The National Basketball Players Association will give out the first-ever player-voted awards this offseason according to a memo obtained by USA Today.
In the memo, NBPA Director Michele Roberts states that the program will be called the “Players Choice Awards.”
“This program was created at your request to recognize outstanding performance of your peers, on and off the court. No one knows better than you what it takes to shine.”
The reasoning largely echoes that of Kevin Durant, who argued that players should have more of a say in who won awards back in February.
“I think (the) media gets too much power to vote on stuff like that. Quite frankly I don’t think you really know a lot about as much we know about it,” Durant said.
Votes will be cast anonymously and the winners will be announced in Las Vegas during the summer meetings. While there are no details as to what awards will be handed out, the memo does indicate that there will be an MVP award and an award honoring community service.
NBA Awards have been voted on by members of the press since the 1980-81 season.
While this seems like a fine idea (and it certainly doesn’t hurt anyone) the NBA’s regular season awards rarely screw things up too much. Sure, if there were more stringent guidelines as to what “valuable” meant, Michael Jordan would have probably won a few more MVP awards but it’s hard to say that the media has gotten it consistently wrong over the past 30-plus years.
One way that the Players Choice Awards could distinguish itself from the media-voted awards is if they wait until after the playoffs to cast ballots. However, it is currently unclear when the deadline to cast ballots in the Players Choice Awards occurs.
