As the calendar winds toward 2024, it’s time to look back on the year in basketball with the help of my annual (and imaginary) Golden Basketball award.
Like the Ballon d’Or in soccer, the Golden Basketball rewards performance over the year across both regular season, playoffs and now the NBA’s in-season tournament as well as international competition. Although all of these competitions have their own individual MVP awards, there’s no comprehensive way to honor dominance across all of them.
The past 12 months have been emblematic of the way an NBA’s evolving schedule creates a need to look across competitions. We had different MVPs for the regular season (Philadelphia 76ers’ Joel Embiid), NBA Finals (Denver Nuggets’ Nikola Jokic) and in-season tournament (Los Angeles Lakers’ LeBron James). All three are finalists for this year’s Golden Basketball, along with the best player in this summer’s FIBA World Cup competition.
Notably not a finalist: 2022 winner Luka Doncic, who saw his Dallas Mavericks fall short of the play-in tournament a year after reaching the Western Conference finals. Doncic was the fourth different winner in as many years after James dominated the first half-decade I awarded the Golden Basketball, winning four times in the first five years.
Will Embiid or Jokic make it five in a row? Let’s hand out this year’s Golden Basketball.
Honorable mentions
Giannis Antetokounmpo, Milwaukee Bucks
Résumé: All-NBA first team, in-season tournament all-tournament team
Across the 2023 portions of the two regular seasons, the 2021 Golden Basketball winner was as good as ever, finishing third in MVP voting last season and ranking third in the recent MVP straw poll conducted by ESPN’s Tim Bontemps. In between, however, Giannis was limited to three playoff games after suffering a lower back contusion in Game 1 of the Bucks’ historic upset loss against the Miami Heat.
Stephen Curry, Golden State Warriors
Résumé: All-NBA second team
This year might have featured the signature performance of Curry’s career as his 50-point Game 7 outburst eliminated the Sacramento Kings on the road. The Warriors’ title defense flamed out shortly thereafter, keeping Curry from repeating his 2022 heroics on the league’s biggest stages.
Anthony Davis, Los Angeles Lakers
Résumé: In-season tournament all-tournament team
The dominant paint defense we saw from Davis during last season’s Lakers run to the conference finals has largely carried over to a healthy regular season where AD has missed just two games. His offense has been more hit-or-miss, but Davis was at his best in the in-season tournament final, putting up 41 points, 20 rebounds, 5 assists and 4 blocks as the Lakers claimed the inaugural NBA Cup.
Luka Doncic, Dallas Mavericks
Résumé: All-NBA first team, FIBA Basketball World Cup all-tournament first team
The wave Doncic rode to his 2022 Golden Basketball crashed shortly thereafter under the strain of his historic workload. Trading for Kyrie Irving failed to stop Dallas’ slide in the standings and the Mavericks finished 11th in the Western Conference last season. An offseason makeover has Dallas back in the mix in the West, giving Luka a chance at winning again in 2024.
Jayson Tatum, Boston Celtics
Résumé: All-NBA first team
With the Celtics boasting the league’s best record, 2024 could be the biggest year yet for Tatum if he can lead a talented team to a championship. Unfortunately for Tatum, the lingering memory of 2023 was an ankle injury limiting him in Boston’s Game 7 loss to Miami in the conference finals as the Celtics came up short of completing a historic comeback from a 3-0 deficit.
Finalists
Jimmy Butler, Miami Heat
Résumé: All-NBA second team
“Playoff Jimmy” is real, and he’s spectacular. Once again, Butler outperformed his solid-but-unspectacular regular season in the playoffs, leading Miami from the play-in tournament to the NBA Finals before the Heat’s run finally ended against the Nuggets. Butler upped his scoring output from 22.9 PPG in the regular season to 27.4 in the playoffs while also leading the league in playoff steals per game. Others might be more valuable over the 82-game grind of the regular season, but there are few players you’d rather have for the playoffs than Butler.
Joel Embiid, Philadelphia 76ers
Résumé: NBA MVP
The remarkable thing about Embiid’s year wasn’t that he won MVP for the first time, edging Jokic on the strength of his head-to-head domination in their lone meeting (47 points on 18-of-31 shooting and 18 rebounds with 5 assists in a Sixers win) and better finishing stretch. It’s that Embiid has been even better so far in 2023-24, putting up more points (35.0 PPG) than minutes (34.2 MPG) while dramatically improving his assist rate. In between, Embiid suffered another postseason injury, missing the opening game of Philadelphia’s seven-game loss to the Celtics due to an untimely knee sprain. Embiid had MVP moments against Boston but finished the series shooting 5-of-18 in the deciding Game 7 rout.
Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Oklahoma City Thunder
Résumé: All-NBA first team, FIBA Basketball World Cup all-tournament first team
This was the year Gilgeous-Alexander stamped his name among the world’s top players. He finished fifth in MVP voting and earned All-NBA first-team honors by leading Oklahoma City to the play-in tournament ahead of schedule, then was the only finalist to participate in this summer’s World Cup. Despite Dennis Schroder earning MVP honors at the tournament after leading Germany to the gold medal, Gilgeous-Alexander was unquestionably the most valuable player in the competition while bringing Canada its first podium finish (third place) in a worldwide basketball competition since the 1936 Summer Olympics. Gilgeous-Alexander has kept it up during the 2023-24 season, helping the youthful Thunder to a top-three record in the West.
LeBron James, Los Angeles Lakers
Résumé: All-NBA third team, in-season tournament MVP
After missing much of February and March due to injuries, LeBron’s last nine months have reminded us that he remains one of the NBA’s greatest individual forces as he approaches his 39th birthday on Dec. 30. James was the hub of the Lakers’ unexpected run to the conference finals, then anchored their run to the in-season tournament title by taking the competition seriously and playing at an elite level. He was rightfully awarded the first-ever MVP trophy for the in-season tournament.
Nikola Jokic, Denver Nuggets
Résumé: All-NBA second team, Finals MVP
It’s a testament to the high bar Jokic set as two-time MVP, that during the 2023 portion of the 2022-23 regular season — when he was considered to have let up after the Nuggets all but assured themselves the No. 1 seed in the West — he merely averaged a triple-double (23.6 PPG, 12.7 RPG, 10.1 APG) while shooting 65% from the field. Jokic then showed just how good he can be against playoff defenses with a full supporting cast, leading Denver to a first title with averages of 30 PPG, 13.5 RPG and 9.5 APG. Defenses had no answer for Jokic’s ability to beat them as either a scorer or passer and weren’t able to take advantage of his perceived weakness at the defensive end of the court. Jokic is again playing at an MVP caliber through the season’s first two-plus months, finishing a close second behind Embiid in the first straw poll.
And the Golden Basketball goes to …
The winner: Nikola Jokic
There’s little question Jokic is a deserving first-time winner after adding Finals MVP to the pair of regular-season trophies he already owned. A first-round exit without the injured Jamal Murray and Michael Porter Jr. cost Jokic a real shot at the Golden Basketball in 2022 but with both players healthy this year, Jokic proved his value across both the regular season and the playoffs, making him an easy choice.
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.
