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The NBA is finally back.
After months of waiting the July 30 restart is now upon us. With that restart and the last eight games of the season comes end-of-season awards which will only account for the performance of players prior to the mid-March suspension.
While the actual awards have yet to be announced, ESPN’s Zach Lowe has released who he viewed will get the node on the respective teams. The NBA releases three All-NBA teams, two All-Defensive teams, and two All-Rookie teams.
The Wildcats should’ve had two former players on each sadly.
However, Rudy Gobert won the spot for center on the All-NBA Third Team. That said, Anthony Davis was the only Wildcats on the All-NBA teams. He was nominated to the first team, something that’ll be heavily predicted.
Davis was shoe-in for the spot. The ones that were mainly talked about were the snubs, which Adebayo was. Here’s the case Lowe made against him while still showing his elite upside.
“Adebayo is coming for this spot. (I had him ahead of Sabonis.) He can do more on offense than Gobert — mostly as a distributor. But he’s still finding his way as a scorer. He can’t scoot past centers in the half court as easily as you’d expect; he often burrows into them, and lofts off-balance floaters. The gap between Gobert and Adebayo on defense still outweighs the gap between Adebayo and Gobert on offense,” Lowe wrote.
Adebayo did crack a roster though, as both Davis and Adebayo make it on the All-Defensive First and Second Team respectively. Davis will be a top candidate for Defensive Player of the Year too.
As for the final few rosters, those were saved for elite rookies. Somehow, someway, Tyler Herro wasn’t nominated to the All-Rookie first team, according to Lowe. Both Herro and PJ Washington cracked the All-Rookie Second Team.
Thankfully, these are just predictions.
For now, there is hope that Adebayo gets in the All-NBA teams and Herro potentially gets a bump into the All-Rookie First Team. There are some positive adjustments that could be made, but having five players on these lists is still extremely impressive.