Deadseriousness 2022-23 NBA Season Awards

The 2022-23 NBA season has concluded which means it’s time to hand out awards. Let’s not overthink this whole thing and try to stand out by making ludicrous selections so that we stand out and look like geniuses and get clicks and this whole intro is definitely a shot a very specific sports media personalities. Let me chill.

Here are the Deadseriousness 2022-23 NBA season awards:

Most Improved Player: Lauri Markkanen

Lauri Markkanen went from a failed lottery pick bouncing between teams to an All-Star and will probably end up on an All-NBA team when the votes are all tallied. He was a miscast big man in Chicago and he was one of like, 8 big men battling for minutes in Cleveland. In Utah, Lauri was able to discover a new part of his game and become the best player on a team that almost made the playoffs when they were clearly intending to tank all year.

Lauri shot 39% from 3 on a career-high 7 attempts a game. He also more than doubled his free throw attempts this year thanks to cutting to the basket more and finishing with power at the rim. This was a point this season where you’d wake up every morning to a new clip of Markkanen murdering an innocent center.

Runner-Up: Shai-Gilgeous Alexander

SGA has improved in literally every statistical category this season. I figured he’d get better but I wasn’t expecting him to average over 30 points a game. That being said, the Thunder are built around SGA. He’s supposed to be the best player on that team. Lauri was just some guy in a trade to make contracts work and he emerged into an All-Star.

Also, Free SGA.

Defensive Player of the Year: Brook Lopez

I hate that this has become the Big Man of the Year Award but I don’t understand advanced defensive stats nor do I have access to many of those metrics without paying for them and I don’t have enough money for lunch, let alone fucking advanced defensive basketball stats.

Runner-Up: Evan Mobley

Mobley is really good at basketball but I am nowhere near ready to crown him as the best defensive player of the year like it seems every voter who has a podcast can’t wait to do. Shout out to Bill Simmons and his squad for anointing Mobley as the next Tim Duncan and then reinforcing that belief by all voting for him to have all of the accolades that Tim Duncan had to then manufacture their takes into reality. Very cool and apparently, not sketchy to anyone else.

And real quick, Jaren Jackson Jr leads the NBA in fouls per game. You cannot be the Defensive Player of the Year when you are constantly on the bench watching your team play because you can’t stay out of foul trouble.

It’s very simple: Brook Lopez blocked more shots and committed fewer fouls. Deadseriousness advanced metrics right there.

Sixth Man of the Year: Immanuel Quickley

The Knicks are a better basketball team when Immanuel Quickley is on the court. Perhaps IQ is stealing this award because he should 1000% be starting over RJ Barrett BUT, Quickley comes off the bench in this reality and he deserves this award.

But I want to give credit to Quickley for massively improving his defense this season.

Nuggets players shot 3-14 (21.4%) last night when being guarded by Immanuel Quickley.

ALL DEFENSE QUICK pic.twitter.com/xreEEWB2q2

— Teg🚨 (@IQfor3) November 17, 2022

Quickley can initiate a team’s offense, he can play off-ball running off screens and catching and shooting. He can penetrate off the dribble and finish with floaters over larger defenders. He has a little untapped midrange game and he moves his feet on defense to stay in front of everybody.

He’s the best player that comes off the bench in the entire NBA. We don’t have to be cute about this award.

Runner-up: Malcolm Brogdon

The problem with every vote being public is that now everyone overthinks their selections. Most NBA voters want to be the smartest in the room so if the consensus says one thing, well, they are above groupthink and they’re zagging when everyone else zigs. Except it means everyone zags instead of zigs so now Malcolm Brogdon is most likely going to win the Sixth Man of the Year because everyone is just soooo smart.

Rookie of the Year: Paolo Banchero

This is tough for me personally because oftentimes, in order to win the Rookie of the Year you have to play for a terrible team that I’m not rushing to watch. Believe it or not, I didn’t have the time to watch 82 Orlando Magic games this year.

Banchero averaged 20 points a night and went toe-to-toe with the best wing scorers every night and looked like their peers. No doubt in my mind he will turn into a Jayson Tatum-esque baller out there. Also, don’t be shocked if the Magic are like, the 6th seed next season.

MVP: Joel Embiid

You drag Tobias Harris’s ass to 54 wins, you get the Deadseriousnss MVP award. There are so many MVP arguments, most of them being trash, that I don’t even want to participate in the discussion.

The Sixers are not a functional basketball team without everything running through Embiid. He is the defensive anchor as well as the center of their offense. And again, he has to play 4-on-5 every night with Tobias Harris out there stealing a max contract from this team while doing the absolute least he can.

Runner-up: Nikola Jokic

The Nuggets are the no. 1 seed and Jokic’s advanced numbers indicate he’s one of the best players on the entire planet but when we’re splitting hairs between two great players, it should matter that one is a great defender and the other is fine.

Coach of the Year: Tom Thibodeau

YOU THOUGHT I WOULDN’T FIND A WAY TO MAKE THIS ABOUT THE KNICKS?!!?!? Las Vegas had this Knicks team winning about 38 games this season. They ended with 47 Ws due in large part to Thibs finally deciding to play some of the younger players dropping Evan Fournier and Derrick Rose out of the rotation.

Runner-up: Mike Brown

The Sacramento Kings are the 3rd seed in the West. That’s insane.

Worst Player in the NBA Award: Rudy Gobert

Rudy Gobert bankrupted an entire organization all under the guise of being a perennial Defensive Player of the Year candidate. Turns out, he’s just a French scammer who has no idea how to play basketball and whose sole ‘talent’ used to be blocking shots but now he’s just a giant Frankenstein moving in slow motion and getting cooked every time he attempts to defend someone from outside of the paint.

The Timberwolves brought in an unlikable anti-vax loser to destroy team chemistry as well as the salary cap.

Kyle Anderson and Rudy Gobert got into a scuffle during a timeout😳 pic.twitter.com/y8X76TbUuJ

— Backcourt Alerts (@BackcourtAlerts) April 9, 2023

And this asshole is stuck on this team until at least 2026. Kyle Anderson called him a bitch and the man who was called a bitch was reprimanded by the organization while the team, fans and the media all kind of just shrugged and thought “Kyle Anderson is right”.

Runner-up: Ben Simmons

I think Ben Simmons genuinely has an injured back and cannot play the way he’s used to playing. The problem is, he never formed any actual skills in case his natural athleticism failed him and now he’s a shell of a player but I think he’s still capable of being a fantastic defender if he ever gets his self-esteem back.

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