October 21, 2024
Bill Streicher/Imagn Images
Joel Embiid captured his first NBA MVP trophy in 2022-23. Is Dallas Mavericks superstar Luka Dončić up next?
We are just one day away from the 2024-25 NBA regular season tipping off, and with a new season comes new faces asserting themselves as central figures within the basketball world. Few things are as fun as predicting which players (and coach) will be awarded with the league's most decorated trophies.
For this week's 5 Sixers thoughts, here is a prediction for five of the NBA's major individual awards -- with some thoughts sprinkled in on whether or not any Sixers could contend for each one.
It feels like Dončić's time. Dallas' Slovenian superstar won the Rookie of the Year trophy in his first NBA campaign, and has been named to the All-NBA First Team in each of the following five seasons. His third-place finish in MVP voting last season was a career-best, but he enters 2024-25 with plenty of momentum behind a push to capture the league's highest individual honor.
Dončić has completely mastered basketball. His per-game averages last season -- 33.9 points, 9.8 assists and 9.2 rebounds -- were flat-out comical. The Mavericks' run to the NBA Finals last year cements that they have the right pieces around Dončić for him to power the sort of team success that voters typically need to see to cast an MVP vote for someone.
If Joel Embiid was a safe bet to play 65 games -- the new requirement for a player to qualify for any of these awards -- he would be firmly in the mix here. But the 2022-23 NBA MVP enters the upcoming season focused only on getting to the playoffs at full health.
"This year, there's no agenda," Embiid said at the Sixers' annual Media Day last month. "There's no All-Star, there's no All-NBA, there's none of that."
Wembanyama has the weight of the world on his shoulders entering his second NBA season, and he appears perfectly comfortable with that. The Spurs appear to be deliberate in their collective attempt to not put too much on the phenom's plate from the perspective of expectations surrounding team success, but there is a chance that he is so good that San Antonio merely surrounding him with competent veterans propels them into Play-In Tournament contention in the packed Western Conference.
In all likelihood, Wembanyama is going to be the overwhelming favorite to win this award every year for many seasons to come. And when looking at his ability to completely derail opposing teams' possessions on a routine basis, it makes some sense.
simply marveling at Wemby's current DPOY odds relative to former DPOY preseason favorites pic.twitter.com/Yqum7oCxw3
— Owen Phillips (@owenlhjphillips) October 3, 2024
Wembanyama averaged 3.6 blocks per game as a rookie; only one player has bested that figure in the last decade. Wembanyama, though, did not even average 30 minutes per game; his 5.7 blocks per 100 possessions tells an even more compelling story.
Once again, Embiid is good enough to contend for this award if he played enough games and devoted himself to locking in on defense over the course of the entire season. But given his injury history and offensive workload, neither of those outcomes seem realistic.
The largest of spotlights will be on the league's newest prodigy, and if Wembanyama's production in his second season resembles that of his rookie campaign, he will be the clear favorite to win this award. If he gets even better... watch out.
Edey's rookie campaign will be fascinating to observe, as the 7-foot-4 lottery pick enters his first professional season with a unique opportunity: Edey is expected to start, and he will do so for a team with plenty of talent.
No. 9 pick Zach Edey dominated in the Grizzlies' #NBAPreseason win 💪😤
— NBA (@NBA) October 15, 2024
23 PTS (10-15 FGM)
9 REB
19 MIN pic.twitter.com/vq1JmWgavv
The Grizzlies won 56 and 51 games in back-to-back seasons before a cataclysmic 2023-24 season in which they saw nearly every single contributor go down due to injury. They have a real chance to reestablish themselves as one of the best teams in the Western Conference, and if they can do so while Edey finds his groove as a starting center, his candidacy for this award will grow much stronger.
This class of rookies in particular is one in which the ROY field is wide open, as there are no clear-cut options without serious downside. A few longer shots are Donovan Clingan, who would likely be considered one of the front-runners had he not been selected by a Portland Trail Blazers team that already had Deandre Ayton and Robert Williams III, and Cody Williams, who had an uneventful preseason aside from one strong showing but will likely be given plenty of chances to shine as the Utah Jazz embrace a youth movement.
Sixers rookie Jared McCain -- who, by the way, appears to be doing fine after his scary fall last week -- likely will not play enough to contend for the trophy.
MORE: Tyrese Maxey and Jared McCain injury updates
I was going to pick DiVincenzo to win this award when he was primed to be a super-sub for the New York Knicks. In some ways, the Villanova product being traded to Minnesota could hurt his chances -- the Timberwolves already have the reigning winner of the trophy coming off their bench in Naz Reid -- but if DiVincenzo has the kind of season in 2024-25 that he had in 2023-24, he will be a strong contender here playing for a team that will likely win a lot of regular season games.
Mike Conley, Jaden McDaniels and Julius Randle all seem cemented in their starting roles surrounding Anthony Edwards and Rudy Gobert, but DiVincenzo's outstanding three-point shooting, secondary scoring punch and toughness on defense make him primed to see significant action and potentially close games for the Timberwolves.
On the Sixers' side, head coach Nick Nurse has said that his starting lineup situation will be "fluid," indicating he will be willing to move guys to and from the bench over the course of the season. If his fourth and fifth starter spots becoming revolving doors, it is unlikely that any of the players occupying them will have enough production as reserves to contend for this award.
Even if Nurse sticks to his expected opening night rotation for the long haul and Caleb Martin is the team's sixth man, Martin does not profile as the prototypical 6MOY winner. Martin has the ability to be one of the league's most impactful bench players -- in fact, he has been that in the past -- but this award is very often given to players who post gaudy scoring totals. That is not Martin's speciality.
MORE: How will Knicks' trade for Towns impact Sixers?
Mosley's team won 47 games last year, its highest win total since 2010-11 -- and they did it thanks to young talent. Franz Wagner and Paolo Banchero make up an incredibly impressive duo of young budding stars, supporting pieces like fourth-year guard Jalen Suggs figure to continue to take steps forward and the team boasts excellent depth across most positions.
Predicting the winner of this award is essentially picking a team who will outperform expectations, and after debating between buying in on Mosley's Magic, Rick Carlisle's Indiana Pacers and Kenny Atkinson's Cleveland Cavaliers, I landed on Mosley's squad.
The starting shooting guard spot was a sore spot for last year's Magic team, and the biggest area for concern with Orlando was three-point shooting. Signing two-time NBA champion Kentavious Caldwell-Pope will give them a major lift in that department.
My primary concern with Orlando is its ability to consistently generate shots on the perimeter -- they have outstanding defenders at both guard positions, but reserve guard Cole Anthony is their only guard with consistent on-ball creation juice. But they do have all of the young talent, tradable salaries and draft picks needed to upgrade that area of their roster and any others they deem necessary of improvement.
Nurse is likely not going to factor into the COY race as a serious contender -- the award is given out to someone whose team overachieves relative to their regular season expectations; the Sixers hardly have any regular season expectations.
MORE: Predicting NBA win total over/unders
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