The Regular Season Awards: WoW Network Style
The following is from Andres (Dre) Alvarez.
The season is over and it’s time for the playoffs to erase everyone’s memory of regular season records. While it’s still fresh on our mind, we can hand out the regular season award winners. While the exact standards for each award aren’t well defined, we here at the Wages of Wins Network prefer to look at the stats and hand out the awards accordingly.
Most Valuable Player: The player that has generated the most wins for their team.
Player | Team | Pos | G | GS | MP | WP48 | WP |
Kevin Love | MIN | 4.5 | 73 | 73 | 2610 | 0.458 | 24.9 |
Dwight Howard | ORL | 5.0 | 78 | 78 | 2935 | 0.398 | 24.3 |
LeBron James | MIA | 3.1 | 79 | 79 | 3062 | 0.361 | 23.0 |
Chris Paul | NOH | 1.0 | 80 | 80 | 2865 | 0.350 | 20.9 |
Dwyane Wade | MIA | 1.9 | 76 | 76 | 2823 | 0.302 | 17.8 |
Was he on a bad team? Yes! Don’t let that take away the fact that Kevin Love put up a career year and hit levels not seen in Minnesota since Kevin Garnett. Dwight Howard has been a top five MVP candidate for the last five years. He finally overtook LeBron for the lead only to lose out to a surging Kevin Love. LeBron James and Chris Paul aren’t really surprises as both are previous Wins Produced MVPs (or Most Productive Player or MPP). Dwayne Wade helps give the Heat not one but two MVP candidates. Will it help them in the playoffs?
Sixth Man of the Year : The player that has generated the most wins for their team while starting 60% of their games or fewer.
Player | Team | G | GS | MP | WP48 | WP |
Kris Humphries | NJN | 74 | 44 | 2060 | 0.329 | 14.1 |
Lamar Odom | LAL | 80 | 34 | 2557 | 0.248 | 13.2 |
Marcin Gortat | ORL-PHO | 78 | 12 | 1960 | 0.225 | 9.2 |
Greg Monroe | DET | 78 | 46 | 2163 | 0.183 | 8.3 |
Serge Ibaka | OKC | 80 | 42 | 2160 | 0.182 | 8.2 |
I had thought this award was all but locked up for Lamar Odom, but Kris Humphries made a strong push and pulled it out for the year. Lamar Odom is no surprise on this list and hopefully this is his year to really get the award. Marcin Gortat shows up as well, but that makes me question Phoenix’s judgment on starting centers. Greg Munroe is a bright spot on an otherwise dismal Detroit team. Finally Ibaka has been killing it for Oklahoma, but he may finally be getting his due as a starter.
Rookie of the Year: The rookie that has generated the most wins for their team.
Player | Team | Pos | G | GS | MP | WP48 | WP |
Blake Griffin | LAC | 4.5 | 82 | 82 | 3111 | 0.236 | 15.3 |
Landry Fields | NYK | 2.2 | 82 | 81 | 2541 | 0.255 | 13.5 |
Greg Monroe | DET | 4.8 | 80 | 48 | 2221 | 0.188 | 8.7 |
John Wall | WAS | 1.0 | 69 | 64 | 2606 | 0.105 | 5.7 |
Ed Davis | TOR | 4.8 | 65 | 17 | 1601 | 0.166 | 5.5 |
Blake Griffin ends the year as Rookie of the Year, which is not a surprise. Landry Fields gave him a good run for his money though, which was definitely a surprise. Detroit and Toronto have good young big men in Monroe and Davis, and the hope is that those franchises don’t mess it up. John Wall turned out to be a productive player for Washington. Still, the end of the season does show he wasn’t a “sure-fire #1 pick”
Most Improved Player: The Player that has increased their peak wins the most.
At the start of the season I had some definition based on playing within 750 minutes of their previous season’s minutes and improving. However, that is really more a definition for Comeback Player of the Year (a now defunct award). After talking with Devin Dignam, the definition I came up with for this award was the following: the MIP is a player that has played at least one season of 1000 minutes or more prior to this season that increased their peak Wins Produced the most.
Player | Team | MP | WP48 | WP | WP Increase |
Kevin Love | MIN | 2610 | 0.458 | 24.9 | 13.9 |
Kris Humphries | NJN | 2060 | 0.328 | 14.1 | 10.9 |
JaVale McGee | WAS | 2192 | 0.182 | 8.3 | 7.5 |
Marcin Gortat | ORL-PHO | 2034 | 0.226 | 9.6 | 6.0 |
Derrick Rose | CHI | 3026 | 0.189 | 11.9 | 5.7 |
Look who shows up again? Kevin Love managed to up his peak performance by a stunning 14 wins! Almost as impressive is Kris Humphries in New Jersey with an 11 win increase. Two other beneficiaries of finally getting minutes are Javale McGee and Marcin Gortat. Derrick Rose has also seen a great increase in productivity, and unlike the other players on this list he was already getting the minutes.
Comeback Player of the Year : The Player that increase their win output the most from last season while playing within 750 minutes of their last season’s minutes.
I felt obligated to put this one in as it was my initial definition for “Most Improved”
Player | Team | MP | WP48 | WP | WP Increase |
Elton Brand | PHI | 2809 | 0.137 | 8.0 | 8.7 |
Thaddeus Young | PHI | 2134 | 0.121 | 5.4 | 6.3 |
Ramon Sessions | CLE | 2132 | 0.168 | 7.5 | 5.8 |
Paul Pierce | BOS | 2774 | 0.240 | 13.9 | 5.7 |
Derrick Rose | CHI | 3026 | 0.189 | 11.9 | 5.7 |
Philadelphia definitely lucked out with Elton Brand and Thaddeus Young coming back strong. As mentioned, Derrick Rose did see a big boost from last season. The Celtics definitely needed the Truth to come back strong but it may not be enough. Finally, I suspect it’s of little consolation to Cleveland, but hey Ramon Sessions is playing better.
Stat Smack Down
If you recall at the start of the season many of the Wages of Wins analysts made predictions about a few things. One of these was which players would win various awards.
Analyst | Most Valuable | Rookie | Most Improved | Sixth Man |
NBeh? | LeBron James | Blake Griffin | Kevin Love | Lamar Odom |
Sport Skeptic | LeBron James | Blake Griffin | Kevin Love | Lamar Odom |
Nerd Numbers | Dwight Howard | Blake Griffin | Chris Kaman | Lamar Odom |
Arturo’s S.L.S | LeBron James | Blake Griffin | Trevor Ariza | Lamar Odom |
RoBlog | LeBron James | Blake Griffin | Javale McGee | James Harden |
The Miami Heat Index | LeBron James | Blake Griffin | Andris Biedrins | Manu Ginobli |
The City | Kevin Durant | Blake Griffin | Monta Ellis | Samuel Dalembert |
Peter (commenter) | LeBron James | DeMarcus Cousins | Dujain Blair | Lamar Odom |
Hickory High | LeBron James | DeMarcus Cousins | James Harden | Manu Ginobli |
Consensus | LeBron James | Blake Griffin | Kevin Love | Lamar Odom |
No one predicted Kevin Love would be the MVP this season. No one predicted Kris Humphries would be the 6th man of the year. With that said, the preseason predictions for individual player performance were quite impressive. Going by the initial set of rules for “Most Improved” I win the challenge! However, I do think picking Kevin Love on Alex and Devin’s part was a great stroke and I have no problem declaring them Super Expert Extraordinaires! Here’s hoping we can do as well next season.
-Dre