The NBA announced their official bubble award winners with Damian Lillard winning unanimous MVP honors and Monty Williams winning the top coach honors after leading the Suns to a perfect 8-0 record.
The NBA regular season officially reached its conclusion on Friday, as all seeding games were completed. With the playoffs kicking off next week and the Western Conference play-in round between the Portland Trail Blazers and Memphis Grizzlies taking place on Saturday, the league fulfilled its promise of handing out NBA bubble awards.
In a unanimous vote, Trail Blazers star point guard Damian Lillard was named the NBA’s Player of the Seeding Games. Additionally, Phoenix Suns coach Monty Williams was declared the NBA’s Coach of the Seeding Games after leading the team to a perfect 8-0 record at Walt Disney World.
The NBA also announced the 1st-team and 2nd-teams from the seeding games
Lilliard ran away with the bubble MVP award because if you’ve been following the Trail Blazers, he’s figuratively and literally put the team on his back. In his eight seeding games, Lillard has averaged 37.6 points, 9.6 assists and 4.3 rebounds while leading Portland to a 6-2 record.
If Lillard had not gone scorched earth on every single one of his bubble opponents, Suns point man Devin Booker likely would’ve secured the award. Even though that didn’t happen, Booker finished second-place in voting. T.J. Warren of the Indiana Pacers, Luka Doncic of the Dallas Mavericks, James Harden of the Houston Rockets, and Giannis Antetokounmpo of the Milwaukee Bucks rounded out the remainder of the MVP voting.
Besides the MVP and Coach awards, the NBA also named the first and second teams of the regular season seeding games. The first team consists of Lillard, Booker, Doncic, Warren and Harden, with the three former being unanimous selections.
The five players who made the second-team were Antetokounmpo, Kawhi Leonard of the Los Angeles Clippers, Caris LeVert of the Brooklyn Nets, Michael Porter Jr. of the Denver Nuggets and Kristaps Porzingis of the Dallas Mavericks.
The restart has been rock-solid inside their bubbled environment in Orlando, Fla. As a result, hoops fans were treated to tremendous action on the hardwood, thanks in part to the individuals who are taking home these awards. In a matter of days, we’ll be sitting on our couches for hours on end to watch intense playoff basketball.