Having made my picks for the individual hardware, I now drop-step flawlessly into the portion of the ballot that focuses on team awards: All-NBA, All-Defensive and All-Rookie. Let’s bake this ziti:
All-NBA
FIRST TEAM
Luka Donu010diu0107, Mavericks
Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Thunder
Giannis Antetokounmpo, Bucks
It’s funny: The NBA shifted to a positionless ballot structure so that we could get multiple centers on the First Team, better reflecting the all-that-is-old-is-new-again power dynamics of a league once again ruled by kaiju … and then Joel Embiid went on to miss more than half the season.