean what if the regular season isn't finished?

01:08 Is it still fair to give out individual awards in that scenario?

01:13 Personally I think the NBA should get weird. They should acknowledge that these are uncertain times

01:20 and uncertain circumstances. I've written at SI already. I don't think they should hand out the

01:25 Larry O'Brien trophy this year barring anything short of a full seven game per round playoffs.

01:32 And I think that should extend to the end of season awards as well. For up to me, I would not

01:37 give out an MVP award this season. I just think that would be unfair to the players who still had

01:43 a fighting chance over the last 13-15 games of the season to give out the MVP award. I still think

01:51 that it makes sense to do things like the all NBA teams, the all defensive teams, because there's

01:56 enough of a body of work. But to me the idea of giving out an MVP this year, a six man of the year,

02:03 a coach of the year, I just don't know how you do it with the season cut short in the manner that it

02:08 was. I don't think it would be fair to compare this to a lockout season. I know that this is

02:12 probably far down the list of the NBA's priorities right now. They just want to get the games going

02:18 again somehow, some way. But in the event that the NBA's regular season is over, whether that

02:24 means they come back only for the playoffs or not, or the season is canceled outright,

02:28 personally I just think it would be a little bit weird to hand out

02:32 individual awards in such a circumstance.

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