After a 30 day hiatus, the NBA has returned and announced the winners of their highly anticipated major awards. These awards include Most Valuable Player, Sixth Man of the Year and Coach of the Year. Since most of the teams didn’t play after the hiatus, the league commissioner and other executives decided to only base the awards on the players’ performances leading up to March 11.

     Giannis Antetokounmpo of the Milwaukee Bucks won Most Valuable Player for the second year in a row. He beat James Harden of the Houston Rockets and LeBron James. Antetokounmpo averaged 20 points a game, nine rebounds and four assists. He also led his team to the Eastern Conference Semifinals, where they lost to the Miami Heat in five games. In addition to the Most Valuable Player award, Antetokounmpo also won the

Defensive Player of the Year Award. Throughout the season, he averaged 1.3 blocks and 1.2 steals. He received more votes than Rudy Gobert from the Utah Jazz and Anthony Davis from the Los Angeles Lakers.

   The NBA also named the rookie of the year award. The most unanimous award this year was won by Ja Morant of the Memphis Grizzlies. Morant got 99 out of 100 votes for his award. Morant was the second pick of this year’s draft and he averaged 18 points, four rebounds and seven assists as he led his team to the play-in game where they lost to the Portland Trailblazers. Other finalists for the rookie of the year award were Kendrick Nunn from the Miami Heat and Zion Williamson, the number one pick in the draft for the New Orleans Pelicans.

   In another landslide, Nick Nurse won his first Coach of the Year award in the NBA. Nick Nurse was able to get 90 out of 100 votes. Nurse coaches the Toronto Raptors and he led them to the second-best record throughout the NBA this year, with 53 wins and 19 losses. Last year, Nurse and the Toronto Raptors beat the Golden State Warriors in the NBA Finals but this year they fell short and lost to the Boston Celtics in the Eastern Conference Semifinals. Nick Nurse beat Mike Budenholzer, coach of the Milwaukee Bucks, and Billy Donovan from the Oklahoma City Thunder for the award. 

   For the first time in his career, Montrezl Harrell of the Los Angeles Clippers won the Sixth Man of the Year award. The award goes to the best player that isn’t in their team’s starting lineup of 5. Off the bench, Harrell averaged 19 points, two assists and seven rebounds. Harrell played his role well and helped lead his team to Western Conference Semifinals where they lost to the Denver Nuggets. The other finalists for the award were Dennis Schröder from the Oklahoma City Thunder and Harrell’s teammate, Lou Williams who has won the award for the last two years in a row.

   The final award was the Most Improved award. It goes to the player that has shown the most growth from last season. This year, Brandon Ingram from the New Orleans Pelicans beat Bam Adebayo of the Miami Heat and Luka Doncic of the Dallas Mavericks. Last year, Ingram averaged 18 points and three assists. This year, Ingram averaged 23 points, six rebounds and four assists. Ingram’s team did not make the playoffs and they finished the season with 30 wins and 42 losses.