With the rest of the 2019-2020 NBA season on hold since March 11th, so too has the offseason that is supposed to follow. If the season had followed its normal course, we would have already experienced Summer League and the bulk of free agency. But, happily, the hiatus WILL be over soon! Starting July 30th, basketball fans will have more basketball to watch than ever! But what will happen? In this series, I will (attempt to) predict what will happen with awards voting, the rest of the season, the draft, free agency, and all of the trades in between.

Second in the series, awards teams!

All-NBA

1st - Luka Doncic, James Harden, Giannis Antetokounmpo, LeBron James, Anthony Davis

2nd - Damian Lillard, Kemba Walker, Kawhi Leonard, Nikola Jokic, Joel Embiid

3rd - Kyle Lowry, Trae Young, Jimmy Butler, Pascal Siakam, Rudy Gobert

With Fred Katz’s tweet regarding All-NBA positional eligibility, my ballot has changed pretty significantly. LeBron James, Ben Simmons, Jayson Tatum, Khris Middleton, Jimmy Butler, and Luka Doncic are eligible at guard and forward, while Anthony Davis, Karl-Anthony Towns, Nikola Jokic, and Bam Adebayo are eligible at forward and center. The validity of these decisions regarding positional eligibility is… dubious at best, but it is what it is. The 1st team remains fairly similar and should be pretty chalk in regard to the actual teams selected. #1 and #2 on my MVP ballot, Giannis and LeBron, headline the lineup as forwards. Luka Doncic burst onto the scene, turning the Mavericks into true contenders in just his second season, while another other-worldly season from James Harden headlines the guard position. The major change is the allowance for Anthony Davis to be classified as a center. While his best position is at center, he has played next to a traditional big man like JaVale McGee or Dwight Howard for the majority of the regular season and should only be eligible at forward, but he is the 1st team center by a pretty wide margin. The discussion between whether Jokic or Embiid should have the 1st team slot had been a major sticking point, but in my opinion, it’s not really close between the two. Jokic had a spotty start to the season, as he plays himself in shape per usual, but he has really upped his play throughout the season. He also has a bigger burden, having essentially shouldered the burden of the entire team with fairly limited help when compared to Embiid, who can focus mostly on defense while Ben Simmons runs the offense. Embiid has dealt with injuries his entire career, and Brett Brown attempted to preserve Embiid with rest throughout the regular season by leaning on his $100M now back-up Al Horford, since the 76ers struggle with their big 3 of Simmons, Embiid, and Horford on the floor together. Embiid has played 21 fewer games and nearly 700 minutes less than Jokic, and even when Embiid does play, questions of effort, especially on the road, plague him. He is a far superior defender than Jokic and an unquestioned generational talent, but he and the 76ers have a lot of soul-searching ahead of them, with a disappointing season behind them and a massive luxury tax bill ahead of them. Jokic should not be eligible at forward, but he is, so both he and Embiid make my 2nd team. As the media votes on All-NBA, I looked at their All-Star game voting to gain a general sense of where their hierarchy might have these players. The 3 players with 100 votes are Giannis, LeBron, and Luka. Harden received 99 votes and AD received 96 votes. Like I said before, 1st team seems pretty set in stone. Kemba Walker received the 4th most votes, with 92, which really surprises me. Kemba had a great individual and team season, taking the Celtics reigns from the disastrous Kyrie Irving, but he struggled a bit with injuries and wasn’t even the best player on his own team in the latter part of the season after the emergence of Jayson Tatum as a true #1. I understand the arguments for Kemba over fellow vote-getters Trae Young, Bradley Beal (good stats, bad team guys), and Ben Simmons (can’t shoot, more defensive-minded in the 76ers system), but Kyle Lowry is actually having a pretty comparable season to Kemba, who garnered nearly 6 times the media vote over Lowry, who garnered 16 votes. Both are good stats, good team guys, averaging similar stats in similar roles for their respective teams. Lowry played more games, far more minutes, averaged more rebounds and assists, while Kemba scored more on greater percentages. Nevertheless, Kemba appears to be entrenched in the 2nd team guard group. However, I cannot put either Kyle or Kemba over Damian Lillard, who has been a good stats, fairly bad team guy this season, who miraculously only garnered 1 All-Star media vote while averaging 29 and 8 on over 30% usage on a team that has dealt with several injuries to key players. Kawhi received the 5th most votes with 89 and is a perfect fit for the lead 2nd team forward slot above Nikola Jokic with 7 votes, while Joel Embiid, 6th with 81 votes, fills the center spot. Jimmy Butler is 7th with 66 votes and should be a staple on the 3rd team with his guard and forward eligibility. While his three-point shooting appears to have mysteriously abandoned him, Butler is getting to the foul line and distributing at career high rates while still defending at a high level, which speaks more to his new role in Miami than a decline in his skills. Alongside the emergence of several key role players for Miami, Butler has led Miami to a surprisingly good season in the East, 4th right now, setting the stage for the acquisition of another star player alongside Butler in the next few years. Pascal Siakam is 8th with 50 votes. Fresh off a MIP and championship season, Siakam entered the year on a Toronto team with much lower expectations, as Finals MVP Kawhi Leonard departed for LA, but captained the team alongside Kyle Lowry to 2nd place in a strong East once again while making his first All-Star team. He will make a very good 3rd team forward in his first All-NBA berth in a wildly successful season for the Raptors, no matter what happens come playoff time. Trae Young is 9th with 47 votes, and is captain of the good stats, bad team boat. Trae is a horrid defender, but is such a transcendent offensive talent, I believe he cannot be ignored for All-NBA, which he will be a staple of for a long time once Atlanta surrounds him with NBA talent. With how close I felt Kemba and Kyle were this year, I placed Kyle over Trae, Ben Simmons (both of whom outvoted Kyle in the media), and Bradley Beal. Simmons got 30 votes, but I could not place him over Trae or Kyle. Simmons shouldered much of the offensive load for the 76ers team this year, which dealt with very lackluster minutes from Joel and fit issues from the other players, while remaining a lockdown, All-Defense-caliber defender from the guard spot, night in and night out. However, Simmons continues to struggle with assertiveness and shooting anywhere from the field, which severely complicates things for the 76ers offensively. Like Trae, Luka, Pascal, AD, Jokic, Beal, Tatum, and Embiid, Simmons will be a staple on the All-NBA team for years to come, but this year is not quite the year yet. Bradley Beal received 6 votes and has very comparable stats to Trae Young, while having a better record. However, sometimes being less of a loser still makes you a loser. Being slightly less bad in the abysmal bottom-middle of the East is not really that much of an accomplishment. Trae is a much better passer and I would much rather have Trae’s season as the foundation of my team than Bradley’s. Leaving a 30 point scorer off the All-NBA feels wrong but speaks to the strength of the guard grouping this year. For Brad’s sake, I hope that he recognizes that the Wizards should not be long for him and asks for a trade soon. This leaves the final All-NBA slot open, the 3rd center. Bam Adebayo, Domantas Sabonis, and Rudy Gobert are all strong considerations for the spot. Gobert has 5 votes, Adebayo has 2 votes, Sabonis has 1 vote, and all three made the All-Star team. Adebayo and Sabonis had strong considerations for MIP, while Gobert is a strong DPOY contender. Gobert is my choice for his defensive linchpin status. Jokic being eligible at forward is a bizarre wrinkle that the NBA added to this equation, and I feel weird putting him there. In this case, Jokic is essentially swapping places with AD due to their eligibilities. Embiid feels too valuable to his team to be a 3rd team guy, while Jokic shifting to center would likely bump Jimmy Butler or Pascal Siakam to 2nd team, which likewise feels too high for either of those guys. Additionally, no Rudy on the 3rd team would mean that another forward would make the 3rd, likely Ben Simmons, Jayson Tatum, Bam Adebayo, or Khris Middleton. Simmons at forward feels like horrible category fraud. Tatum really came on past the All-Star break, but he doesn’t appear to have the voter support and I don’t love the post-All-Star break jump that seems to happen every year for some guys as evidence of linear progression. Like Tatum, I feel like Westbrook’s case is also hurt by the fact that his rise came late in the year. All-NBA is meant to be an entire season’s body of work for players. Adebayo nominally plays power forward, like AD, but should probably be a center exclusively. I think his role this season is an anomaly, due to some of their personnel like Kelly Olynyk and Meyers Leonard being stretch centers, and don’t love putting him at forward. The exclusion of Khris Middleton hurts me a lot. Middleton has become a fantastic second option for the Bucks, emerging as a true All-Star level of talent after his questionable selection last season with his fantastic shooting ability. Similar to Bradley Beal, his exclusion speaks more to the dearth of talent in the NBA right now and is no indictment on his skills. Additionally, no media member voted for Middleton, like with Tatum, signaling a lack of early season support. Anther honorable mention: Chris Paul, who will undoubtedly make many people’s All-NBA teams. To me, he had a similar case to other strong contenders, most notably Jimmy Butler. Both turned around teams that were expected to have tough seasons with their leadership on both sides of the ball. It came down to Paul just not having as good a season as Lowry or Young. Paul, Beal, Middleton, Tatum, and Adebayo make my 4th team, which could be a 2nd-level team in some years. Simmons, Westbrook, PG, Ingram, and Sabonis make my 5th team, which shows a strong level of talent in the NBA pipeline coming up in the next few years, to speak nothing of the talents of Donovan Mitchell, Devin Booker, Karl-Anthony Towns, or the countless super-teams plagued with injuries like the Warriors and Nets.

All-Defensive

1st – Ben Simmons, Jimmy Butler, Giannis Antetokounmpo, Anthony Davis, Rudy Gobert

2nd – Patrick Beverly, Marcus Smart, Kawhi Leonard, Bam Adebayo, Brook Lopez

A few spots were easy to fill, others were not so. Being DPOY and ineligible for any other position, Giannis seizes one of the 1st team forward slots automatically. Other top DPOY candidates AD, Rudy, and Ben Simmons fill out the 1st team, which Brook Lopez would’ve also made had the 1st team been completely position-less, but instead anchors the 2nd team. Jimmy Butler instead makes the 1st team in 5th spot as the 2nd guard. This spot was tough to fill. Kawhi is a much better defender than Jimmy, but I would counter that Jimmy is more of a guard than Kawhi, so Kawhi also makes the 2nd team. Jimmy has had a rejuvenated season overall in Miami and that includes his effort and intensity on defense. Patrick Beverly is one of the most disruptive guards in the entire NBA, being so small while regularly guarding much bigger players. Marcus Smart is one of the best glue guys in the NBA. Once again, listing Bam at forward is a bit of category fraud, but lends itself better to defensive teams as centers are so critical to team’s defensive schemes, like Bam is critical to Miami’s. There were several bench guys, like Kris Dunn and Matisse Thybulle, who are transcendental defensive talents but have not been established as no-doubt starters in the NBA yet. They will be fixtures of these teams for a long time once they become bigger fixtures of their own teams.

All-Rookie

1st – Ja Morant, Zion Williamson, Brandon Clarke, Kendrick Nunn, Tyler Herro

2nd – Eric Paschall, P.J. Washington, Coby White, Terence Davis, Matisse Thybulle

The top four are pretty clear. Ja had an incredible rookie season, Zion looked even better but barely played, Brandon was one of the most efficient players in the NBA, and Kendrick looked the part of a quality NBA guard for years to come. The next six are clear as well, but who should make the second team? Herro played the least games, Paschall scored the most, Washington was the best rebounder, White was the best passer, and Terrence was the most efficient. Terrence and Matisse both had bit roles this season in comparison to the other four but played incredibly valuable roles for teams in contention. Rookie voting should value these types of players, but I don’t believe that voters do, so I put Terence and Matisse at the end of the 2nd team. The best-case scenario would be big, important roles on playoff teams, like the rookies of the Grizzlies and Heat this year. The unfortunate truth of the draft is, in theory, some of the best talents with the best roles go to some of the worst teams, like Paschall, Washington, and Coby this year for example. With how close the middle four are, I chose Tyler Herro for the last spot on the 1st team with his sizable role on the winningest team but would not criticize any of the four making it in. Michael Porter Jr. and R.J. Barrett are two of the notable exclusions from these teams. Porter played too sporadically to make the team, in even in a year where Zion places 2nd in ROY voting. He should have played more, and had he played more, he almost assuredly would have made the team, anti-vaxxer comments aside. R.J. Barrett was just too inefficient in what was another lost year for the Knicks to merit an All-Rookie selection.