ESPN released its NBA Finals and individual awards predictions for the 2021-22 season on Thursday, with familiar marquee teams and players dominating the voting.
The “worldwide leader's” expert panel picked the juggernaut Brooklyn Nets to hoist the Larry O'Brien Trophy, Kevin Durant to win his second MVP and Rudy Gobert to be named Defensive Player of the Year for the fourth time in five seasons, evidence of widespread chalk in the prognostications. The NBA enjoyed far more parity over the last two COVID-ravaged seasons than normal, but is still a league of haves and have-nots. There's only so much room for surprises in preseason forecasts, at least if you're living in some semblance of reality.
But as the Trail Blazers and their fans know all too well, small-market teams playing out West can face a different type of bias, and it showed yet again in ESPN's appraisal of Damian Lillard's MVP chances.
Nine players received first-place votes for MVP from ESPN's panel, with the top seven standing apart. Durant tops a list that includes the usual suspects, in order of vote share: Giannis Antetokounmpo, Luka Doncic, Joel Embiid, James Harden, Steph Curry and LeBron James. Reigning award-winner Nikola Jokic and Anthony Davis also garnered first-place votes.
Most conspicuously absent from that group of luminaries, of course, is Lillard. So much for ESPN following the lead of its biggest, loudest star, Stephen A. Smith, when last February he called for a wholesale apology to Lillard from league reporters for consistently failing to champion the on-court exploits of Portland's franchise player.
The difference between now and seven months ago is that Damian Lillard was the talk of the league all summer, his tenure with the Blazers seemingly hanging in the balance. No one at ESPN can use the excuse of his relative anonymity compared to other superstars for Lillard not earning a single preseason MVP vote. The specter of Lillard imminently forcing his way from the Blazers is bound to be a major story until the trade deadline comes and goes in February.
What's the justification for Lillard's non-standing in the preseason voting, then? Certainly not his most recent finishes in the league's official tallying for MVP. Lillard has been no worse than eighth in MVP voting since 2016-17, with a high-water mark of fourth in 2017-18. He finished seventh last season, two points behind Doncic — the betting favorite to take home the Maurice Podoloff Trophy in 2021-22, per BetOnline.
Lillard boasts the sixth-highest odds to win MVP this season at +1200, sharing that number with James. Curry, Antetokounmpo, Durant and Embiid sit between them and Doncic, a much more reasonable assessment of Lillard's preseason place in the MVP race than ESPN affords him.
Durant's health provided, the media won't give Harden enough credit for Brooklyn's success for him to get back in serious MVP conversations. Davis is maybe the biggest injury risk among legitimate candidates and will surely suffer the same fate as Harden in MVP voting playing alongside James and Russell Westbrook. It wouldn't be at all surprising if Davis' box-score production fell below established norms considering how few extra shots there will be to go around in Los Angeles this season, either.
But more than any comparison to any individual player, where ESPN errs in shunning Damian Lillard's MVP case is its likely assumption that an in-season trade could actually still come to pass. Obviously, Lillard's candidacy for the league's highest honor would be sunk if he was dealt before next summer. Every indication since he squashed reports of a coming trade demand in mid-July has been that Lillard plans to play the entirety of 2021-22 in Portland before revisiting his future come the offseason.
Rip City remains his, for now.
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The Blazers aren't upper-rung title contenders or even a likely top-four seed in the Western Conference. But the late-stage addition of Larry Nance Jr. changed everything about Portland's otherwise underwhelming offseason additions, plugging multiple roster holes at once while giving rookie head coach Chauncey Billups the lineup flexibility needed to play more modern styles on both sides of the ball.
The Blazers' improvement, subtle as it seems to laymen on the surface, could be all Lillard needs to emerge as a top-flight MVP candidate. And considering his dramatic flair for the moment, would anyone really be surprised if Lillard answered endless speculation about his future with the best basketball of his career in 2021-22?
Billups' plans for a more movement-based offensive attack would go a long way toward ensuring Lillard stays fresh throughout the 82-game grind, too, a departure from the nagging aches and pains to which he was routinely subject as Terry Stotts' pick-and-roll security blanket.
Lillard winning MVP would no doubt come as a surprise. ESPN placing him outside realistic contention for the award isn't just a misunderstanding of Lillard's current status with regard to potential trades, though, but also his capacity to take his game to new heights on a team better suited to accentuate his strengths and mitigate his weaknesses.
Overlook Damian Lillard for MVP at your own risk. If he's ever going to win it, 2021-22 is bound to be the year.
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