Last night, the first ever NBA Awards show was held in New York City at Basketball City in Pier 36. The show was hosted by Drake, with Nicki Minaj being the featured music act along with a star-studded lineup of presenters. Now, without further ado, let's get to finding out who won the top awards.
Rookie of the Year
In what may have been the most surprising result of the night, Malcolm Brogdon of the Milwaukee Bucks beat out the Philadelphia 76ers duo of Joel Embiid and Dario Saric to win Rookie of the Year. Brogdon was drafted with the 36th pick in the second round, which makes him the only player since the common draft era started (1966) to win the award not being a first-round pick.
He is also the first player to win the award without having won a Rookie of the Month award. Brogdon joins Kareem Abdul-Jabbar as the only Bucks players to win this award.
Sixth Man of the Year
Eric Gordon became the first player in Houston Rockets history to win the Sixth Man of the Year award. For the season, he averaged 16.2 points, 2.7 rebounds and 2.5 assists, while shooting 40.6 percent from the field and 37.2 percent from three. He also made a career-high 246 three pointers, the fourth most in the NBA. Gordon made 206 of those while coming off the bench, the most threes ever made by a bench player in one season.
Coach of the Year
With Mike D'Antoni coaching the Houston Rockets shattered the Warriors record of 1,077 three pointers in a season by making 1,181.
The Rockets also improved their record by 14 games and went from being the eighth seed to the third seed in the West. For D'Antoni, this is his second Coach of the Year award, as he previously won it with the Phoenix Suns in 2004-05. He is only the eighth coach to win this award twice.
Most Improved Player
Giannis Antetokoumpo became the first Bucks player to win the Most Improved Player award.
This season he was only the fifth player to lead his team in all five major statistical categories since blocks and steals became official stats in 1973-74. Giannis increased his points per game by six, his rebounds by 1.1, his assists by 1.1, his steals by 0.4 and his blocks by 0.5.
Defensive Player of the Year
Draymond Green finally beat out Kawhi Leonard for Defensive Player of the Year, after being the runner-up each of the last two seasons.
In the process, he became the first player in the history of the Golden State Warriors to win the award. Green set a career high and led the league in steals, averaging 2.03 per game. He also the only player in the league to have over 100 blocks and steals in each of the last two seasons.
Most Valuable Player
The winner of the MVP award was Oklahoma City Thunder guard Russell Westbrook, who has plenty of stats that have been mentioned before to back up his historic prowess for this season. He is the second player in Thunder history to win the MVP award. It is also notable that Westbrook is the first player to win MVP since Moses Malone did in 1981-82 to have his team be ranked lower than fourth place in the conference standings.
