The NBA awards voting will begin from tonight and the league has now confirmed that the seeding games in the Bubble won’t be part of it.
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An international board of sportswriters and sports journalists will vote between July 21 to July 28 for the NBA awards. NBA Most Valuable Player, NBA Rookie of the Year, NBA Defensive Player of the Year, NBA Most Improved Player, NBA Sixth Man, NBA Coach of the Year, All-NBA Teams, NBA All-Defensive Teams, and NBA All-Rookie Teams are the awards that will be announced during the playoff stages in the NBA Bubble.
The voting starts tonight and it is going to be a close fight for most of the awards listed above.
The NBA’s award voting will be conducted July 21-28 before season resumption and awards will be announced during the playoffs.
— Shams Charania (@ShamsCharania) July 21, 2020
NBA Bubble Seeding Games will not be part of voting
The 2019-20 NBA season was suspended on 11 March due to coronavirus. The league will restart in Orlando with 22 teams but the 2019-20 NBA award will not consider the eight seeding games that will start from 30 July in the voting process.
The reason behind the decision
The decision is made to ensure equal opportunity for each player. The NBA essentially doesn’t want to complicate stuff with respect to the voting and wants to keep the seeding games out of it.
They feel the regular season without these seeding games was long enough for journalists to judge who the right player for each award is.
NBA President (League Operations) Byron Spruell said “The decision to exclude seeding games from awards voting ensures a fair process in which players and coaches from all 30 NBA teams will have the same opportunity to be honored as top performers for the 2019-20 regular season”
MVP race over
Lakers star LeBron James and Bucks Giannis Antetokounmpo are the top contenders for the MVP award and their performance in upcoming games won’t matter.
The award will be given on the performance till 11th March.
Similarly, Zion Williamson who has played only 19 games in 2019-20 season, won’t be able to catch his contender Ja Morant for the NBA Rookie of the Year award. But the statistical awards are still up for grabs.
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