Season Two Award Predictions

[New York]

Just a quick article I wanted to throw together making my predictions for the season awards before the sim goes up. I figured since it was about 7 PM that I didn't have enough time to really do something in depth. 

Most Valuable Player: Charles Barkley  

- No brainer, he's the best player in the league and will win this award multiple times barring injury. Plus now he has the added bonus of being on the league's best team.  

Rookie of the Year: Elgin Baylor 

- He's way ahead of the other rookies in scoring besides Sam Jones (who is ineligible) and Hondo who is less efficient, has the third best PER in the class slightly behind Bill Russell (who could win it but the scoring gap hurts him) and Sam Jones who has an insane 28.6 PER (next best is 23.5). There are a bunch of good candidates like CP3, Russell, Bogut and Hondo but I think Baylor does enough of everything to separate himself from the pack.   

Defender of the Year: Ben Wallace

- For this one what I looked at was the guys that averaged at least a block and a steal per game. You had 7 different guys that met
this criteria and just like last season I believe the guy that averaged the most combined steals and blocks will win. Last season that was Hakeem Olajuwon but due to a small drop in Training Camp I don't think he'll get it this season. You've got Charles Barkley w/ 1.6 SPG & 1.4 BPG, Maciel with 1.4 SPG & 1.2 BPG, Vern Mikkelsen with 1.3 SPG | 1.1 BPG, Neil Johnston w/ 1.1 SPG & 1.5 BPG, Joakim Noah w/ 1.0 SPG & 1.2 BPG, the aforementioned Hakeem Olajuwon w/t 1.2 SPG & 2.3 BPG, and the guy I think will win it with 1.6 SPG & 2.4 BPG Ben Wallace. Not the most flashy out of those options in terms of all around game but when it comes to defensive stats, he's ahead of the pack. 

6th Man of the Year: Vern Mikkelsen 

- This is a two horse race between Mikkelsen and Kersey since both are putting up impressive numbers and have the two best EWAs of any reserves due to playing starting minutes despite coming off of the bench. This is likely a one time thing since Mikkelsen will decline a bit next season similar to last year's winner Jack Coleman but it's hard to ignore 16 PPG | 8 RPG | 1.3 SPG | 1.1 BPG from a guy that is helping a team without a legit superstar win a lot of games. 

Most Improved Player : Greg Oden

- Probably seems like a homer pick but you've got a guy that goes from being a non-All-Star and non-All ABCA player last season to one of the top 5 or 6 players in the league, an All-Star starter, and probably an All-League first teamer. Not sure anyone else can claim that amount of progress in a single season. This may end up being some random bench guy that is starting now like we saw in Legends but I think predicting Oden wins this one is fair when you look at his numbers and recent accomplishments. 

All-ABCA First Team 

C: Greg Oden

F: Charles Barkley

F: Julius Erving

G: Michael Jordan

G: John Stockton

All-ABCA Second Team 

C: Hakeem Olajuwon

F: Mel Daniels

F: Sherman White

G: Tony Parker

G:Walt Frazier

All-ABCA Third Team 

C: Pau Gasol / Al Horford * if Gasol isn't eligible due to injury 

F: Kevin Durant

F: Xavier McDaniel / Elgin Baylor 

G: Joe Dumars

G: Jason Kidd 

All-Rookie First Team 

C: Andrew Bogut

F: Bill Russell

F: Elgin Baylor

G: John Havlicek

G: Chris Paul

All-Rookie Second Team 

C: Bill McGill

F: Jerry Lucas

F: Andrew Bynum

G: Deron Williams

G:KC Jones

[Beijing]

No defensive teams? Blatant exclusion of Mikan from this article, negative points.

[New York]

Dec 3, 2015 1:26:28 GMT Beijing said:

No defensive teams? Blatant exclusion of Mikan from this article, negative points.

Lol I was going to include those but they require a bit more research to predict. I was already cutting it close so figured I wouldn't have been able to get it done pre-sim with those included. 

[Beijing]

Dec 3, 2015 1:45:42 GMT New York said:

Dec 3, 2015 1:26:28 GMT Beijing said:

No defensive teams? Blatant exclusion of Mikan from this article, negative points.

Lol I was going to include those but they require a bit more research to predict. I was already cutting it close so figured I wouldn't have been able to get it done pre-sim with those included. 

I feel like defense is actually the easiest to predict. It is almost entirely based on defensive production (rebounds, steals, blocks) as shown by Chris Paul's presence there.

[dave]

Or because Chris Paul is a badass defender, who also made All league 3rd team.

[Minnesota]

Well done but needs more Wolves coverage.

[New York]

Dec 3, 2015 21:27:43 GMT Minnesota said:

Well done but needs more Wolves coverage.

I went back and forth quite a few times with putting KG somewhere. I felt the final forward was going to be difficult to predict and had KG there for a bit. Ewing would've made an appearance somewhere but ust like Pau Gasol, the game looked past him because of injury. It's one of the flaws with the game's system because I don't think there is a minimum game requirement in real life (I could be wrong though). 

[Minnesota]

Yeah it's alright. My teams have never yielded many individual awards (save ROTY in Legends for some reason).

We play for rings

[Tel Aviv]

Great Tel Aviv coverage here Was nice to see Baylor and Wallace winning those awards.

[Beijing]

Even though I've figured out how to get Mikan scoring, I think he will struggle to crack the All-League teams at C. Oh well, he'll just have to knock Big Ben off of the Defensive 1st team.

[Corey V.]

TONY.

[Sarawak]

Good Stuff 125

[Sarawak]

pp credited