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The brand new award appears designed to make the tip of the season extra significant. Whereas having the league’s finest file will get you home-court benefit all through the playoffs, the league’s winningest group hasn’t gained the championship for the reason that Warriors in 2016-17. Within the final 20 years, the perfect regular-season group has solely gained the championship six instances. Particularly after the Warriors set the single-season file for wins in 2016 after which misplaced within the Finals, groups are loath to push their gamers earlier than the postseason.
Within the NHL, the group with probably the most factors within the common season receives the President’s Trophy. That award began in 1985-86, however had precedent within the early Prince of Wales Trophy, awarded for the common season champion from 1938-67. No phrase on whether or not the Maurice Podoloff Trophy will probably be accompanied by a money bonus for the gamers, because the President’s Trophy does.
However there could also be another excuse for NBA commissioner Adam Silver to announce a brand new award. The league MVP trophy can also be named after Podoloff, the NBA’s first league president and the person who oversaw the BAA-NBL merger that fashioned the fashionable NBA. Which means the NBA trophy wants a brand new identify.
As Brian Windhorst mentioned on his podcast, Brian Windhorst and the Hoop Collective, “With all due respect to Maurice Podoloff and his descendants, I’m undecided he wants two trophies named after him.”
Silver has been aggressive in inventing and renaming trophies. Final 12 months, the NBA gave out the Magic Johnson and Larry Chook Trophies for the primary time, for probably the most excellent participant in every convention finals collection. In 2020, he named the All-Star MVP trophy after Kobe Bryant, simply after Bryant’s demise in a helicopter crash. Whereas Silver was deputy commissioner in 2005, the NBA named the Finals MVP award after 11-time champion Invoice Russell.
Who would the brand new trophy be named after? It might be Stern, although Windhorst studies that Silver has strongly hinted that the winner of the NBA’s proposed midseason match would obtain the “Stern Cup.”
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar has probably the most NBA MVPs with six, however the NBA honored him with the Kareem Abdul-Jabbar Social Justice Champion Award simply final 12 months. Bryant may be very widespread, however he gained only one MVP trophy, in comparison with his 4 All-Star awards. Russell gained 5 MVPs, as did one other participant who’s most certainly to see his identify on the trophy: Michael Jordan.
Jordan remains to be a wildly widespread participant and nonetheless owns the Charlotte Hornets. There might not be a extra revered former participant than Jordan, widely known because the G.O.A.T. Jordan additionally may have simply had seven MVPs, as voters acquired sick of giving him the award yearly, and gave trophies to Charles Barkley in 1993 and Karl Malone in 1997. MJ beat each within the Finals, and most certainly took the snub “personally.”
It stays to be seen whether or not the brand new trophy will inspire groups to play tougher and relaxation their stars much less down the stretch, however one factor is for certain: That MVP award is getting a brand new identify.
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