Pool Photo-USA TODAY Sports
In Sports Illustrated’s annual picks for who will win which award for the 2020-21 NBA season, The Crossover’s Chris Mannix picked Portland Trail Blazers wing Gary Trent Jr. for Most Improved Player honors.
Mannix cited Trent’s emergence in the bubble as a potential indicator of the kind of leap he can make in the upcoming 2020-21 season.
Trent’s bubble numbers (16.9 points per game) nearly doubled his average in the regular season, foreshadowing, perhaps, a breakout season. While Trent will have competition for minutes at the swing positions on a replenished Blazers roster, it says here Terry Stotts will find room the sharpshooting Trent who emerged as a bulldog defender.
December 21, 2020
The 2020-21 NBA season is set to get started under very unique circumstances amid the COVID-19 pandemic. The start of a new season always brings new predictions for awards, and they often wind up looking very similar.
Here, we’re going to make some outside-the-box choices for the major NBA awards. While there’s a good chance these won’t be the winners, it wouldn’t be totally crazy.
MVP
Donovan Mitchell
The Utah Jazz are coming off a disappointing first-round exit against the Denver Nuggets last season. The Jazz were up 3-1 in the series and looked to be in clear control. They could not close things out, however, and the Nuggets came back to win.
2017-18 Season Stats: 17.8 ppg, 3.9 rpg, 7.3 apg
The buzz on Morant: The Grizzlies might not have realized it at the time, but the 2019 draft lottery yielded two future superstars in Williamson and Morant, who was a runaway winner in the 2020 Kia Rookie of the Year race. Morant’s fearlessness, creativity as a scorer and facilitator and next-level athleticism set him apart from the crowd. He makes the spectacular look routine, no matter who is on the court with him. He gives the Grizzlies star power on the court and provided an immediate face of the franchise off it. It’ll be easier to sell free agents on a bright future in Memphis with a talent like Morant already in place and ready to ascend. You simply don’t find players with his scintillating combination of skill and style on a regular basis. And that’s a mouthful in a league filled with next-level physical specimens. The more proficient he becomes as a shooter, the deadlier his game will be in the future.
Grizzlies fall 117-116 to Hawks after fourth quarter collapse
Share this story
Photo by Joe Murphy/NBAE via Getty Images
The Memphis Grizzlies completed their preseason slate Saturday night against the Atlanta Hawks, and found a way to blow a 19 point lead to lose the finale of their four games in the preseason, falling short of an undefeated record. That of course in meaningless - you don’t get extra regular season credit when it comes to victories in preseason play. But there was plenty to take away from the last week of basketball, good and bad (21 turnovers, that’d be bad), and despite Saturday night’s loss in the finale after the end of rotation players let the game slip away Grizzlies fans should be quite excited.
December 20, 2020
The 1985 NBA Draft was memorable for a myriad of reasons. It was the site of the infamous Ewing Conspiracy with the frozen envelope, and it significantly lessened the number of rounds from 10 to 7. Most notably, it was the first year of the Draft Lottery era.
The Draft Lottery, for those who don’t know, is the NBA’s designated system to determine the order of the draft from picks 1 to 14; picks 1-14 is hence referred to as “the Lottery” The worst teams naturally have the best chances to land the higher lottery picks.
Now, one would expect the best players to go to these bad teams with high picks, but history has taught us that this is not always the case. That same 1985 Draft produced the likes of Joe Dumars, A.C. Green, and the great Arvydas Sabonis outside the lottery. In this piece, we take a look at the greatest players drafted outside the lottery last decade, from the 2010 Draft to the 2019 Draft. Just like the 1985 Draft, this decade was filled with