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Stephen Curry, Nikola Jokic and Joel Embiid were announced as the final candidates for the NBA MVP award today. Finalists for other NBA awards like MVP, DPOY, and ROTY were also announced, as the league trimmed down the list of potential winners to a bare minimum.
With the finalists for the NBA awards announced, fans will be curious to know the answer to the following question - Who votes for the NBA Awards?
The careful selection of a diverse panel by the NBA ensures the voting process in unbiased
A curated panel of 100 sportswriters and broadcasters from all over the United States and Canada can vote for the NBA awards. Earlier, media members who had alliances with NBA teams were also allowed to cast their vote, making the process biased.
However, since the 2016/17 season, the league has moved towards a more fair approach, only allowing a carefully selected group to participate in the voting process.
A panel of voters is selected from various content publications and media houses as the league tries to maintain diversity.
TNT will announce the winner of each award during its coverage of the 2021 NBA playoffs. To keep the process extremely transparent, the NBA will reveal each voter's ballot on pr.nba.com after all the announcements of the accolades.
The NBA awards season has always drawn controversial takes and resentment from fans and analysts too. This usually happens when their favorite superstar gets snubbed.
This was evident in Giannis Antetokounmpo winning the Maurice Podoloff trophy over LA Lakers talisman LeBron James, even though the latter won the championship.
There have been anomalies as well - Stephen Curry ended up being crowned the unanimous MVP in the 2015/16 season. This didn't result in any resistance from viewers of the most popular basketball league in the world.
However, the 2020/21 NBA awards have the complete recipe for controversy ready. There is a huge debate amongst the masses about who should be the winners of the MVP, DPOY and even ROTY year trophies.
Nikola Jokic is a firm favorite to win the MVP crown, but Stephen Curry's exploits on an average Golden State Warriors team have him close to equal contention. Curry also received an endorsement from four-time winner LeBron James, and this might play a huge role in swaying voters towards the Davidson College product.
LaMelo Ball and Anthony Edwards are vying for the ROTY honor, which is looking to most likely go in the former's favor. Edwards has had a great year, but Ball's impact on his team as a rookie has been legitimately unrivaled.
Meanwhile, Philadelphia 76ers point forward Ben Simmons and Utah Jazz defensive anchor Rudy Gobert are locked up in a heated race to win the DPOY award.
Gobert has previously won the accolade twice. A third win would put him in the same bracket as Dwight Howard, who bagged the award for three successive years - 2009, 2010 and 2011.
