NBA 2025-26: Who are favorites for individual awards?
Who should win MVP, Rookie of the Year and the other awards? Also, a bonus track with the unofficial ones.
We enter the clutch of the regular season and it’s time to choose the good, the bad and the ugly of the NBA heading to playoffs. This one-person committee, accustomed to dogmatic decisions, will once again plunge into swampy waters. Without avoiding the responsibility that this type of resolution entails, here are the seasonal awards.
Official… and not so much.
rookie of the year
Favorite: Kon Knueppel (Charlotte Hornets)
Finalists: Cooper Flagg (Dallas Mavericks) and VJ Edgecombe (Philadelphia 76ers)
The Hornets rookie is a hero of silence. He came to a franchise accustomed to losing and with his contribution he gave it dignity. He is an excellent shooter, a doll that is reminiscent of stars of the caliber of Stephen Curry and Ray Allen. That’s how good Knueppel is. He leads the league in total three-pointers made and his true shooting percentage is amazing.
The Cooper Flagg thing (expected) and the VJ Edgecombe thing (more surprising) have been very good, but Knueppel deserves the rookie of the year. Final point.
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The candidates for Rookie of the Year
These are the main rookies of the 2025-26 season.
Defensive Player of the Year
Favorite: Victor Wembanyama (San Antonio Spurs)
Finalists: Chet Holmgren (Oklahoma City Thunder), Stephon Castle (San Antonio Spurs) and Scottie Barnes (Toronto Raptors)
There is not so much mystery in this decision. No offense to anyone, Wemby had no serious competition in this position. It’s not just the more than three blocks per game he averages, but the shots he deflects, what intimidates him in the paint, and the number of wrong decisions he causes.
Holmgren did a very good job in the Thunder, Castle broke it in the San Antonio perimeter and Barnes has had a luxurious two-way season. But Wembanyama is something else. It’s an alien. Neither more nor less than that.
Most Improved Player
Favorite: Jalen Duren (Detroit Pistons)
Finalists: Nickeil Alexander-Walker (Atlanta Hawks), Payton Pritchard (Boston Celtics) and Deni Avdija (Portland Trail Blazers)
Very good competition in this section, although Duren went from being a very good player to being an NBA star for the Pistons who were decisive protagonists in the East.
There really is subjectivity here, because Alexander-Walker, Pritchard and Avdija were brilliant, who even played in the All-Star Game. Duren’s choice is finite, but this committee considers, with the appropriate safeguards, that he deserves the distinction. It will be justice.
Sixth man of the year
Favorite: J.aime Jaquez Jr. (Miami Heat)
Finalists: Keldon Johnson (San Antonio Spurs) and Naz Reid (Minnesota Timberwolves)
The Heat’s Mexican forward wins a prize that no one has guaranteed in advance. Jáquez Jr. was always energy off the bench, intense on both sides and aggressive in helping his teammates. Johnson did well and so did Reid. Jaime wins it, but the position could well have been left vacant.
Most Valuable Player
Favorite: Victor Wembanyama (San Antonio Spurs)
Finalists: Shai Gilgeous-Alexander (Oklahoma City Thunder), Nikola Jokic (Denver Nuggets) and Jaylen Brown (Boston Celtics)
We enter the realm of full subjectivity. I know. My opinion is that Wembanyama (not just him, but he was a clear reference) took San Antonio from being a lottery team in 2024-25 to being a potential championship team. These impossible things are only caused by those who are truly different. Wemby had a season in San Antonio, very well accompanied of course, but his genius on both sides of the court makes him my favorite for the award.
Shai Gilgeous-Alexander? He deserves it too. Nikola Jokic? He deserves it too. Jaylen Brown? He deserves it too. But we are not here to doubt. We are here to choose. And despite the difficulty of the case, we believe that the NBA now has a new owner.
Coach of the year:
Favorite: Joe Mazzulla (Boston Celtics)
Finalists: Mitch Johnson (San Antonio Spurs), JB Bickerstaff (Detroit Pistons) and Mark Daigneault (Oklahoma City Thunder)
There’s not much to discuss here. Mazzulla did a splendid job. In a league that had load management and tanking as habits and customs, Boston chose to compete. He gave dignity to the League, he built a team of men with Brown as the first sword and a group of notables around who supported him with mastery. Kristaps Porzingis, Jrue Holiday, Al Horford, Luke Kornet were gone and none of that mattered. Jayson Tatum was out for much of the season due to his Achilles tendon injury and it didn’t matter either. New faces appeared and showed that shared effort, integral energy, can destroy the purest talent. The only place where success comes before work is in the dictionary.
The Celtics are a real team thanks to the imprint of their coach. Believe, train and convince. The triad of success anywhere now shines like never before in the best basketball in the world. Mazzulla is the Coach of the Year. For his message, for his insistence, for his determination and for his honorability to face challenges. The rest have to watch, applaud and learn.
Executive of the year:
Favorite: Brad Stevens (Boston Celtics)
Finalists: Sam Presti (Oklahoma City Thunder) and Brian Wright (San Antonio Spurs)
Another one who played it back to back with Mazzulla. The Celtics were financially exhausted entering the season. They had many issues to resolve and it seemed that there was only going to be a distant memory of the champion team in 2023-24. None of that happened. In fact, they developed players, brought in Anfernee Simons and then, in the free agency market, traded him for Nikola Vucevic and made the payroll even more flexible for the future.
The Celtics have a power that is difficult to obtain in the NBA: no player is better than all of them together and no one is irreplaceable. This, which seems simple, is the most complicated thing that exists in professionalism. In addition to success on the field, it functions as a negotiating element for future contractual renewals.
Disappointing player of the season
Favorite: Ja Morant (Memphis Grizzlies)
Finalists: Myles Turner (Milwaukee Bucks), Paolo Banchero (Orlando Magic), Jalen Williams (Oklahoma City Thunder)
We have witnessed, perhaps, the largest progressive fall of a star in at least the last two decades. Morant played 79 games over the past three seasons. He went from being one of the most spectacular players in the NBA, valued and admired by everyone, to not even having a place in his own franchise. Off-field incidents, recurring injuries and a conflictive personality caused Morant to lose all his value on the market. He didn’t leave in free agency because no one wanted him. That is the truth, a fallen angel who will seek a new destiny after this summer to be reborn as the Phoenix.
He beat interesting finalists, because Turner’s season in Milwaukee has been calamitous, Banchero went from superstar to earthly and Jalen Williams, who always stood out for his physique and intensity, made nursing his natural habitat. Let’s start and give again, gentlemen.
Coach Disappointment of the Season:
Favorite: Erik Spoelstra (Miami Heat)
Finalists: Jason Kidd (Dallas Mavericks), Billy Donovan (Chicago Bulls) and Will Hardy (Utah Jazz)
We chose Spoelstra because he made incomprehensible decisions throughout the regular series. A constant back and forth that filled a team that was affected by injuries with confusion (Tyler Herro first, Norman Powelll later) but who has the talent to be much higher in the East.
Spoelstra’s strangest and highest point came with Kel’el Ware, the young promise in painting. Why didn’t he play more? Why did he take away his minutes on a team lacking centimeters? He has the answers, of course. But being a star on the bench, his season was not good. Things as they are.
The rest? Kidd could not manage the team after the departure of Luka Doncic to the Lakers and never found a new route. Donovan once again left the Bulls in the realm of uncertainty (he will possibly return to the NCAA to lead North Carolina) and Hardy was a necessary part of one of the most embarrassing tanking scandals in recent times.
