Why the wait? The reasoning behind the NBA Awards show
It’s been 75 days since Russell Westbrook took a regular-season dribble.
The presumptive Most Valuable Player last played a regular-season game on April 12, the NBA’s season-finale night. On Monday, after a six-week wait, he’ll likely receive the league’s most-coveted individual award. He’s not the only one waiting. At Monday’s NBA Awards show, the league also will crown its Rookie of the Year and Coach of the Year and hand out the rest of its hardware. It’s a first for the NBA, which typically has spread out its award announcements during the postseason.
When then-Thunder forward Kevin Durant was named Most Valuable Player in 2014, he received the award in Oklahoma City, sharing the moment with his teammates. Until this year, that was the traditional method of delivery.
“I feel bad that people have to wait, but the notion was that for me, having been at the league for 25 years now, I never liked the way the awards were dribbled out, essentially, throughout the playoffs,” commissioner Adam Silver said on The Full 48 podcast in April.
Because the MVP typically was presented before a home playoff game — often in as late a playoff round as possible — Silver came to dislike what he called “the Grim Reaper notion” of its presentation.
If the MVP’s team trailed in a series, Silver told The Full 48, “there was a suggestion that, ‘Uh oh, the league office is here or the commissioner is here (to present the MVP) because he doesn’t think we’re going to go any further.’”
That, combined with Silver’s love of the Golden Globes – an awards show, he said, where “people seem to be having fun” – led to the creation of the NBA Awards, which will be televised on TNT at 8 p.m.
So there will be an element of fun. In addition to the traditional awards, the league will present a series of fan-voted awards that include Dunk of the Year and Best Style. Current and former players are expected to attend.
Rapper Drake will host. Nicki Minaj will perform. Celebrities including Nick Cannon and Jada PinkettSmith will present awards.
The show is intended as a “celebration of the game,” NBA deputy commissioner Mark Tatum told Sports Illustrated.
Beyond Silver’s given answers, there are presumptive perks to an awards show. Even after the season is complete, the NBA will have a summer night that generates headlines and social-media chatter. And it’s an extra night of NBA programming for TNT, one of the league’s broadcast partners. According to The New York Times, the NBA’s TV deal with Turner and ESPN is worth $2.66 billion per year through 2024-25.