Which NBA star had the best 2023? The Golden Basketball winner is …

Which NBA star had the best 2023? The Golden Basketball winner is …

It’s time to reflect on the basketball season with the aid of my yearly (and fictitious)

Golden Basketball award as 2024 draws near.

Similar to soccer’s Ballon d’Or, the Golden Basketball honours year-long excellence in the regular season,

postseason, and, as of late, NBA’s in-season event in addition to international participation.

Even while each of these tournaments has its own MVP award,

there isn’t a means to honour supremacy in every one of them collectively.

The last 12 months have demonstrated how the NBA’s changing schedule

necessitates examining different tournaments.

We had separate MVPs for the NBA Finals (Nikola Jokic of the Denver Nuggets),

the in-season tournament (LeBron James of the Los Angeles Lakers),

and the regular season (Joel Embiid of the Philadelphia 76ers).

Along with the best player in the FIBA World Cup tournament this summer,

all three of them are finalists for this year’s Golden Basketball.

Notably, 2022 champion Luka Doncic,

whose Dallas Mavericks missed out on the play-in round just a year after

making it to the Western Conference finals,was not a finalist.

After James dominated the first half-decade I awarded the Golden Basketball,

winning four times in the first five years,

Doncic became the fourth different winner in as many years.

Who will win five straight games, Embiid or Jokic?

Now let’s award the Golden Basketball for this year.

Special mentions

NBA player Giannis Antetokounmpo

Summary: All-NBA first team, postseason competition Every Team for Every Event

The 2021 Golden Basketball winner was at his best during the 2023 portions of the two regular seasons.

He was third in last season’s MVP voting and third in the most recent MVP straw poll,

which was held by ESPN’s Tim Bontemps.

But in between, during the Bucks’ historic upset loss to the Miami Heat in Game 1,

Giannis sustained a lower back injury that limited him to just three postseason games.

Golden State Warriors’ Stephen Curry

Resume: NBA Second Team All-Stars

This season may have seen the career-defining moment for Curry,

as his 50-point shooting spree in Game 7 on the road defeated the Sacramento Kings.

Shortly after, the Warriors’ title defence collapsed,

preventing Curry from reproducing his 2022 heroics on the greatest stages of the NBA.

The Los Angeles Lakers’ Anthony Davis

Résumé: All-Tournament Team throughout the season

Davis has played a strong paint defence this season,

missing just two games in a healthy regular season that saw the Lakers advance to the conference finals last year.

Though his offensive output has been more inconsistent,

Davis was at his best in the in-season tournament final,

leading the Lakers to their first-ever NBA Cup victory with 41 points, 20 rebounds, 5 assists, and 4 blocks.

Doncic Luka, Mavericks of Dallas

Resume: First team All-NBA, first team All-FIBA Basketball World Cup All-Tournament

Shortly after, Doncic’s enormous workload caused the wave he rode to his 2022 Golden Basketball to crash.

Dallas’ decline in the rankings was not reversed by trading for Kyrie Irving,

as the Mavericks ended the previous campaign in 11th place in the Western Conference.

Dallas is once again competitive in the West after an offseason overhaul,

which gives Luka another opportunity to win in 2024.

Boston Celtics’ Jayson Tatum.

Resume: First team all-NBA

If Tatum can lead a great team to a championship,

2024 might be the best year of his career,

since the Celtics currently own the best record in the league.

Sadly, Tatum’s only lasting recollection of 2023 was the ankle injury that

prevented him from playing in Game 7 of Boston’s conference finals loss against Miami,

where the Celtics failed to pull off a historic comeback from a 3-0 deficit.

finalists

Miami Heat’s Jimmy Butler

Resume: NBA Second Team All-Stars

“Playoff Jimmy” is an incredible guy who is real.

Butler excelled in the playoffs once more,

taking Miami from the play-in round to the NBA Finals before the Heat’s unlikely run against

the Denver Nuggets came to an end.

Butler’s regular season had been good but unspectacular.

Butler led the league in playoff thefts per game and

increased his scoring from 22.9 points per game during

the regular season to 27.4 points per game during the postseason.

There are few players you’d prefer have for the playoffs than Butler,

even though others might be more useful during the 82-game regular season grind.

The Philadelphia 76ers’ Joel Embiid

Résumé: NBA MVP

Not that Embiid won MVP for the first time,

defeating Jokic based on his superior finishing stretch and

his dominance in their one meeting—47 points on 18 of 31 shooting,

18 rebounds, and 5 assists in a Sixers victory—was noteworthy about Embiid’s season.

It’s because Embiid has performed even better thus far in 2023–24,

scoring 35.0 points per game rather than 34.2 minutes per game

while significantly raising his assist percentage.

Between, Embiid sustained another injury during the postseason.

A sudden strain to his knee kept him out of the first game of Philadelphia’s seven-game loss to the Celtics.

Embiid had his moments as the series MVP against Boston,

but he shot just 5-of-18 in the decisive Game 7 blowout.

Shai Gilgeous-Alexander of the Thunder from Oklahoma City

Resume: FIBA Basketball World Cup All-Tournament First Team, All-NBA First Team

Gilgeous-Alexander cemented his place among the world’s best players in this particular year.

After leading Oklahoma City to the play-in tournament ahead of schedule and finishing fifth in the MVP voting,

he was named to the All-NBA first team and was the only finalist to play in the World Cup this summer.

Dennis Schroder won the tournament MVP award after leading Germany to the gold medal,

but Gilgeous-Alexander was without a doubt the most valuable player,

helping Canada place third in its first-ever podium finish

in a global basketball competition since the 1936 Summer Olympics.

Gilgeous-Alexander has continued to do so in the 2023–24 campaign.

assisting the young Thunder in their ascent to a top-three Western record.

Los Angeles Lakers and LeBron James

Resume: MVP of an in-season competition, All-NBA Third Team

LeBron has shown us over the past nine months that,

despite missing a significant portion of February and March due to injury,

he still ranks among the NBA’s greatest individual powers as he approaches his 39th birthday on December 30.

James led the Lakers to an unexpected trip to the conference finals and

then secured the team’s victory in the in-season tournament by playing at a

high level and treating the opposition with respect.

It was only fitting that he received the inaugural MVP award for the in-season competition.

Jokic Nikola of the Denver Nuggets

Resume: MVP of the Finals, All-NBA Second Team

The fact that Jokic only averaged a triple-double (23.6 PPG, 12.7 RPG, 10.1 APG) while shooting 65% from

the field during the 2023 portion of the 2022–23 regular season—

when he was thought to have let up after the Nuggets all but guaranteed themselves the No. 1 seed in the West—

is a testament to the high standard he set as a two-time MVP.

Then, with a full supporting cast,

Jokic demonstrated his superiority against postseason defences by leading Denver to

their first championship with averages of 30 points, 13.5 rebounds,

and 9.5 assists. Jokic’s ability to outplay defences as a playmaker and scorer left them flat.

and were unable to capitalise on his alleged vulnerability on the court’s defensive end.

Through the first two months of this season, Jokic has once again performed at an MVP level,

coming in second place to Embiid in the first straw vote.

And to… goes the Golden Basketball.

Victorious is Nikola Jokic.

Jokic added Finals MVP to his two regular-season medals, so there’s no doubting he’s a worthy first-time winner.

Jokic lost a genuine chance to play for the Golden Basketball in 2022 after

the team’s first-round exit without injured players Michael Porter Jr.

and Jamal Murray, but this year, with both players healthy,

Jokic demonstrated his worth during the regular season and the postseason,

making him an obvious option.

Past winners: 2014: LeBron James, Cleveland Cavaliers; 2015: Stephen Curry, Golden State Warriors; 2016: LeBron James, Cleveland Cavaliers; 2017: LeBron James, Cleveland Cavaliers; 2018: LeBron James, Los Angeles Lakers; 2019: Kawhi Leonard, LA Clippers; 2020: LeBron James, Los Angeles Lakers; 2021: Giannis Antetokounmpo, Milwaukee Bucks; 2022: Luka Doncic, Dallas Mavericks.

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