Chris Paul, the No. 4 overall pick in last June's NBA draft, will win the Rookie of the Year Award going away. Two guys with local ties — ex-Ute Andrew Bogut and Jazzman Deron Williams — were candidates before the season began, but Paul got off to a fast start, instantly turned the Hornets from terrible to decent and had the top rookie award wrapped up before the All-Star break.
Paul could (and should) be a unanimous choice.
The outcomes of the two other major awards — Most Valuable Player and Coach of the Year — are much less clear.
The MVP race has at least a dozen viable candidates (see story at right). Fewer coaches deserve to be individually honored, but there is a handful who could make a strong case as a Coach of the Year candidate.
I don't have a vote, but if I did, here's how I'd cast my ballots:
MVP
Steve Nash, last year's winner (and deservedly so), may have been even better this year. Even without star center Amare Stoudemire, who has been out nearly all season with a knee injury, Nash has directed the Suns to the Pacific Division title and the No. 2 seed from the Western Conference. He may win back-to-back MVPs.
Yet Nash isn't even in my top five.
Other former winners — like Shaquille O'Neal, Tim Duncan, Allen Iverson and Kevin Garnett — have had solid years but aren't in contention. Several players had break-out campaigns, like Denver's Carmelo Anthony, Washington's Gilbert Arenas, Boston's Paul Pierce, Phoenix's Shawn Marion and Elton Brand of the Clippers. Yet none of those would be on my ballot.
At the start of the year I predicted that Dallas' Dirk Nowitzki would be the MVP. At midseason, with Detroit threatening to post the best record in NBA history, the Pistons' best player this year — point guard Chauncey Billups — was my choice.
But who can overlook Kobe Bryant during the season he scored 81 points in a game and will win the scoring title with room to spare? And LeBron James has been incredible — especially down the stretch for the playoff-bound Cavaliers. Then there is Dwyane Wade, a do-everything guy who has supplanted Shaq as the main man in Miami.
Any one of those players could win the award, and it wouldn't be upsetting to me, but the NBA MVP generally comes from a team that has done great things. Nowitzki is the only All-Star on a Mavericks team that will likely finish with the third-best record in the league.
I'd vote for Nowitzki first, followed up closely by Billups, Bryant, James and Wade — in that order.
COACH OF THE YEAR
Again, this one is a tough call with no shortage of deserving candidates.
Mike D'Antoni of the Suns won last season and should be considered again. But he has his. It's someone else's turn.
This award generally goes to a coach who takes a bad team from the previous year and makes it mediocre. But what about a coach who takes over a good team and keeps it there? Flip Saunders has done a fine job keeping the two-time defending Eastern Conference champion Pistons at the top after taking over from Larry Brown. Then again, with as good of a starting five as the Pistons have, it's hard not to believe that anyone off the street could "coach" Detroit to 60 wins.
New Orleans/Oklahoma City's Byron Scott is a guy who has helped his team go from just 18 wins a year ago to at least 38 — even though his team got displaced just days before the season began due to Hurricane Katrina. But Paul is probably more responsible for the Hornets' turnaround than the coach.
Phil Jackson returned to the Lakers and got them back in the playoffs (with a little help from Kobe), while New Jersey's Lawrence Frank has done a nice job, especially in the second half of the season, getting his players producing at a high level.
But the top two coaches this year have been Dallas' Avery Johnson and the Clippers' Mike Dunleavy. Johnson inherited a solid playoff team, but he has the formerly defenseless Mavs actually playing tough defense.
Dunleavy, meanwhile, has coached the NBA's worst-run franchise of the past 30 years to 46 victories.
The Clippers pushing 50 victories? Are pigs flying?
Dunleavy has to be the coach of the year.
E-mail: lojo@desnews.com